several games of solitaire or patience. In the play, Irene berates armaments manufacturer Weber (whose mistress she is) for his contribution to the war. He replies: “I am but the humble instrument of His divine will.” Her answer: “We don't do half enough justice to Him. Poor, lonely old soul. Sitting up in heaven, with nothing to do, but play solitaire. Poor, dear God. Playing idiot's delight.”. In the film, Capt. Kirvline mumbles “idiot's delight" when Harry asks him the reason for the war. TCM.com observes: “This was the only film in which Clark Gable performed a dance number. He spent 6 weeks rehearsing the steps with the dance director George King, and practicing at home with his wife, Carole Lombard. Because of his fear of messing it up during a take, the set was closed during the filming of this sequence. When Gable had to sing ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ he actually had to be carried off by Les Blondes, so they saved that [scene] for last in case he was injured. On the day of the shooting Carole Lombard came to watch and was amazed that it only took one take.” Norma Shearer's distinctive pageboy hairstyle was copied from the hairstyle worn by Lynn Fontanne when she originated the character in the Broadway production of the stage play. Reception A Dec. 31, 1938 review in Variety praised author Robert Sherwood for “deftly added an entertaining prolog establishing the early meeting and a one-night affair between Clark Gable and Norma Shearer in Omaha as small time vaudeville performers. This provides plenty of entertainment when the pair meet later in an Alpine hotel.” On February 3, 1939, The New York Times critic raved in a long review: “It is with boundless enthusiasm, with uncritical hornpipes in the street, and wild huzzas of approval that finally, at long last, we hail the arrival of an adult picture on the local screen. As a profoundly bitter preview—profound because its bitterness wears the mask of comedy—of the trivial circumstances which will undoubtedly attend the beginning of the next World War, "Idiot's Delight," at the Capitol, is as timely as tomorrow's front page… by the very nature of its theme, (it) exposes the essential idiocy and pointlessness of militarism, … the suicidal greed, the monstrous complacency toward death and destruction which are not racial, but universal; not individual, but mass phenomena, as ugly and