October Movie of the Month: Comrade X (1940)

This month, Clark is a rogue foreign correspondant in Russia and Hedy Lamarr is his reluctant hostage in Comrade X.

Gable is McKinley Thompson, an American reporter living in Russia who is secretly sending news out of the country as the elusive “Comrade X”. His bumbling valet, Igor (Felix Bressart) discovers who he is and blackmails him to take his headstrong Communist daughter (Hedy Lamarr) out of Russia to protect her from prosecution. Everything doesn’t go as planned and soon the three of them are racing out of Russia with the Russian army on their tails.

This one isn’t legendary film making by any means, but it’s fun. Clark is always at ease playing a wise crackin’ reporter and this role is just his cup of tea.In many ways, it’s kind of like a poor man’s Ninotchka, and Hedy is no Garbo (interestingly, this film actually did better box office than Ninotchka, although Ninotchka gets the “classic” title these days). It’s really just one of those films with a pretty simple plot that seems more exotic and interesting because of its foreign location. The message doesn’t go much further than “America=Good Russia=Bad,” but what that is pretty much par for the course in 1940.

Clark was on a Gone with the Wind-success high when this came out, and he was in the happiest time of his life, married to Carole Lombard and jetting off with her on hunting jags in between film projects. I always think that during those years you can see the happiness coming out of his pores.

Clark and Hedy Lamarr were reteamed quickly after the success of their steamy scenes in Boom Town. I can’t say that she is one of my favorite Gable leading ladies, but she’s not bad. She plays the hardheaded Russian communist well, and of course she is undeniably sexy. Director King Vidor recalled that she was “far more naive than sophisticated.” She was very nervous starring opposite Clark but he was kind to her and egged her along.

Clark appears for the first time a few minutes into the film, hung over and arriving at his hotel after hitching a ride with a pig farmer. Upon his arrival, he orders more alcohol, cucumbers, raw eggs and tabasco and warns that any delay in their arrival would be fatal. There are definitely echoes of Peter Warne, Clark’s other fast-talking reporter in It Happened One Night. Oh, and also Mike Anthony in Love on the Run…

Although the love story here is a bit far fetched, it does have a cute sequence here and there. On their wedding night, Hedy emerges from the bathroom in her long sleeved, high necked nightgown. “Oh, so you did  bring your parachute,” Clark cracks.

He provides her with a more skimpy alternative. “I’m going to spread Communism in this?” she scoffs. “Like a house fire!” Clark retorts. “What a trousseau,” he remarks as she goes into the bathroom to change.

This being a Clark Gable vehicle after all, Clark is full of lines for Hedy, naturally.“There’s nothing you couldn’t sell with a smile like that.” and “You’re a beautiful woman and nobody’s going to turn a machine gun on you if I can help it!”

The best scene between the two is hardly romantic, as they battle it out in the hotel room on their wedding night. “Fine wedding night this turned out to be!” Clark muses. The sound editing of Hedy yelling at him in Russian in this scene is truly god awful–it’s downright laughable. Her lips aren’t moving but yet there is a woman’s voice yelling Russian!

Eve Arden is a hoot (when isn’t she?) as a fellow reporter who has a thing for Clark. “Miss me?” Clark asks when he returns after his drunken binge. “No, I can always go to the zoo while you’re away,” she snaps back.

 And Bressart is the perfect stuttering meek father, although him and Hedy sharing some of the same blood is a bit of a stretch.

I see some traces of Rhett Butler’s stern but calm anger in the scene where Bressart confronts Clark about being “Comrade X.”  “Is that so?” he slowly approaches Bressart with a stable but threatening glare.

Of course you can’t help but roll your eyes that Hedy, such a staunch believer in Communism and steadfast in her beliefs, would suddenly renounce all of it for the chance to live in the United States with Clark. Also, I find it a bit of bad editing that they get out of Russia safely and then suddenly all is right in the world, there they are at a baseball game in the United States. It’s not like they were next door. How did they get Hedy in? Guess that’s not for us to worry about.

Comrade X is available on DVD through the Warner Brothers Archive Collection. Read more about the film here and see over 190 pictures in the gallery.