Wife vs. Secretary

This 1936 MGM picture sets up the cheap triangle its title promises and then declines to deliver it. Nothing but work passes between the publisher Van Stanhope and his secretary Whitey; the actual subject is the gap between what his wife Linda sees and what is happening. The interest in the Clark Gable, Myrna Loy and Jean Harlow line-up is the casting itself: Harlow is not the vamp here but a straight, exceptionally competent employee, which pushes her outside her own star formula. A young James Stewart turns up as Whitey's impatient boyfriend. Clarence Brown watches suspicion manufacture its own evidence without ever turning the film into a lecture. Who it's for: viewers who come for studio-era star chemistry and a Harlow performance cut against her usual pattern. Who it's not for: anyone who will struggle with thirties office dynamics and a plot built on rivalry between two women.