This movie is a mess, and I love it anyway!

It's about 2/3 camp and 1/3 awesome earthquake movie, and succeeds at both! How can someone with my tastes not love this movie to bits!

I love it for everything that ought to be a flaw, I mean Jeanette MacDonald does a damn Al Jolson impersonation and it's the goofiest thing you ever saw, but it wasn't intended to be silly! Pure unintentional camp! Same for Clark Gable being in a movie where he loses a test of wills with a woman, there are times when you can see how much he hates that but the fact is, he gives a damn good performance overall. He's great fun and very sexy as the overconfident Blackie, King of the Barbary Coast, and he's compelling as he wanders around the city that's been shattered by an earthquake, and he's utterly hilarious and endearing in the final scenes. He was such an amazing actor, totally wonderful and unique.

And the earthquake is really amazing, the special effects are decades ahead of their time, and the sense of an entire city shattered by a disaster has never quite been made so immediate. I love this movie.