Chained (1934)

Directed by Clarence Brown. Starring Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Otto Kruger, Stuart Erwin, Marjorie Gateson, Akim Tamiroff, Una O’Connor.

Minor romantic melodrama that requires its central characters to do things that are either foolish or unsympathetic to keep the labored story going, and by the time the preordained finale arrives, they’re such unsympathetic fools, who cares? Kept woman Crawford loves her married boss (Kruger), and when the fella’s wife refuses to divorce him, he suggests she find someone else. What luck, she finds herself on a cruise with charming rancher Gable, but after she falls for him, she learns that Kruger is getting that divorce after all. The stars might’ve rescued the picture if the plot contrivances weren’t so frustrating and the happy ending wasn’t so unnecessarily forced. Brown’s mundane direction offers no support. Story credited to playwright Edgar Selwyn.

40/100