Idiot's Delight is a 1939 MGM comedy drama with a screenplay adapted by Robert E. Sherwood from his 1936 Pulitzer-Prize-winning play of the same name. The production reunited director Clarence Brown, Clark Gable and Norma Shearer eight years after they worked together on A Free Soul. The play takes place in a hotel in the Italian Alps during 24 hours at the beginning of a world war. The film begins with the backstory of the two leads and transfers the later action to a fictitious Alpine country rather than Italy, which was the setting for the play. In fact, Europe was on the brink of World War II. Although not a musical, it is notable as the only film in which Gable sings and dances, performing Irving Berlin's "Puttin' On the Ritz" with a sextette of chorus girls.
Movie poster
Clark Gable singing and dancing to Irving Berlin's "Puttin' On the Ritz"
Lobby card
Robert Emmet Sherwood was an American playwright and screenwriter.
Sherwood in 1928
Cover of Sherwood's play There Shall Be No Night