Murphy Howard I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Winifred The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

madi-blake 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.

vincentlynch-moonoi 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.

lewis-51 Thus is well worth watching. I liked the interaction between Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy. I am not especially fond of either of them, but they were both very good here, and believable. It is indeed a rousing "buddy" movie. It goes at a fast pace, and that's great. The scene at the burning oil well is very well done. Ultimately, I rate it no higher than 7 because I find it a bit dated. What exactly "dated" means may be worth a whole essay. It's not the obvious things, like hair styles, manner of speech, and so forth. What I mean here is that it has been written to appeal to the norms and standards of a certain time and culture. You might say every movie is like that; nonetheless I think too much realism has been lost. Without giving away any spoilers, I don't think the way the situation with Hedy Lamarr turned out was realistic. I also do not like the last speech by Tracy. I am sure it was a winner at the time, but it's not realistic - then or now. It was designed to appeal to most viewers then. Maybe I'm just sulking because I didn't see enough of Hedy Lamarr. ;-)-henry

Neil Doyle BOOM TOWN can't decide whether it wants to be a buddy flick (CLARK GABLE and SPENCER TRACY) about wildcatters, a domestic romance with an "other woman" angle (CLAUDETTE COLBERT, HEDY LAMARR), or just a big brawling adventure epic about losers and winners amid gushing oil.Somehow, it manages to be all three--which makes for a rather uneven story that serves as a star-gazer for fans who like to watch the foursome go through their paces even though the script isn't strong enough to support them and their misadventures.Claudette is lovely in the chief romantic role as Gable's love interest, but it's HEDY LAMARR (who strolls into the story pretty late in the film) who dazzles with her close-ups and that amazing beauty.Gable is right at home in this get-rich-quick-scheme drilling for oil, since he was an oil rigger at one time before his movie days. He and Tracy are both in love with Claudette--but after she falls for Gable she regrets his close working relationship with Lamarr--and that's where the plot starts to thicken but loses credibility at the same time.Lamarr's role is so underwritten that she hardly has time to register strongly as a sophisticated woman attracted to Gable. The focus is hardly on the women involved, but instead the main thrust of the plot is carried by Gable and Tracy and their relationship.It's the sort of macho buddy film you'd think Gable's friend Victor Fleming would direct, but instead it's Jack Conway behind the reigns. He keeps the action flowing, but somehow none of the characters manage to be really involving and it runs a little too long, just short of tedium, since no new ground is explored.Summing up: Mainly of interest for Gable fans--he plays his blustery devil may care self in great style, fresh from his triumph as Rhett Butler.