Boom Town is a 1940 American Western film starring Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, and Hedy Lamarr, and directed by Jack Conway. The supporting cast features Frank Morgan, Lionel Atwill, and Chill Wills. A story written by James Edward Grant in Cosmopolitan magazine entitled "A Lady Comes to Burkburnett" provided the inspiration for the film. The film was produced and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Theatrical release poster
1940 newspaper ad for the film
William Clark Gable was an American film actor. Often referred to as the "King of Hollywood", he had roles in more than 60 films in a variety of genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades of which was as a leading man. He was named the seventh greatest male movie star of classic American cinema by the American Film Institute.
Gable in a publicity portrait in 1940
Gable's 1901 birthplace in Cadiz, Ohio
In 1928's Machinal with Zita Johann, Gable was lauded as "young, vigorous, and brutally masculine" by one critic.
Jean Harlow and Gable in The Secret Six (1931)