Comrade X


Comrade X is a 1940 American comedy spy film directed by King Vidor and starring Clark Gable, Hedy Lamarr, and Oskar Homolka. In February 2020, the film was shown at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, as part of a retrospective dedicated to King Vidor's career.

Plot

In the Soviet Union, American reporter McKinley "Mac" Thompson secretly writes unflattering stories about the Soviet Union, attributed to "Comrade X", for his newspaper. His identity is discovered by his valet, Vanya, who blackmails Mac into promising to get his daughter, a streetcar conductor named Theodore, out of the country. Theodore agrees to a sham marriage so she can spread the message of the benefits of Communism to the rest of the world. However, Commissar Vasiliev is determined to unmask and arrest Comrade X. Eventually Theodore sees the "wicked hypocrisy of Communism" and falls in love with Thompson.

Cast

Gable prophetically jokes that "Germany just invaded Russia" and "Panzer tanks are rolling into Ukraine" to get the Russian hotel manager to kick the German reporter out of his room. Less than a year after release, Germany did indeed invade Russia and the Ukrainian SSR.
Pre-war American films such as Comrade X and Ninotchka also depict the Soviet Union as backwards, dreary, depressing and totalitarian. After the United States entered the war on Russia's side, however, Hollywood's depictions of Russians immediately changed to brave, honorable, freedom-loving liberators. The UK specifically pulled Comrade X from the cinemas.
At one point in the movie, after McKinley feeds vodka to his secretary Olga and embraces her, Golubka enters his room and the women engage in a "hair pulling battle" over his affections that is "hilariously staged".

Box office

According to MGM records the film earned $1,520,000 in the US and Canada and $559,000 elsewhere resulting in a profit of $484,000.