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The Worst Film Ever

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hyped garbage

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

A chipper oldie ravishes its spectator with a gung-ho complexion that is so disarming a benignant viewer might be completely oblivious of its cut-throat capitalistic machination which is attendant with the plot's boom-and-bust vagaries. Two wildcatters Big John McMasters (Gable) and Square John Sand (Tracy) hit it off quickly (thanks to their mutual instinct of dodging potshots), and bouncily go for it in their oil rigging enterprise, there are hits and misses ongoing, but their archetypal bromance is put into a critical test when they are both besotted with the same dame, Betsy Bartlett (Colbert). The narrative cavalierly pass the buck to Betsy since Big John has no inkling that she is Square John's gal, but Betsy knows Big John alright, which doesn't stop her from jilting a more matter-of-fact Square John for the newly ignited coup-de-foudre (and it all happened one night!). Thankfully, the reunited Gable-Colbert pair knows how to play the flirtatious bonhomie right, and a bluff Tracy makes a rather surprising capitulation to the "she is not that into him" situation but is never able to get over her, instead, he becomes the watchdog of their marriage, a resolute assurer that Betsy's happiness is unadulterated. Therefore, the years-spanning story extends into a series friend-or-foe games between Big John and Square John, predicated on Betsy's well-being, hopping from places to places, their fortune alternately ebbs and flows. When at its best, an oil wildfire spectacle is surely awe-inspiring through its matted black-and-white expressionism; yet in its worst, the patchy narrative wears thin quickly when the love triangle equilibrium levels out. So an extrinsic force timely arrives in the form of Hedy Lamarr's drop-dead gorgeous Karen Vanmeer, Big John's business adviser and a socialite who is adept at eavesdropping, as an interloper, she is not beyond reproach but for once, she is presented more than a vacuous bombshell, in fact she has the wiles to apply her own counter- moves when Square John tries to buy her out.Slightly tortuous in its story-line, and 77 years have passed, Jack Conway's BOOM TOWN has sustained to evince a pristine luster in pointing up two of the most peddled attributes of America: the land of opportunity and the propitious everything-will-be-fine motto.

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.

Boom Town is a Love story, a Drama, a Western, and an Adventure all put into one movie. The film is about 2 guys who love the same girl and love Black Gold. The movie stars Spencer Tracy as Square John Sand, Clark Gable as Big John McMasters, and Claudette Colbert as (Elizabeth) Betsy Bartlett. The movie is a 1940's Classic, and I think it was almost as good as Gone With the Wind. This is the last of three films that Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable starred in together which included San Francisco, Test Pilot, and Boom Town. The Film was star packed. I instantly knew who the actors were once I heard their voices. I especially liked how it was set in a western style and a modern style (for that time anyway) I thought it was going to be like every other western film that I've seen in black and white but it wasn't it was more adventurous and interesting. I especially enjoyed the scenes that showed Big John and Square John fist fighting. I later researched that Spencer Tracy's stunt double actually hit Clark Gable during a scene, because Clark Gable decided that he wanted to do his own stunts.

Why the biggest film studio could not afford to make this film in technicolor, is beyond me. With 4 terrific stars, including the most beautiful woman in the movies Hedy Lamarr is beyond comprehension. The movie started off on a good note until the middle of it. The typical, husband, wife and friend triangle soap opera entered the picture..it started to drag for me...and then a spark was generated when Hedy came on in her brief cameo role. From that point on, she was mostly on instead of Claudette. Don't get me wrong..love Claudette, but given a choice of watching her or Hedy on the screen...would be Hedy for me...just a quote from Spencer Tracy to Gable upon meeting her for the first time.."Wow...she can stop a stampede"...no truer words were spoken.