The screenplay by Barry Sandler is based on the romance and consequent marriage of screen stars Clark Gable and Carole Lombard.

After an argument, it is apparent the two clearly dislike each other, and intensely so, but as fate conspires to bring them together again and again, they begin to admire each other and fall in love.

The happily ever after ending is thwarted when Lombard is killed in a plane crash while promoting the purchase of defense bonds during World War II.

In his review in The New York Times, Vincent Canby called the film a fan-magazine movie with the emotional zap of a long-lost Louella Parsons column ... As written by Barry Sandler and directed by Sidney J. Furie, Gable and Lombard recalls not Gone with the Wind, Honky Tonk, Twentieth Century, Nothing Sacred or To Be or Not to Be, but clichés culled from the worst movies of that period.

Miss Clayburgh could be an interesting actress, but she's not a great one, nor is she a star, and there are always problems when small performers try to portray the kind of giant legends that Gable and Lombard were.

Because both Gable and Lombard are still very much alive in their films on television and in repertory theaters, there is difficulty in responding to Mr. Brolin and Miss Clayburgh in any serious way.

[4]Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times described the film as a "mushy, old-fashioned extravaganza" and added, there are so many dumb practical jokes and would-be risque innuendoes that any concern for [Gable and Lombard's] real thoughts and feelings is lost.

[5]Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune slammed the "overwhelming" audacity of the film: Think about it: What the folks at Universal Pictures have done ranks somewhere between putting Lenin's waxen body in the Kremlin and Disneyland notorizing the Presidents.

The alleged purpose of the film is to tell us the ill-fated love story of Clark Gable and his third wife, actress Carole Lombard.

In the film's first shot, Gable, in an Army uniform, stands silently in profile having just learned of the airplane crash death of Lombard.

The studios could begin creating new vehicles for Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy, and not have to worry if Barbra Streisand's going to throw a tantrum.

[6]Variety called it a film with many major assets, not the least of which is the stunning and smashing performance of Jill Clayburgh as Carole Lombard.

Allen Garfield does a reasonable turn as Louis Mayer, but Brolin is a wax dummy and Clayburgh produces a very modern version of the Lombard larkishness.

[8]TV Guide awarded it one out of a possible four stars, calling it a cardboard retelling of the Clark Gable-Carol Lombard romance and marriage .