NR | 1h 51m | Comedy, Romance | 1959
Ella Fitzgerald sings the Gershwins’ songs over the opening credits of “But Not for Me” (1959). Before long, in the film Clark Gable is rolling through New York City with two bulky car phones, the kind of executive gadget that instantly places the movie in another era. So does all the characters’ reaction to a man of 56 years.
Gable plays Broadway producer Russ Ward, who has reached his mid-50s, and age has begun hovering around him like an unwanted accountant. Bringing up his birth year is a touchy subject, while retirement represents an existential endpoint.
For viewers watching it now, 56 hardly seems like the start of old age. A 56-year-old Broadway producer considering his next show seems perfectly normal today, but Ward treats the question like he’s choosing his final hymn.
Then there’s Ellie Brown (Carroll Baker), Ward’s 22-year-old secretary. Their age difference gives the movie much of its romantic machinery. Director Walter Lang and screenwriter John Michael Hayes let age become part of the comedy instead of hiding it.
A Confession
Ward is the sort of seasoned Broadway producer who’ll announce that a troubled play is headed for success while its writer can barely finish it. Jeremiah MacDonald (Lee J. Cobb), Ward’s longtime playwright and friend, hasn’t had a hit in years. His heavy drinking is putting the current production in jeopardy.
With the script falling apart and his own money tied up in the show, Ward starts wondering whether it’s time to close the office for good. He finally tells his young secretary, Brown, that he’s finished. Brown responds by telling him she’s been in love with him for years.
For Ward, romance and show business become tangled. Brown’s declaration gives him the idea for the play, and before long MacDonald is back at work while chunks of Brown’s private conversation find their way onto the page. Ward also has Kathryn Ward (Lilli Palmer), his quick-tongued ex-wife, nearby to keep him from getting too carried away with his own mythology.
Then Gordon Reynolds (Barry Coe), a young actor who already knows Brown, takes the male role opposite her. Rehearsal starts spilling into real life. Ward tries to get the show ready while the people around him become uncomfortably similar to the characters they’re playing.
Old Pros and Good Lines
This film had already been around the block before Gable got near it. Samson Raphaelson’s play “Accent on Youth” debuted in 1934, and Paramount had previously filmed the material as the same title in 1935, and “Mr. Music” in 1950.
For this version, Gable asked that the central character be changed from a playwright into a Broadway producer. It was a smart fit. Ward approaches nearly every problem like a producer, including when someone declares her love for him.
Hayes gives the cast plenty to chew on with his buoyant script. Palmer makes Kathryn wonderfully dangerous in conversation because she knows Ward far too well to be impressed by him. Cobb brings some welcome disrepair to MacDonald, who can be funny and miserable in the same scene.
Baker plays Brown sincerely, even when the situation around her becomes increasingly ridiculous, and Coe gives Reynolds the youthful impatience needed once his feelings for Brown enter the picture. The group works especially well when several of them wind up in the same room, and each arrives with a different agenda.
The Broadway world gets plenty of visual polish from the New York City locations, Robert Burks’s photography, and Edith Head’s costumes. Lang gives the actors ample room with their dialogue; this helps, since much of the humor comes from people talking themselves into worse situations and then trying to recover with some dignity intact.
I’ve always liked Gable as an actor, and he’s fun here because he allows Ward to alternately look vain, jealous, rumpled, and occasionally ridiculous. “But Not for Me” (1959) is a modest comedy, but Gable’s willingness to laugh at his own image gives it plenty of charm and makes it a film worth revisiting.
“But Not for Me” is available on Amazon, YouTube, and Apple TV.
‘But Not for Me’
Director: Walter Lang
Starring: Clark Gable, Carroll Baker, Lilli Palmer
Not Rated
Running time: 1 hour, 51 mins
Release Date: Aug. 19, 1959
Rated: 3 1/2 stars out of 5
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