This is one of my favorite films with either Spencer Tracy or Clark Gable...and here you have both! And one of my favorite scenes -- Gable and Tracy meeting for the first time on plank across a muddy street and then both getting soaked in mud -- is a classic. And, the film has another very necessary ingredient -- Frank Morgan, whose role sort of holds the whole thing together.
Gable and Tracy play two oil wildcatters who steal drilling equipment from Morgan. After a few false starts they strike it rich and than cut Morgan in for a percentage of their business. The fun is in following their cyclical ups and downs along the way in both oil and a woman -- Claudette Colbert who intended to marry Tracy, but then falls in love with Gable.
This is a pretty interesting film where you can learn a bit about the climate of the wildcat oil business of the day. And, the plot here is pretty good, as well. The only place in the story where things fall down a bit is late in the picture with the courtroom scenes. The director hurried through this portion of the film so much that some of the actors talk so fast it's almost hard to understand them...although Tracy gives one heck of a soliloquy here.
It's hard to say whether this is Gable's or Tracy's picture. Perhaps it is one of those rare cases where they really do share the load equally, and they have a great chemistry on screen (this is one of three they made together...but the last because the top billing contracts of both actors later made their appearing together a problem the studio couldn't solve). Gable is Gable. But it's interesting to note a very different Tracy here than the one you might have seen in "Boys Town" just two years earlier. Perhaps a bit more like the Tracy of "Northwest Passage", also in 1940.
Claudette Colbert is wonderful here as Gable's wife. The odd star out is Hedy Lamarr, who by rights shouldn't have gotten equal billing with Gable, Tracy, and Colbert. She doesn't appear until after the halfway point in the picture, and in screen time comes in a weak fourth...frankly, Frank Morgan gets more screen time and is the far more interesting character. But, that's not the way Hollywood works. And I must say, at least in this picture, Lamarr stinks. She was a very attractive woman. Period.
Excellent motion picture, and one that should find a place on your DVD shelf...it's certainly on mine.
Gable and Tracy play two oil wildcatters who steal drilling equipment from Morgan. After a few false starts they strike it rich and than cut Morgan in for a percentage of their business. The fun is in following their cyclical ups and downs along the way in both oil and a woman -- Claudette Colbert who intended to marry Tracy, but then falls in love with Gable.
This is a pretty interesting film where you can learn a bit about the climate of the wildcat oil business of the day. And, the plot here is pretty good, as well. The only place in the story where things fall down a bit is late in the picture with the courtroom scenes. The director hurried through this portion of the film so much that some of the actors talk so fast it's almost hard to understand them...although Tracy gives one heck of a soliloquy here.
It's hard to say whether this is Gable's or Tracy's picture. Perhaps it is one of those rare cases where they really do share the load equally, and they have a great chemistry on screen (this is one of three they made together...but the last because the top billing contracts of both actors later made their appearing together a problem the studio couldn't solve). Gable is Gable. But it's interesting to note a very different Tracy here than the one you might have seen in "Boys Town" just two years earlier. Perhaps a bit more like the Tracy of "Northwest Passage", also in 1940.
Claudette Colbert is wonderful here as Gable's wife. The odd star out is Hedy Lamarr, who by rights shouldn't have gotten equal billing with Gable, Tracy, and Colbert. She doesn't appear until after the halfway point in the picture, and in screen time comes in a weak fourth...frankly, Frank Morgan gets more screen time and is the far more interesting character. But, that's not the way Hollywood works. And I must say, at least in this picture, Lamarr stinks. She was a very attractive woman. Period.
Excellent motion picture, and one that should find a place on your DVD shelf...it's certainly on mine.