Hello boredom, our old friend. Dull, terrible Parnell — widely considered Clark Gable’s worst film and one of the worst movies ever made — lives up to its reputation as we celebrate the blessed end of Politics Month. We take a long, pained look at a film that combines the magic of inert, uncommitted acting, a dire, boring screenplay filled with cliches, and the thrills of parliamentary procedure around Irish “home rule”, and firmly recommend that no one ever watch this movie.

Was there a gas leak on set? How checked out was Clark Gable? Did Billie Burke sell her soul to the devil in order to look young for her entire life? Can an impromptu spelling be ever be compelling? This movie is a nightmare. We did this work for you here. 

Because the movie was so wildly uninformative, we welcome a special guest, the delightful and wildly intelligent Fin Dwyer of The Irish History Podcast and the Transatlantic Podcast  who gives us the true (and much more interesting) story of groundbreaking Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell.

Parnell stars Clark Gable as Charles Stewart Parnell, Myrna Loy as Katie O'Shea, Edna May Oliver as Aunt Ben Wood, Edmund Gwenn as Campbell, Alan Marshal as Captain William O'Shea, Donald Crisp as Davitt, Billie Burke as Clara Wood, Berton Churchill as The O'Gorman Mahon, Donald Meek as Murphy, Montagu Love as Gladstone, Byron Russell as Healy, Brandon Tynan as Redmond, and somewhere, in an uncredited role, Lee Strasberg.

Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.

Our theme music is by Ben Patch: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5BB01QpPE7HBGacGAlullu?si=gp_6jbvsThWXg_sSLVcv6Q

Books

Clark Gable : tormented star

David Bret

The Irish Assassins: Conspiracy, Revenge and the Phoenix Park Murders that Stunned Victorian England 

by Julie Kavanagh (Author)

Myrna Loy : the only good girl in Hollywood

Emily Wortis Leider

Fireball : Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3

By Robert Matzen

The fifty worst films of all time : (and how they got that way) by Harry Medved 

The Irish History Podcast with Fin Dwyer, our guest.

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