Evening star., 1940-08-31

may-care sort whom men admire
and women-well, you know Gable.
The two team up splendidly in the
great adventure of running q shoe
string into millions, using what.
ever. method seems most likely Of
success and with little regard for
its moral aspects. If the oppost-
ton Is the kind that likes to slug
it out, they boys are ready for that.
Or, If a slick trick will work, they
know just the right one and never
let conscience keep them from en-
ploying it. 1t all makes for action
which. is the major asset of Boom
Town"
Romance figures in the unfold
ment of the drama in the con.
ventional fashion. Gable gets the
girl CMiss Colbert) and Tracy takes
the loss quite as he always does
when his partner wins out. Their
friendship snaps only when Gable
wants to keep up his philandering.
a way of treating his wife of which
Tracy cannot approve.
Director Jack Conway, with 81
100000 to spend, has given his epi-
sodic drama a sweep the like of
which you've rarely ever seen.
Whereas the average film of its
kind swings merely from oil well to
the nearest bar, Boom Town" goes
everywhere, including South Amer
lea. With the rise and fall of their
fortunes, its principals move from
the knee-deep mud of Burkburnett
to the knee-deep rugs of a Gotham
palace, with stopovers at the race
track, in cafe society, at conven-
lions OF oil men, ETC., at spectacular
oil well fires and elsewhere.
Whatever its business at given
moment, Boom Town" moves at
the same violent pace. A dozen of
its episodes are memorable. Among
the comedy passages, two Of the
most impressive are a barroom brawl
in which Gable and Tracy compete
to see who can knock an opponent
the farther; another in which
Tracy offers to marry Miss Lamar,
whom he loathes, to eliminate her
as menace to the marriage of his
friend. His proposal, one of the
oldest on record, is a thing of some
OF the most torrid dialogue that
has entered script this year.
Another episode of which Con-
way and his players have made
much is that in which Gable sue
ceeds in sweeping Miss Colbert of
her pretty feet; as neat a job of
sweeping as he has done since 1T
Happened One Night"
***
Boom Town" reaches its climax,
as Tracy-Gable pictures must, in
the best knock-down-drag -out scrap
the pair ever have fought. And,
after that kind of fighting is over,
they 60 on to another kind, an ef-
fort to ruin one another when they
have become gigantic tycoons in the
gas and oil business.
1so3Co pldycu Dy LIE galaxy OF
stars assembled by Boom Town"
are tailor-made in every instance.
So excellent is the fit in each in
stance that one gets the impression
at moments that he is gazing upon
a series of personal appearances.
That applies not merely to the four
big names, but to Frank Morgan's
crusty, jittery old supply man, a
fellow who never takes an eye of
the main chance.
Tracys role, of the lot, is the
most carefully tailored including as
it does one of those long, we'll
handled, courtroom addresses of
which he has become the master.
This one is on the subject of. the
Sherman Act, an act with which the
movies have been having dealings
lately. One might even suspect
propaganda in the speech did he
not know the movies would not be
guilty of such thing.
1t does not mar Boom Town"
however, as one of the most swash-
buckling dramas of the season.