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Of course, everyone remembers Clark Gable dancing the Virginia Reel as Rhett Butler in "Gone with the Wind" with the supposedly mournful widow Scarlett O'Hara, but he also did a delightful little number in an earlier film, "The Idiot's Delight."
"Idiot's Delight" was a play written by Robert E. Sherwood, opening in the early spring of 1936 with Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt in the lead roles. Sherwood wont a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
This is the only film where Gable sings and dances.
In the 1939 movie, Gable plays a World War I veteran, Harry, trying to make it in show business. He becomes part of a mind-readng act. During this time, he meets the mysterious Irene (Norma Shearer in the movie), but they soon separate only to meet again two decades later in Europe. Irene is now the mistress of a wealthy man.
In a 1939 Detroit Free Press article, put online by a Clark Gable fan, Gable's training to play the part of a vaudeville hoofer is recounted. You can see the results below.First is the line of chorus boys entering to "By the Light of the Silvery Moon." The second is Gable singing with chorus girls to "Puttin' on the Ritz."
Of course, Fred Astaire also danced to the 1929 Irving Berlin song in the 1930 musical "Puttin' on the Ritz." His version included a cane and some elegant tap.A synthpop version was recorded by the Dutch artist Taco in 1982.
Gable would dance again in "Gone with the Wind," first the Virginia Reel and later the waltz.
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