Love on the Run Reviews

A lightweight comedy, on the order of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT and LOVE IS NEWS in that it concerns a rich American heiress and her various shenanigans. Tone (Crawford's real husband at the time) and Gable are journalists stationed in Europe. The two are rivals and Gable is always beating Tone to stories much to the latter's chagrin. One of their assignments is to cover an international aviator, Owen, who turns out to be a mean-spirited spy. Another job is to cover the upcoming wedding of devil-may-care madcap, Crawford, who is about to marry Lebedeff, an obvious fortune hunter. (The same situation occurred between Loretta Young and George Sanders, with Tyrone Power as the reporter, in LOVE IS NEWS.) Crawford hates newsmen, but she doesn't know that's what Gable does for a living when she asks him to help her get out of her marriage to Lebedeff. Gable and Crawford steal Owen's plane and go across Europe by air, car, and draycart while Gable continues to pursue the Owen story and tries to unmask him as an international agent. Tone is along for the ride, and soon enough the trio is marked for assassination by the spies. A long chase ensues and they finally wind up in France at Fontainebleau, where the dotty caretaker, Meek, thinks that the long-dead king and queen have come back. Gable cables the story to his paper and the next day Crawford realizes who he is, then angrily takes off for Nice with Tone. On the train, Owen nabs Crawford and Tone is tossed off. Gable goes to the farmhouse where Owen is planning to take off in his plane with some stolen plans for British fortifications; when Tone also arrives at the farmhouse, he finds Gable tied to a chair. Gable persuades Tone to change places with him and Tone reluctantly agrees. When the spies return, Gable captures and binds them, then takes off in the plane with Crawford, leaving Tone, the odd man out, still tied to the chair. The creators of the film borrowed a little from here and a bit from there and concocted a pleasant comedy with some excellent set pieces, especially the one at the castle in which Gable and Crawford don some aging costumes and perform a clunky minuet that winds up as a hula.