Product Details

• Actors: Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, Hedy Lamarr, Frank Morgan
• Directors: Jack Conway
• Writers: James Edward Grant, John Lee Mahin
• Producers: Sam Zimbalist
• Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Warner)
• VHS Release Date: September 1, 1998
• Run Time: 119 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301967380
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #117,189 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

There may be a pair of impressive ladies in the cast, but don't be fooled--Boom Town is a cool love-hate buddy movie from the get-go. Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy are oil wildcatters who meet during a Texas strike, take an instant dislike to each other, go into business together, tussle over a woman, break up, reunite, etc., etc. The film spans years, and various parts of the continent, as each man gets rich and goes bust with regularity. Claudette Colbert, re-teaming with It Happened One Night co-star Gable, is the woman who comes between them, and Hedy Lamarr presents a more exotic temptation later on. Another star here is the dialogue by veteran screenwriter John Lee Mahin, which--despite the wild, credulity-bending twists in the story--is chockfull of salty, slangy talk. The early scenes in the Texas town are crammed with believable oil jargon and great period touches (such as an entrepreneur who charges money to walk on planks across a muddy street). Director Jack Conway (Saratoga) gets the roughneck appeal of the material, and a sequence involving an oil fire is a knockout. Gable and Tracy, who had worked together so memorably in San Francisco, are a terrific match: Gable is all straight-ahead gusto, declaiming every line, as Tracy underplays to crafty effect. Nice supporting parts for Frank Morgan and Chill Wills span the entire movie, which ends, curiously, in a courtroom and a speech about capitalism. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It is the closest real life movie of our early oil history, April 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Boom Town [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The movie has a great cast with some of the best actors that ever graced Hollywood. You have action from the very beginning that holds your attention throughout the whole movie. You can feel the excitment of every oil discovery and the disappointment of every dry-hole. Boom Town has a story which is simple and is brought together with non complicated characters. The people wre all individuals, with there own ideas and had the guts and determination to risk everything to make there dream come true. I like to think, that was the way people were like in those days. If you like great acting and a movie of old adventure with a story that cannot be repeated in these modern times, then Boom Town is for the old fashioned of heart with romance in the soul.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Update for the Boom Town DVD by Rags to Riches Reviewer, July 6, 2006

By 

Michael Ziegler (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Boom Town (DVD)

The new DVD sharpens the film up considerably. The Theatrical Trailer is included along with a cartoon and Hollywood short that don't have much of anything to do with this great film. As before, I mentioned that I had hoped that all the film would be put back together and although this is a little better there is still some cutting, including the Oklahoma Indian Land Deal Peace Pipe smoking scene which is still missing here. This film was the biggest money maker in 1940. It won an academy award for special effects and deserved it. Why can't we have the whole production on film? Anyway, I still recommend the film for entertainment value. They don't make films for pure fun anymore but this was one of them.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hawks + Cukor, March 15, 2005

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Boom Town [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I loved it, but I have to agree with the other reviewer who said that something gets lost when Clark Gable decides to go to New York and moves Claudette Colbert and little Jack with him.

The fun of the first part of the picture is replaced by an agonizing melodrama, which I also like, but it could have been two different pictures. The first movie would tell all about Gable and Tracy's friendship and their rivalry over Colbert--a kind of Howard Hawks male bonding movie. The key scene in this one would be the hotel room in the "boom town" in which Tracy and Gable strip to their underwear and Gable starts calling Tracy "Shorty," a nickname he hates but he loves to have Gable call him. The second film is more of a George Cukor story, for once Hedy Lamarr enters the picture as a Dutch lobbyist, this gives Claudette Colbert a whole lot more to worry about than scrubbing oil stains off Gable's overalls. Watching this picture recently I found myself more involved with Hedy Lamarr's role than I had been previously. She's not "brash" and "American" like the others actors (yes, I know Colbert is French but she has that American buzz thing going on) and she's languorous and moody, speaking of herself modestly as a "high class eavesdropper." But she's far from a bad actress, she's a bit more subtle than the other three (not to mention such certified hams as Chill Wills and Frank Morgan). Lamarr's scenes convince you that she was actually a very smart girl, didn't she invent the submarine or something in real life? You can see her brain turning over every possibility in Gable's long, lanky frame, and the glint in his dark eyes.