La febbre del petrolio

This film has four big stars perfectly cast and appearing at their very best in a very entertaining film about "wild catting" in the American oil industry.I rated it 7/10.First up is Clark Gable playing the "mans man" role he made so famous in "Gone with the Wind".Next up is Spencer Tracy giving one of his speeches in court where he seems so comfortable, ("Judgment at Nuremburg", Cass Timberlayne" etc).Next up we have Claudette Colbert giving one of her best sympathetic "tea and sympathy" performances e.g. "Since You Went Away" and finally there is the gorgeous Hedy Lamarr playing to her strength of a sophisticated, intelligent and beautiful business associate who knows how the oil industry business is is transacted in the New York corridors of power.The film was made one year before the U.S. entered WWII so the budget could afford to be generous.Fot its day, the scenes and special effects of the oil well fire were very realistic.One reviewer remarked that Clark Gable in his youth worked on a "wild cat" oil site, if so this gave his performance added realism.What about those muddy roads.I felt like asking the town corporation to pave them over with some of that oil money flooding into the oil barons' coffers which presumably would attract some local taxation!

A couple of oil-drilling buddies (Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy) strike it rich together. Then a woman (Claudette Colbert) comes between them. Tracy plays O'Brien to Gable's Cagney in this predictable but fun MGM production. All three stars are in good form. Gable gets most of the memorable lines. Hedy Lamarr does well in her villainess role. Nice support from Frank Morgan, Chill Wills, and Lionel Atwill. In addition to Lamarr, Marion Martin provides some eye candy. Action scenes are great but can't mask what is basically a simple soap opera doused in testosterone. Not to mention a love triangle that's pretty weak. It goes on a bit longer than it should but it's still enjoyable. Fans of the stars will like it.

Boom Town (1940)

An expansive, fun-loving, rags to riches to rags to riches story of early oil prospectors. Wildcatters. Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy make the unlikely pair of men who join forces to strike it rich, and they're both lively and sharp on their game. The main women in both their lives is Claudette Colbert, and of course circumstances make both men fall in love with her. Guess who wins?

As the men find oil, then disaster, then more oil and more disaster, Colbert hangs on. Later in the movie, Gable in New York (during a successful few years) and he is caught up with an urban siren played by Hedy Lamar. To an audience used to film noir, we know she's a classic femme fatale, wanting something she shouldn't have and using what she does have to try and get it.

But this is pre-noir, and of course a Western in many ways. In fact, it's before the U.S. entered WWII, and it's slightly odd to see a sprawling tale of such important seeming events when the big events are happening in Europe. But it's sweeping and convincing in that 1940s Hollywood style that is kicking in, technically flawless, beautiful made in every way.

Throw in four great actors (as well as Frank Morgan, the man who the year before played the Wizard in that Oz movie) and you have a really excellent production. Gable as a youth even worked in the oil industry with his father, so he knew his stuff. Tracy, mad about details in his contact, was unhappy on the set and didn't get along with either woman, and it shows, once you know it.

Why isn't this a great classic, with everything going for it? I think the story. It is filled with so many clichés even these actors, under director Jack Conway, couldn't make it fresh. The clichés are great of course—the rivalry over the same woman, the improbably rise to wealth (and fall), but you see them with familiarity. And the suddenness of huge turns of fate as it propels forward are a bit grand to the point of grandiose. Even the end you can see coming, in the big view.

Still, I'd recommend this for the sheer joy of it all. Of course, Colbert and Gable were famous in the 1934 "It Happened One Night," and it's fun to see them six years later here. But even all the oil industry scenes, including a couple great disasters, are very well done and exciting stuff.

As one who has worked in the "oil patch" for 25 years, I feel that 'Boom Town' is the most realistic portrait of the industry (during that period) that has ever been put on film. The formation of the cartel mimics the origins of Standard Oil. Also, the 'feel' of the picture is right and the industry is not romanticized as in other films. Perhaps, as was noted in other comments, this is because of Gable's experience as a wildcatter.

Several others have noted, or objected to, Gable's speech about the nature of the industry. Yes, it is decidedly pro-business and anti-government, but it is not really laissez faire. The film argues for controlled production of oil fields to maximize their long-term benefit. This speech is amazingly prescient of our current crisis.

I watch this one every time it airs.

Portraying a friendship similar to the one they shared in the earlier "San Francisco," Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy play two oilmen or wildcatters in "Boom Town," an entertaining saga directed by Jack Conway. Gable is the colorful Big John McMasters, a Rhett Butler from Texas, who lives large and romances big. Tracy is the more solid, down-to-earth Jonathan Sand, who is Gable's moral conscience, much like he was in "San Francisco." The pair meet cute while heading in opposite directions on a narrow board walkway across a muddy street. Despite a damp start, the two men bond, and their friendship endures for years through fights, jealousy, and competition over business and women, particularly Claudette Colbert. The mud is barely washed off their clothing when Gable unwittingly steals Colbert from Tracy, and the jilted platonic lover carries a torch for his lost love throughout the film. When not womanizing or swindling, Gable and Tracy make and lose several fortunes separately and together without breaking a sweat. Oil gushers, well fires, and fistfights, the action wanders all over the MGM back lot from Texas to South America to New York.

Gable anchors the film with his larger-than-life personality, while Tracy underplays in deference to his more charismatic co-star. Although re-teaming the Oscar-winning leads of "It Happened One Night" must have seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, Colbert, unfortunately, often seems out of place in "Boom Town." Her manners, poise, and dress do not mesh with the Texas oil fields or the South American hovels. She is on firmer ground as the well-dressed lady of the manor. The sight of perfectly made-up Colbert scrubbing clothes on a washboard with a big grin on her face strains the story's credibility. Although the enigmatic Hedy Lamarr has a flawless face and incomparable beauty, she rarely wrinkles her professionally applied cosmetics to show any trace of an emotion. However, she is certainly believable as the object of any man's lust and physically perfect as an "other woman." Fortunately, a fine cast of supporting players, such as Frank Morgan, Chill Wills, and Lionel Atwill, surround the leading stars and further enhance the lively proceedings.

First class production values, a fast-moving story, and appealing stars make "Boom Town" a solid entertainment, if not a masterpiece.