Manhattan Melodrama is a 1934 crime melodrama film, produced by MGM Pictures.

It was directed by W. S. Van Dyke and starred Clark Gable, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Leo Carrillo, Nat Pendleton, and Isabel Jewell. The movie also provided one of the earliest film roles for Mickey Rooney who played the Gable character as a child.

Filmed relatively quickly and with a modest budget, Manhattan Melodrama was expected to return a profit, but not to capture the imagination of the public. Its success surprised the studio and made stars of Myrna Loy and William Powell in the first of their fourteen screen pairings. It also solidified the success of MGM's most popular male lead, Clark Gable, who had recently appeared in It Happened One Night, the film which would win him his only Academy Award for Best Actor.

The movie entered the lexicon of history when the notorious gangster John Dillinger was shot to death by federal agents after leaving a Chicago theater where the film was playing. Myrna Loy was among those who expressed distaste at the studio's willingness to exploit this event for the financial benefit of the film.

Arthur Caesar won an Academy Award for Best Story for this film.

Orphans Edward "Blackie" Gallagher and Jim Wade are lifelong friends who take different paths in life. Blackie thrives on gambling and grows up to be a hard-nosed racketeer. Bookworm Wade becomes a D.A. vying for the Governorship. When Blackie's girlfriend Eleanor leaves him and marries the more down to earth Wade, Blackie harbors no resentment. In fact, their friendship is so strong that Blackie murders an attorney threatening to derail Wade's bid to become Governor. The morally straight Wade's last job as D.A. is to convict his friend of the murder, and send him to the electric chair. After he becomes Governor, Wade has the authority to commute Blackie's death sentence-- a decision that pits his high moral ethics against a lifelong friendship. Written by Gary Jackson