Comrade X

1940
Approved
1h 44m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr in Comrade X (1940)

An American reporter smuggling news out of Soviet Moscow is blackmailed into helping a beautiful Communist leave the country.An American reporter smuggling news out of Soviet Moscow is blackmailed into helping a beautiful Communist leave the country.An American reporter smuggling news out of Soviet Moscow is blackmailed into helping a beautiful Communist leave the country.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.5/10

1.9K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 1 nomination total

Photos32

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Top cast32

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Clark Gable

McKinley B. Thompson

Hedy Lamarr

Theodore

Oscar Homolka

Vasiliev

Felix Bressart

Vanya

Eve Arden

Jane Wilson

Sig Ruman

Emil Von Hofer
(as Sig Rumann)

Natasha Lytess

Olga

Vladimir Sokoloff

Michael Bastakoff

Edgar Barrier

Rubick

Georges Renavent

Laszlo
(as George Renevant)

Mikhail Rasumny

Russian Officer

Ed Agresti

Press Correspondent
(uncredited)

Alexander Asro

Russian Waiter
(uncredited)

William Bailey

Press Correspondent
(uncredited)

Al Bain

Marriage Bureau Customer
(uncredited)

Lici Balla

Russian Woman
(uncredited)

Leon Belasco

Comrade Baronoff - Hotel Manager
(uncredited)

John Bleifer

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
At the time this film was released in 1940, World War II had already begun in Europe, but the Soviet Union still had a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany. In the film, Mac is able to fool a character by pretending to hear news that Germany has broken the pact and launched an invasion of the USSR. That's exactly what happened the very next year when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa in summer 1941.

Goofs
The script makes reference to the Soviet law that a person could divorce his or her spouse simply by sending them a postcard announcing that the marriage was over. But in 1936, four years before this film was made, Stalin had repealed that law when he rewrote the Russian constitution and made divorces considerably harder to get.

Quotes
Vanya: The communists have ideas. But they found out you can't run a government with everybody going around having ideas. So what is happening, the communists are being executed so that Communism should succeed.

Crazy credits
"RUSSIA. The never never land of steppes, samovars and spies -- beards, bears, bombs and borscht - where almost anything can happen - and usually does. "

Connections
Featured in The Miracle of Sound (1940)

Soundtracks
Funiculi, Funicula
(1880) (uncredited)
Lyrics by Peppino Turco
Music by Luigi Denza
Sung a cappella with modified lyrics by Clark Gable

User reviews38

Review

Featured review

7/10

Tanks a lot!

I came in on "Comrade X" during the climatic tank chase scene. I don't know about the film as a whole, but the tank scene was wonderfully done. If it were done today it wouldn't be all that impressive. You'd be like "Hmmm, nice computer work!" But in 1940 it had to be done with actual existing props. So what you have is a swarm of "real" tanks chasing Gable's tank. On command they all stop, spin about and race in the opposite direction. Excellent cartoon like direction and fantastic execution of that direction. If you're a fan of cartoon like sequences done as live action then this film, or at least the final sequences thereof, are for you. Someone just tell me how they did this back in '40! One of the finest examples I can think of a great bit of work stuck somewhere in an almost forgotten film.

I did go back and research the special effects for this film. They were done by none other than A. Arnold Gillespie who won four Academy Awards out of thirteen nominations. Besides "Comrade X", he worked on such little films like "The Wizard of Oz" and "Ben-Hur". As for "Comrade X" a true case of an industry giant being handed what had to be a small assignment considering his considerable talents. The studio system works!