Buddies Big John McMasters and Square John Sand are fast-talking, wisecracking wildcatters who manage to con enough equipment and capital to develop their own oil fields, but their friendship is put to the test when Big John inadvertently falls in love with Elizabeth, Square John's longtime girlfriend. Eventually their friendship and partnership comes to an end on the flip of a coin. Years later, when Big John's interest in the beautiful Karen Vanmeer threatens his marriage too, Square John intervenes in an effort to save the marriage of his former friend - even if it means ruining him financially.
--Written by G. Taverney (duke1029@aol.com)

User Comments: "Moves Along At A Cracking Pace", 3 April 2006
Author: (howardmorley@aol.com) from United Kingdom

This film has four big stars perfectly cast and appearing at their very best in a very entertaining film about "wild catting" in the American oil industry. I rated it 7/10. First up is Clark Gable playing the "man's man" role he made so famous in "Gone with the Wind". Next up is Spencer Tracy giving one of his speeches in court where he seems so comfortable, ("Judgment at Nuremburg", Cass Timberlayne" etc). Next up we have Claudette Colbert giving one of her best sympathetic "tea and sympathy" performances e.g. "Since You Went Away" and finally there is the gorgeous Hedy Lamarr playing to her strength of a sophisticated, intelligent and beautiful business associate who knows how the oil industry business is transacted in the New York corridors of power. The film was made one year before the U.S. entered WWII so the budget could afford to be generous. For its day, the scenes and special effects of the oil well fire were very realistic. One reviewer remarked that Clark Gable in his youth worked on a "wild cat" oil site, if so this gave his performance added realism. What about those muddy roads. I felt like asking the town corporation to pave them over with some of that oil money flooding into the oil barons' coffers which presumably would attract some local taxation!