DearMrGable.com's Movie of the Month, January 2011

Gable is Eddie Hall, a small-time con man on the run from the cops when he bursts into Ruby Adams’ (Jean Harlow) apartment and finds her in the bathtub. Ruby and Eddie quickly realize they are two peas in a pod: she is somewhat of a con artist herself, seducing and manipulating men to get what she wants. This is definitely pre-production code stuff, as the film offers no innuendo to cover up the fact that Eddie and Ruby are sleeping together. One of Eddie’s cons goes bad and he ends up in jail. Ruby is waiting for him upon his release and they quickly hatch a plan to con money out of one of Ruby’s suitors. It turns sour when Eddie becomes jealous and accidently kills the man. When the cops arrive, Ruby and Eddie are on their way back from getting a marriage license. Ruby gets lost in the crowd and nabbed by the cops, while Eddie escapes. She is sentenced to two years in a women’s reformatory. Soon after arriving there, she realizes she is pregnant. When Eddie learns of her pregnancy, he rushes to be by her side. Ruby’s fellow inmates help hide him and orchestrate a wedding for them in the campus chapel, after Eddie pleads for the priest to marry them so his kid can have a chance and not be illegitimate. Just after they are pronounced man and wife, Eddie is hauled away by the cops and Ruby is left alone, crying. Time passes and the film ends with Eddie being reunited with Ruby and their small tow-headed son at the train station.


Quote-able Gable

"Doesn't belong to you either, does it?" first line

“Listen sweetheart, how about you and me getting together tonight?”

“Don’t be so hard to get—I’m the fellow that saw you in the bathtub!”

“Gypsies are always supposed to keep movin’!”

“You’re not sore on account of that dame, are you? She don’t mean a thing to me!”

“Yes sir, that baby’s got rhythm!”

“Wait a minute, darling, you ain’t going to cry on your wedding day, are you?”

“Gee this feels good!” last line


Jean Harlow singing "Hold Your Man"


Behind the Scenes

Hold Your Man was adapted from a story by Anita Loos, a screenwriter on the MGM payroll. It was rushed into production as the studio was anxious to reteam Gable and Harlow after Red Dust was a smash hit.

During production, Gable’s estranged father, William “Bill” Gable, turned up (some sources say at his house, others say it was at the MGM lot). He was quite disheveled and ill. Clark's wife Ria welcomed him into their home, where he remained for the next two years.

Gable was still in the middle of an affair with Joan Crawford  at this time and her husband, Douglas Fairbanks Jr.,was threatening to name Gable as co-respondent in his divorce filing. Studio head Louis B. Mayer ordered Gable and Crawford to stay apart to avoid a scandal.