. . . "beginning of the end" for the movie studio known as "M-G-M." At a time when Warner Bros. was heroically churning out Beacon of Democracy features such as CONFESSIONS OF A NAZI SPY, rival film production company MGM was striving to please the "Third Reich's" beloved Fuhrer with such party line fare as COMRADE X, since Germany was such a financially important market for the money boys at the so-called "Billionaire's Studio." In the short term, MGM's anti-Allies screed compelled what was then called "The U.S. War Department" to seize editorial control of EVERY American movie production company, dictating the minutest aspects of war-time film scripts with reams of red tape rules and regulations. In the long term, of course, MGM was relegated into becoming the tiny corner of Warner Bros. that it is Today. COMRADE X, unlike the famed home movie of Der Fuhrer's Videographer Leni Riefenstahl (TRIUMPH OF THE WILL) did NOT win a top Oscar (via the sort of rigged elections for which MGM itself was notorious), but like TRIUMPH it is deviously entertaining because Satan knows that you can trap more souls with honey than vinegar. Despite MGM's ridicule, Russia sacrificed 100 times as much as the U.S. in terms of lives and other resources to destroy MGM's Nazi buddies, with the "Eastern Front" outweighing the effect of ten "D-Day" invasions.

Comrade X (1940)Just before we got into World War II, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had signed a non- aggression pact. Mac Thompson (Clark Gable) is a foreign correspondent who has been sneaking out uncensored news out of Soviet Russia. The secret police are suspicious of him, but it's the hotel's valet, Igor Yahupitz (Felix Bressart) who knows that it's Mac. He tells Mac that if he can smuggle his daughter, Theodore (Hedy Lamarr) out of the Soviet Union, into America, he won't tell anybody.The fly in the ointment is that Theodore is a loyal Communist and, just like in Ninotchka (1939), Mac has got to convince her to leave her beloved country and go with him, all while trying to stay away from the Commissars. Of course all of the upper ranking Soviet officers are worried about being killed off in Stalin's Purge.King Vidor directed this fast-paced anti-communist comedy with a screenplay written by Ben Hecht. Jane Wilson (smart-mouthed Eve Arden) is one of my favorite characters, also the Nazi correspondent Emil Von Hofer (Sig Ruman) is an easy target of ridicule.

CLARK GABLE and HEDY LAMARR share the screen in a romantic comedy along the lines of "Ninotchka", which made such a success for Greta Garbo. Obviously, Louis B. Mayer hoped COMRADE X would do for Hedy what the other film did for Garbo's image--and to some extent, it did.It's not as sophisticated and witty as the Garbo film, but Hedy plays a dedicated Soviet woman who thinks that an American that she is attracted to (CLARK GABLE) shares the same philosophy. FELIX BRESSART is her scatterbrained father, EVE ARDEN is an American newspaper woman and SIG RUMAN is a loyal Nazi foreign correspondent in Russia who is just as confused as everyone else as to the identity of "Comrade X".It's a good role for Hedy, playing her role very much the way Cyd Charisse played the Russian gal in "Silk Stockings", and with a comic flair that she seldom exhibited in any of her MGM films, even the so-called comedies. Gable is more or less himself as the cynical newspaper man who ends up taking his bride (Lamarr) to America after they've had a few escapades that have the Soviet authorities chasing them all over the hillsides in tanks--the film's most amusing moments.One of the funniest performances comes from NATASHA LYTESS, as Olga, a secretary who tells Gable she's a spy. Her drunken antics are a highlight (she can't see a thing without her glasses). Lytess was Marilyn Monroe's acting coach for several years, the superstar being dependent on her for her every move during her early films at Fox.

I came in on "Comrade X" during the climatic tank chase scene. I don't know about the film as a whole, but the tank scene was wonderfully done. If it were done today it wouldn't be all that impressive. You'd be like "Hmmm, nice computer work!" But in 1940 it had to be done with actual existing props. So what you have is a swarm of "real" tanks chasing Gable's tank. On command they all stop, spin about and race in the opposite direction. Excellent cartoon like direction and fantastic execution of that direction. If you're a fan of cartoon like sequences done as live action then this film, or at least the final sequences thereof, are for you. Someone just tell me how they did this back in '40! One of the finest examples I can think of a great bit of work stuck somewhere in an almost forgotten film.I did go back and research the special effects for this film. They were done by none other than A. Arnold Gillespie who won four Academy Awards out of thirteen nominations. Besides "Comrade X", he worked on such little films like "The Wizard of Oz" and "Ben-Hur". As for "Comrade X" a true case of an industry giant being handed what had to be a small assignment considering his considerable talents. The studio system works!