Most environmentalists will cringe while watching oil wildcatters Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable basically win and then lose fortunes while pockmarking the landscape with their oil rigs. The two pals do a lot of frettin' and fussin' over the incomparable Claudette Colbert who eventually has eyes only for Clark the King. Unfortunately, Clark has some eyes for the shapely and sultry Hedy Lamarr (can't disagree with the King on that!).
I am a big fan of all these worthies, but something just doesn't add up with Boom Town...it seems to want to be too many things at the same time, perhaps. You could call it a Western, drama, comedy, or romance...but it seems to miss the mark more often than not in attempting any of these. The four stars seem wooden and predictable in this, even the awesome Tracy....Gable plays Gable and Colbert seems too glamourous for the dowdy role of wife meekly following Gable who is wildcatting in more ways than one. The film moves at a frenetic pace, perhaps to mimic the roller-coaster fortunes of the oil industry in the salad days of the early twentieth century....but it does leave one sort of out of breath and doesn't allow for much in the way of character development.
Frank Morgan shows up to basically play the same archetype character he played in the Wizard of Oz
along with Chill Wills as a straight shootin' deputy sheriff who ends up working for Gable as a cook. They provide some nice comic moments to balance out the chest thumping of Gable and Spence, but Boom Town will never supplant Gone with the Wind or Captains Courageous for me.
TH Reviews rating: Call it 3.5 stars out of five!
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