Comrade X is a 1940 lighthearted spy movie, starring Clark Gable

Clark Gable

William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...

 and Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress celebrated for her great beauty who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age".Lamarr also co-invented – with composer George Antheil – an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary to wireless...

 and directed by King Vidor

King Vidor

King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...

.

Plot summary

In the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, American reporter McKinley "Mac" Thompson (Gable) secretly writes unflattering stories, attributed to "Comrade X", for his newspaper. His identity is discovered by his valet, Vanya (Felix Bressart

Felix Bressart

Felix Bressart was a German-American actor of stage and screen.Felix Bressart was born in East Prussia, Germany and was already a very experienced stage actor when he had his film debut in 1928. He started off as a supporting actor, e.g...

), who blackmail

Blackmail

In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...

s Mac into promising to get his daughter, a streetcar conductor named Theodore (Lamarr), out of the country. Theodore agrees to a sham marriage so she can spread the message of the benefits of Communism

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

 to the rest of the world. However, Commissar

Commissar

Commissar is the English transliteration of an official title used in Russia from the time of Peter the Great.The title was used during the Provisional Government for regional heads of administration, but it is mostly associated with a number of Cheka and military functions in Bolshevik and Soviet...

 Vasiliev (Oscar Homolka

Oscar Homolka

Oskar Homolka was an Austrian film and theatre actor. Homolka's strong accent, stocky appearance, bushy eyebrows and Slavic name led many to believe he was Eastern European or Russian, but he was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary.- Career :After serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War...

) is determined to unmask and arrest Comrade X.