A terrific snappy script, fast paced direction, well choreographed physical comedy and a cast at the height of their powers makes this an enjoyable hour and a forty-five minutes.
Ben Hecht, Charley Lederer and Herman Mankiewicz must have had a field day skewing the absurdity of the west's complete misunderstanding of Stalin in the '30's. The dialogue is Orwellian but with a twist, it's funny! King Vidor mixed in lots of near slapstick sequences to keep this from becoming a filmed play. And what sequences they are! Hedy Lamarr goes all out in two of them. Her rock 'em sock 'em robots bouts with Clark Gable are believable and hilarious. Likewise Gables' tossing of diminutive Natasha Lytess sounds very un PC but under Vidor's deft hand the action comes across as hysterical.
Casting is near perfect. Eve Arden does her hard charging working girl routine as well as she ever did. She's given some great lines and never fails to deliver. Always a strong verbal counter puncher, Arden holds her own once again. Natasha Lytess makes the most of her all too few screen moments. Felix Bressart, on the other hand, is on screen a little too much. Once again he plays the European duffus. This time it's a Russian duffus. He does well with his role, but ends up looking like a third wheel too often. That's because two of MGM's greatest stars are often standing near by, Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr.
We tend to forget what a fine physical actor Gable was. He moved with a purpose and wasn't shy about mixing it up in a scene. Vidor gets Gable to give all he's got in the physical scenes the writers give him more than wise crack lines he usually had to say for laughs. Again, Gable delivers. He looks like he's enjoying himself and we like watching him. You can roll your eyes when you read this, but I think this is Gable's best work at MGM.
Gable, of course, had a very good reason to enjoy himself; Hedy Lamarr. Watch the off again on again kissing scene. Gable's having fun delivering lines between kisses where he gets to position her head. And Lamarr? Again, roll your eyes if you want, but to me this is her best performance on film. And she was never more beautiful. It's been said many times, but Hedy Lamarr was a stunningly attractive woman. In Comrade X she got good lines and great camera angles. She never needed more.
The downside? The ending. The last fifteen minutes are silly and oddly unfulfilling even for a light comedy. Even with that, this is a good looking film with a script and cast that more than stands the test of time.
Ben Hecht, Charley Lederer and Herman Mankiewicz must have had a field day skewing the absurdity of the west's complete misunderstanding of Stalin in the '30's. The dialogue is Orwellian but with a twist, it's funny! King Vidor mixed in lots of near slapstick sequences to keep this from becoming a filmed play. And what sequences they are! Hedy Lamarr goes all out in two of them. Her rock 'em sock 'em robots bouts with Clark Gable are believable and hilarious. Likewise Gables' tossing of diminutive Natasha Lytess sounds very un PC but under Vidor's deft hand the action comes across as hysterical.
Casting is near perfect. Eve Arden does her hard charging working girl routine as well as she ever did. She's given some great lines and never fails to deliver. Always a strong verbal counter puncher, Arden holds her own once again. Natasha Lytess makes the most of her all too few screen moments. Felix Bressart, on the other hand, is on screen a little too much. Once again he plays the European duffus. This time it's a Russian duffus. He does well with his role, but ends up looking like a third wheel too often. That's because two of MGM's greatest stars are often standing near by, Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr.
We tend to forget what a fine physical actor Gable was. He moved with a purpose and wasn't shy about mixing it up in a scene. Vidor gets Gable to give all he's got in the physical scenes the writers give him more than wise crack lines he usually had to say for laughs. Again, Gable delivers. He looks like he's enjoying himself and we like watching him. You can roll your eyes when you read this, but I think this is Gable's best work at MGM.
Gable, of course, had a very good reason to enjoy himself; Hedy Lamarr. Watch the off again on again kissing scene. Gable's having fun delivering lines between kisses where he gets to position her head. And Lamarr? Again, roll your eyes if you want, but to me this is her best performance on film. And she was never more beautiful. It's been said many times, but Hedy Lamarr was a stunningly attractive woman. In Comrade X she got good lines and great camera angles. She never needed more.
The downside? The ending. The last fifteen minutes are silly and oddly unfulfilling even for a light comedy. Even with that, this is a good looking film with a script and cast that more than stands the test of time.