I just watched this movie for the first time tonight... and watching it for a second time now...
At the begining, his Wife was calling him "Jake" but everyone else calls him either Van or VS why did she call him Jake?????
It's a great movie! :D i could really picture Alice Faye playing the part of Whitey lol
Yeah, why does she call him Jake?
shareJake Van Sanford was Gable's full name.
"Any girl can look glamorous. Stand still and look stupid."
--Hedy Lamarr
Jake Van Stanhope
shareNo it wasn't. The imdb data for character names lists him as "Van," which matches the opening credits of the movie itself. I think the studio nixed "Jake" after seeing the rushes (not patrician enough) and then told Brown et al. not to re-shoot (to save money) -- or Brown et al. couldn't (scheduling conflicts) or forgot to.
shareThe strangest part is that she calls him Jake at first, but then calls him Van throughout the rest of the movie. Either they filmed the movie sequentially and changed his name after the first scene or it's just poor continuity since the wife calls him two different names throughout the course of the movie. If she called him "Jake" as a nickname or pet name, she would have used "Jake" all the time.
shareI think the studio higher-ups nixed the name "Jake" after seeing the rushes -- "Jake" (presumably short for Jacob) isn't patrician enough for this character.
Presumably the intention was
[1] to have Myrna Loy re-record the sentences in which she called him "Jake," but it didn't work (because the shape of the mouth is so different when one utters "Van" and when one utters "Jake");
[2] to have Myrna Loy re-record those sentences, but there wasn't time (or the relevant people forgot); or
[3] to re-shoot that one scene at the breakfast table (but there wasn't time, or the relevant people forgot).
It's possible that the higher-ups nixed any re-shoot or re-record, given that he's called "VS" in the scenes that follow directly -- maybe they "reasoned" that by the time he is finally called "Van," no one would remember that he had been called "Jake" in the first few minutes. Which is ridiculous, because of course viewers pay attention (especially when the character is being established), but the people who control the purse strings have their own "logic."