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Rating:  - All Star Cast Does Not Equal Greatness
Boom Town is the story of two oil men who begin as friends but ruin their relationship over a girl. It is a 2 hour film that should have been done in less time. It tends to drag on and throw in unnecessary plot twists.
Clark Gable is a smart, tricky oil man who strikes it rich by stealing equipment. He plays his character just as he does most of his characters with a strength and arrogant confidence. He is certainly appealing, but he offers nothing new to the part.
Spencer Tracy is likable as the underdog in the friendship. His character is a hard-working man in love with a beautiful girl. When he finds that his girl loves his best friend, he becomes subtlety defeated and pathetic throughout without becoming comical. He is the best part of the film.
Claudette Colbert plays the woman the two men are in love with. She marries Gable's character and they have a son; she is hopelessly in love. However, most of her scenes are generic and simply adequate. She becomes more intriguing when she finds that her husband is cheating on her, but she is not outstanding.
Hedy Lamarr is gorgeous as the other woman whose disguise is working for her lover. Her scenes are brief, but she exudes a sophisticated sex appeal in each of them. Her part truly is not necessary in the film. The fact that Gable's character is having an affair could have simply been alluded to.
Rating:  - Hawks + Cukor
I loved it, but I have to agree with the other reviewer who said that something gets lost when Clark Gable decides to go to New York and moves Claudette Colbert and little Jack with him.
The fun of the first part of the picture is replaced by an agonizing melodrama, which I also like, but it could have been two different pictures. The first movie would tell all about Gable and Tracy's friendship and their rivalry over Colbert--a kind of Howard Hawks male bonding movie. The key scene in this one would be the hotel room in the "boom town" in which Tracy and Gable strip to their underwear and Gable starts calling Tracy "Shorty," a nickname he hates but he loves to have Gable call him. The second film is more of a George Cukor story, for once Hedy Lamarr enters the picture as a Dutch lobbyist, this gives Claudette Colbert a whole lot more to worry about than scrubbing oil stains off Gable's overalls. Watching this picture recently I found myself more involved with Hedy Lamarr's role than I had been previously. She's not "brash" and "American" like the others actors (yes, I know Colbert is French but she has that American buzz thing going on) and she's languorous and moody, speaking of herself modestly as a "high class eavesdropper." But she's far from a bad actress, she's a bit more subtle than the other three (not to mention such certified hams as Chill Wills and Frank Morgan). Lamarr's scenes convince you that she was actually a very smart girl, didn't she invent the submarine or something in real life? You can see her brain turning over every possibility in Gable's long, lanky frame, and the glint in his dark eyes.
Rating: - Rags to Riches Four Times over and more!
Boom Town is entertainment. This movie was made in 1940 and is based on a short story. It begins with a partnership/friendship between Gable & Tracey as Big John McMasters & John Sand. The underlying philosophy in the movie is meant to show that no matter how much money you have you were still happier when things were tough! Each man earns and loses about 2 to 3 fortunes apiece. I have lived long enough to have seen the complete movie before our modern day censors got to it, so I can tell you that you cannot get an uncut edition of this movie and this VHS is NO exception. They removed the Indian peace pipe smoking scene when McMasters(Gable) signs a land deal with Oklahoma indians.(pretending that people never smoked.) This subtle cutting is done to a lot of old films and is really silly.Also the "melting" scenes with the sad horn music when people lose all their money have been cut out also. The only one left in is when Compton United goes broke in the oil war with McMasters. Curiously we DO get to see the US Government prosecution of Oil barons and not necessarily in favorable light. This film also takes a shot at the IRS and complains about taxation! (Where are the censors for this stuff?) Anyway, Frank Morgan is great in this work as Luthur Aldridge and young Chill Wills is excellent as a deadly crack shot deputy who just wants to be a ranch cook. The Oil fire scenes received an Academy award for effects and it was top notch for 1940. Girls invade and cause a lot of trouble between McMasters and Sand and their ability to make money but everything comes clean and happy in the end. Well worth a view but please.... if the DVD ever comes out put ALL the film back together!
