Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Clark Gable and Hedy La Marr starred in this awful mess.This is certainly no Ninotchka, even with its anti-Communist theme. The film is just awful.It would have been funnier had they managed to make more fun of the Nazis in it. I realize that the film came out in 1940 and since we weren't at war with the beasts as yet, the film board probably wanted to cool things down.The ending becomes a ridiculous tank chase and becomes very silly after a while.The Commies come and go and knock each other off as if it's nothing. Even though it was so true, it was done film wise in such a boring way. The idea that the poet philosopher was a true phony who went on to kill his supporters was not adequately explained.A year after "Gone With the Wind" and Clark Gable had a bomb with this film!

Who would have guessed that the usually wooden but dazzlingly beautiful Hedy Lamarr could be so delightfully funny, adorable and charming as she is in this Ninotchka role. It's a pity that she was rarely --if ever again-- given another opportunity to play this sort of anything-goes screwball comedy. Hedy here is as real and believable as Carole Lombard at her best. The script written by Ben Hecht ("Nothing Sacred"), Charlie Lederer ("The Front Page" screenplay) and the uncredited Herman Mankiewicz ("Citizen Kane") is a bizarre hard-boiled political satire ending with a lengthy and totally absurd slapstick Russian tank chase through the woods and across the river into Rumania. It looks as if it came straight out of a Max Sennett movie. Gable is his usual tough and handsome self, wonderfully adept with the throw-away gags he is given. The rest of the cast is rounded out with some of the best European character actors then living in Hollywood --the Germans Sig Ruman, Felix Bressart and the Viennese Oskar Homoloka—- all playing Russians and Germans. As an added bonus there is the first on-screen appearance by the rarely seen Berlin-born actress, Natasha Lytess ("Olga"), best remembered now as Marilyn Monroe's first acting coach way before her Lee Strasberg days.

It is Hedy Lamarr Month at TCM and they get a jump on it early with this screwball comedy that really show Ms. Lamarr's beauty.She was not a great actress, but she had a face that rivaled Helen of Troy. Paired here with Clark Gable in a satire of the Communist government in Russia, it was an enjoyable movie.Walter Reisch, who got an Oscar for the original Titanic, got a nomination for this story. His story was ably turned into a fine script by Ben Hecht (Notorious, Underworld, The Scoundrel, with assistance by Herman J. Mankiewicz (Citizen Kane) and Charles Lederer (the original Ocean's Eleven).Directed by five-time Oscar nominee King Vidor (War and Peace, The Crowd), it was a fine introduction to Lamarr.

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!