Why I love Car­ole Lombard’s per­for­mance in No Man of Her Own

Years before becom­ing roman­ti­cal­ly involved, Clark Gable and Car­ole Lom­bard appeared along­side each oth­er in 1932’s per­func­to­ry roman­tic com­e­dy No Man of Her Own. It was the only pic­ture in which the icon­ic cou­ple co-starred, and is rarely referred to as a high­light of either’s career. The sto­ry­line is unre­mark­able: a New York gam­bler (Gable as Babe Stew­art; find­ing his niche in the delec­table rogue role) falls for the inex­pe­ri­enced good girl (Lombard’s Con­nie Ran­dall), has a cri­sis of con­science and pre­dictably changes his phi­lan­der­ing ways for love at the last hurdle.

What makes the film so com­pelling is its smart dia­logue, han­dled with col­lec­tive comedic aplomb and pre-Code sauci­ness (Con­nie appears in only lin­gerie and heels in the first act), but No Man of Her Own is ulti­mate­ly ele­vat­ed by the lay­ered per­for­mance of its female star, who fus­es spunk­i­ness with a can­did relatability.

When we first meet Con­nie, she’s on the phone with her boyfriend of small town con­ve­nience, remark­ing iron­i­cal­ly that she’s been busy lead­ing her ​“usu­al life of sin,” and huffs that the only excit­ing thing she has to look for­ward to is the local drug store stock­ing a new flavour of ice cream. Lombard’s body lan­guage – slumped and scowl­ing – tells us every­thing we need to know about Connie’s dis­plea­sure with life.

Enter Babe, who is on the lam and has cho­sen, by coin­ci­dence, her town in which to lie low. Their first encounter at the library where Con­nie works is sump­tu­ous with sex­u­al ten­sion, the cam­era cap­tur­ing the mood and the actor’s bur­geon­ing prox­im­i­ty with close ups and low light­ing. The con­flict on Lombard’s face won­der­ing whether to suc­cumb to his charms (“Do your eyes both­er you? ​’Cause they both­er me,”) is indica­tive of any of us who have fall­en for some­one we deemed unsuitable.

Connie’s feel­ings are expressed at every moment she’s on screen through Lombard’s eyes, which seem to betray the sen­si­ble words that fall from her character’s mouth. Her gaze is pen­e­trat­ing, fol­low­ing Gable as he moves with­in the frame, at first test­ing­ly – she is pin­ning all her hopes of rein­ven­tion on Babe – and then with deep infat­u­a­tion once her guard is down. We are also treat­ed to Lombard’s knack for bring­ing phys­i­cal nuance to her heroine’s dur­ing the lake­side cab­in scene where an anx­ious Con­nie awk­ward­ly clicks her fin­gers and pulls at her pyja­mas. She set­tles into being tac­tile with him as the film unfolds – a tes­ta­ment to pro­fes­sion­al­ism as alleged­ly the pair were high­ly indif­fer­ent to one anoth­er through­out production.

As a device to move the plot for­ward, the two are mar­ried on the toss of a coin, Connie’s mox­ie the insti­ga­tor of the impul­sive act. Babe whisks her back to his grand apart­ment in the Big City, where she becomes embroiled in his high rolling lifestyle as arm can­dy with­out actu­al­ly being clued in on the nature of his pro­fes­sion. Lom­bard is cos­tumed in form-fit­ting gowns and jew­els dur­ing these scenes, dis­play­ing a chameleon abil­i­ty to pull off con­ser­v­a­tive and stu­dio sys­tem glam­our simultaneously.

The con­flict dur­ing a flat third act is hard­ly sur­pris­ing, and Lombard’s choic­es to play out Connie’s dis­cov­ery of her husband’s true nature and inevitable cir­cle back to accep­tance by tem­per­ing line reads and avoid­ing melo­dra­ma are inspired. Play­ing Con­nie hys­ter­i­cal would be the obvi­ous inter­pre­ta­tion fol­low­ing the slew of dis­ap­point­ing reveals from Gable’s char­ac­ter but she opts for the more inter­est­ing route. In a frus­trat­ing but stereo­typ­i­cal female part, Dorothy Mack­aill is rel­e­gat­ed to the bad girl scorned which only ampli­fies the nuances of Lombard.

No Man of Her Own may not be revered or even par­tic­u­lar­ly well remem­bered today, but it is unequiv­o­cal­ly where Car­ole Lom­bard estab­lished her­self as a bona fide movie star, using her unique gifts to bring vivac­i­ty to what could have been a for­get­table foot­note in her legend.