Rating: - Good Start, But Then What Happened?
When I was on my Clark Gable kick some years back, I was overjoyed to find a copy of "Boom Town" in the video rental place. I'd seen a clip or two from it, and the prospect of seeing Gable, Tracy, and Colbert all together in one film was delightful to me. I mean, this would be the intersection of two great chemistry sets, Tracy and Gable of "San Francisco" with Gable and Colbert of "It Happened One Night". How could it possibly miss? Well, it did.
The buddy relationship of Gable and Tracy was great. The love triangle between Gable, Tracy, and Colbert was good. But why oh why do we have to go on a bit to have now married Gable cheat on wife Colbert with Hedy Lamarr? First off, I thought that was a terrible plot development, period. Why would he do that? Why was this necessary? No. Bad idea. What really sealed the fate of this being a wrong-o is the fact that Hedy is an awful actress. Yes, she's a beauty all right, but especially in the company of real fine competent acting talent, she stuck out like a sore thumb.
So, "Boom Town" was quite a disappointment for me, after years of expectation. Sometimes two plus two does not equal four, if your script is not good. Catch Gable-Tracy and Gable-Colbert in their separate better films.
Rating:  - Interesting blend of soap opera and buddy flick
First, some movie trivia. Fans of WINGS OF DESIRE, the 1987 Wim Wenders film, should take note of the tailor that Clark Gable summons later in the film to make "twenty" suits for Spencer Tracy. The actor is Curt Bois, and he later played the part of "Homer" in WINGS OF DESIRE, the very old man first found in the library in Berlin, who aspires to be a witness to all he has seen in his life (ironically, one of the things he remembers are the atrocities of WW II, during which time Bois was living in Hollywood).
On one level this movie is about wild catters hunting for oil, but in reality it is about love and friendship. The oil industry actually serves as a backdrop, and after the first few scenes, it serves merely as a backdrop to the ups and downs of the main two characters. To be honest, it might be hard to watch if the three leads weren't played by such superb actors, and if excellent character actors weren't filling key minor roles. Luckily, Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, and especially Spencer Tracy make this film truly worth watching.
I have trouble with Clark Gable in most of his films. He always has a super macho attitude towards women, carries a chip the size of North Dakota on his shoulder, and is more beset by false pride than any actor in the history of film. He also comes across as frequently pretty stupid, a fact emphasized in George Clooney's imitation of him in O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? Still, he did possess an undeniable screen presence. He and Claudette Colbert do not here have the kind of chemistry that they had in IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, but they nevertheless match up well onscreen. Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy made several movies together, with Gable always managing a slightly more important role, but in every film they acted in, Tracy managed to walk away with the best acting honors. Tracy had to have had the most penetrating eyes in the history of cinema. The cast is rounded out by Frank Morgan and the inimitably voiced Chill Wills. Hedy Lamarr plays a supporting role. She simply had to be one of the most beautiful women in the history of film. Unfortunately, her voice and acting ability fell far short of her extraordinary beauty. Publicists in the old studio system always tried to tag actors and actresses with nicknames, and Lamarr's was "The Most Beautiful Woman in Films," and I can't disagree with that one.
The plot is essentially guy meets guy, guys become friends, guy accidently steals the girl of the other guy but they all remain friends, guy loses guy and nearly loses gal, guys both have their ups and downs and ups and downs and ups and downs, guy gets guy, guy loses guy, guy and guy and gal all get each other again and live happily ever after. The ups and downs are a bit extreme, and I found them somewhat silly, especially given the fact that the entire action of the film supposedly takes place in less than eight years.
So, by no means a perfect film and one that is very easy to criticize. But nevertheless, this is also a film that is very easy to enjoy, thanks to typical performances by an extremely strong cast.
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