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Boom Town (1940)

Passed   |    |  Adventure, Drama, Romance

Boom Town (1940) Poster

Two buddies who rise from fly-by-night wildcatters to oil tycoons over a twenty year period both love the same woman.

7.1/10
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  • Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr in Boom Town (1940)
  • Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy at an event for Boom Town (1940)
  • Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr in Boom Town (1940)
  • Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in Boom Town (1940)
  • Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in Boom Town (1940)
  • Clark Gable in Boom Town (1940)

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Awards

Nominated for 2 Oscars.

Reviews & Commentary

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User Reviews
9 January 2004 | bkoganbing
9
| Gable's most personal role
When one thinks of roles identified with Clark Gable, Boom Town does not immediately come to mind. Yet this film, done at what most would consider the high water mark of Gable's career (after Gone With the Wind and before Carole Lombard's death) was possibly his most personal role. Before he was actor Gable worked in the oil fields with his widowed father. After that he decided acting was a far easier way to make a living. But he actually lived the life that he and Spencer Tracy portrayed in Boom Town. He brings more to the part of Big John McMasters than any other part he ever did. I'm sure he was an unofficial technical consultant on the film.

The film is also an ode to laissez faire capitalism, maybe one of the most right wing films ever done in Hollywood. You will never hear Herbert Hoover's rugged individualism better justified than in Spencer Tracy's speech to the jury in Gable's anti-trust trial. One half of the script writing team was James Edward Grant who later did many of the more propagandistic films that John Wayne did.

Frank Morgan is his usual befuddled self, he had a patent on those parts. Claudette Colbert is fine as the woman both men love and Hedy Lamarr was her usual alluring self.

Great entertainment all around.

Critic Reviews

Did You Know?

Trivia

Although M-G-M paid a high price for the services of Oscar winner Claudette Colbert, the studio's contracts with both Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy obligated them to bill both male stars above Colbert, who usually insisted upon top billing on any project. She accepted being billed third for the opportunity of working with Gable a second time after their first project together, It Happened One Night, won both of them Academy Awards.

Quotes

Jonathan Sand: I could use somebody to smoosh these candy politicians.

Goofs

When Clark Gable rides the donkey at the rodeo he is holding a balloon. In the first wide shot the balloon is gone, but it reappears in the next close up.

Crazy Credits

[Opening title] This is the story of a hard driving breed of Americans - oil prospectors - "wildcatters". Made of the bone and blood of pioneers - men born of the lasting miracle that is America - they probed the Earth from early Pennsylvania to California's Kettleman Hills to bring forth America's greatest treasure, the life blood of today's world - oil!

Alternate Versions

Also available in a computer colorized version.

Soundtracks

At the Circus
Composed by Franz Waxman
Played under the bronco busting scene

Storyline

Plot Summary

Genres

Adventure | Drama | Romance | Western

Details

Release Date:

30 August 1940

Language

English

Country of Origin

USA

Filming Locations

Bakersfield, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$1,614,000 (estimated)

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