In an oil-rich 1918 Texas town, manly wildcatter Clark Gable (as "Big John" McMasters) meets fellow prospector Spencer Tracy (as Jonathan "Shorty" Sand). "Don't call me Shorty," advises Mr. Tracy. "Why not, Shorty?" asks Mr. Gable. Although they smack each other around, Gable is allowed. The guys bond while washing up in their long underwear and decide to become partners. Gable and Tracy steal some oil equipment and strike it rich. Tracy's well-dressed girlfriend Claudette Colbert (as Elizabeth "Betsy" Bartlett), who sells ladies' underwear, arrives and goes to bed with Gable. They also make it legal. Very predictably, this starts a long rivalry...Gable and Tracy win some, and they lose some..."Boom Town" starts out exciting and turns into a one-note soap opera that doesn't impress. Mainly, this is due to a boring love story between the three stars. Rather late in the story, beautiful Karen Vanmeer (as Hedy Lamarr) enters as a second love interest for Gable. This makes two for Gable and zero for Tracy. Maybe it's because he's short. It might have been better to show Tracy becoming involved with either of the women, or even another woman. The parts about the oil industry are nicely produced, but proceed with sketchy logic and intrigue. Despite being hollow, "Boom Town" is a classy and engaging production from a studio with the staff to make it happen.***** Boom Town (8/30/40) Jack Conway ~ Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, Hedy Lamarr

Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert and Hedy Lamarr star in "Boom Town," a 1940 film directed by Jack Conway. It's about wildcatters and friends, played by Gable and Tracy, who make money as partners, love the same woman, go their separate ways, reunite, all under the specter of oil rigs.Gable has a role he owned, that of Big John, a tough guy, a man's man, kind of Rhett Butler goes wildcatting. Tracy is Jonathan Sand, his buddy, with a girl back home. Big John meets a lady and falls for her - except it's Sand's girlfriend Elizabeth (Colbert) who's just arrived in town. Well, she had to choose between Clark Gable, matinée idol, and Spencer Tracy, a character actor whose talent gave him leading man status. She chooses Big John. Sand accepts it as best he can. By now the two have struck oil and are in the big money. Eventually, Big John loses his part of the business to Sand, and he and Elizabeth leave the area in order to rebuild - and they do, big time. The couple end up in New York, where Big John meets a Big Beauty named Karen (Lamarr) and goes for her, threatening his marriage.Everyone is very good in this absorbing movie, with Lamarr's knockout beauty a real asset. This is nothing against Colbert, who is stunning as well and excellent as Elizabeth. Gable and Tracy have good chemistry - in the end, this is really a buddy movie, and they're a good match. Gable is very sexy and at his peak here.Very enjoyable, with great special effects - no expense spared for the four huge stars.

This was the biggest film of the year for MGM in 1940. They used four of their biggest stars, any one of whom could have starred in their own films.Clark Gable already had an Oscar for It Happened One Night, another nomination for Mutiny on the Bounty, and was nominated in the 1940 Academy Awards for Gone with the Wind.Spencer Tracy, a nine-time Oscar nominee, already had a nomination for San Francisco, a win for Captains Courageous, and a win the previous year for Boy's Town.Three-time Oscar nominee Claudette Colbert already had a win for It happened One Night, which she did with Gable, and a nomination for Private Worlds.Frank Morgan had gotten one of his two nominations for The Affairs of Cellini.And, our Star of the Month, Hedy Lamarr, was just beginning her career.This was a raucous film with all the excitement that you would expect in one about wildcatters in the oil business and featured barroom fights, streets of mud, and stories ripped from the headlines. It was an amazing love story about two men in love with the same woman. It was pure entertainment.

BOOM TOWN can't decide whether it wants to be a buddy flick (CLARK GABLE and SPENCER TRACY) about wildcatters, a domestic romance with an "other woman" angle (CLAUDETTE COLBERT, HEDY LAMARR), or just a big brawling adventure epic about losers and winners amid gushing oil.Somehow, it manages to be all three--which makes for a rather uneven story that serves as a star-gazer for fans who like to watch the foursome go through their paces even though the script isn't strong enough to support them and their misadventures.Claudette is lovely in the chief romantic role as Gable's love interest, but it's HEDY LAMARR (who strolls into the story pretty late in the film) who dazzles with her close-ups and that amazing beauty.Gable is right at home in this get-rich-quick-scheme drilling for oil, since he was an oil rigger at one time before his movie days. He and Tracy are both in love with Claudette--but after she falls for Gable she regrets his close working relationship with Lamarr--and that's where the plot starts to thicken but loses credibility at the same time.Lamarr's role is so underwritten that she hardly has time to register strongly as a sophisticated woman attracted to Gable. The focus is hardly on the women involved, but instead the main thrust of the plot is carried by Gable and Tracy and their relationship.It's the sort of macho buddy film you'd think Gable's friend Victor Fleming would direct, but instead it's Jack Conway behind the reigns. He keeps the action flowing, but somehow none of the characters manage to be really involving and it runs a little too long, just short of tedium, since no new ground is explored.Summing up: Mainly of interest for Gable fans--he plays his blustery devil may care self in great style, fresh from his triumph as Rhett Butler.