Tag Archives: Ted Healy

Film Review: Speed (dir by Edwin L. Marin)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1936’s Speed takes place in Detroit, at the home of Emery Motors.

When Joan Mitchell (Wendy Barrie) shows up to start her new job in the PR department, one of the first things she sees is a car being driven around a race track at a high speed until eventually it crashes.  Automotive engineer Frank Lawson (Weldon Heybourn) explains that it’s all a part of making sure the car is safe.  At Emery Motors, they crash cars on a daily basis to make sure that both the car and the driver will survive.

Terry Martin (James Stewart), the driver of the crashed car, proceeds to give Joan a tour of the factory.  There’s an obvious attraction between the two of them but Joan also seems to have feelings for Frank.  Terry and Frank are rivals.  Terry may not have Frank’s education but he has instincts and he has common sense.  He and his friend, Gadget Haggerty (Ted Healy), have an instinctive understanding of cars.  They know how to drive them.  They know how to fix them.  They know how to make them go really fast.

In fact, Terry is working on a new carburetor, one that he says will increase the speed of Emery’s cars.  Frank is skeptical but Terry knows that, if he can enter his car into the Indianapolis 500, he’ll be able to prove that he knows what he’s talking about.  Joan comes to believe in Terry and his carburetor.  And, fortunately, Joan has a secret of her own that will be very helpful to Terry’s ambitions.

Speed was not Jimmy Stewart’s first feature role but it was his first starring role.  28 years old when he starred in Speed, Stewart is tall, a little bit gawky, and unbelievably adorable.  From the minute that Terry climbs out of that wrecked car and introduces himself to Joan, Stewart’s a true movie star.  He and Wendy Barrie have a lot of chemistry and are a truly cute couple but Stewart is the one who dominates the film with his straight-forward charisma.  Terry may not be the best educated engineer at Emery Motors but he is determined to prove himself and Stewart does a great job of portraying that determination.

As for the film itself, it’s low-budget and it’s short.  Automotive enthusiasts might enjoy seeing all of the old cars and getting a chance to see what a car race was about in the days when cars themselves were still a relatively new invention.  The film itself starts out as almost a documentary, with Stewart (as Terry) explaining how each car is manufactured on the assembly line.  He points out all the machinery that goes into making the car in an almost-awed tone of voice.  If the information is a bit dry, it doesn’t matter because it’s impossible not to enjoy listening to Jimmy Stewart speak.  In his pre-WWII films, Stewart was the voice of American optimism and that’s certainly the case with Speed.

Speed was not a huge box office success but, in just two years, Stewart would be working with Frank Capra on You Can’t Take It With You, the first Stewart film to be nominated for (and to win) the Oscar for Best Picture of the year.

Pre Code Confidential #5: HOLLYWOOD PARTY (MGM 1934)

Posted on by gary loggins

gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer

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One of the most bizarre films of the Pre-Code (or any) era is HOLLYWOOD PARTY. This practically plotless hodgepodge stars Jimmy Durante as jungle movie hero Schnarzan, whose films are tanking at the box office. The public has grown tired of his battles with “moth-eaten, toothless lions”, so his producer decides to buy new ones from the adventurer Baron Munchausen (radio star Jack Pearl doing his schtick). Schnarzan throws a big Hollywood party for the Baron, hoping to win his favor, but screen rival Liondola (dialect comic Georges Givot), disguising himself as the Grand Royal Duke of Peloponnesia, crashes the bash and tries to buy the lions for himself with the help of Oklahoma oil baron Harvey Crump (the perpetually perplexed  Charles Butterworth).

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All this is just an excuse for a series of unrelated comic bits featuring some of the era’s top funnymen. Durante, as the nominal star, gets the bulk of the material…

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Lisa Watches An Oscar Nominee: San Francisco (dir by W.S. Van Dyke)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

San_Francisco_(film)_poster

As I sit here writing this, I’m snowed in, my asthma’s acting up, and our cat is quickly losing patience with me.  On the plus side, however, this weather has given me an opportunity to watch some more of the old best picture nominees that I had saved up on my DVR.

For instance, I just finished watching the 1936 best picture nominee, San Francisco.

San Francisco was one of the first disaster films, a film that follows a group of characters as they attempt to survive the 1906 earthquake that destroyed the town of San Francisco.  And it has to be said that, nearly 80 years after the film was first released, the climatic earthquake remains effective and scary.  San Francisco, of course, was made long before there was any such thing as CGI.  Many of the film’s sets were built on special platforms that were designed to shake back and forth, just like in an actual earthquake.  When you see walls and buildings collapsing in San Francisco, you know that those walls are breaking apart and collapsing for real and the extras running for their life are literally doing just that.  After the earthquake, Clark Gable, as the film’s hero, walks through the ruins of San Francisco with the haunted look of a true survivor.  Gable was such a confident actor that it’s still jarring to see him looking overwhelmed.

Unfortunately, before you get to that spectacular earthquake, you have to sit through the rest of the film.  It’s a massive understatement to say that the pre-earthquake portion of San Francisco drags.  Clark Gable is Blackie Norton, a notorious gambler and saloon keeper.  Blackie may be a rogue but he’s a rogue with a heart of gold.  His childhood friend, Father Tim (Spencer Tracy), wants Blackie to run for the board of supervisors.  Blackie, however, is more interested in Mary Blake (Jeanette MacDonald), the newest singer at his club.

From the minute she first appears to the very end of the film, Jeanette MacDonald is singing.  Even when she’s not at the center of the scene, you can often hear her singing in the background.  And, after a little while, you just want her to stop singing.  But, whenever that happens, she tries to act and you realize that the only thing more boring than Jeanette MacDonald singing is Jeanette MacDonald acting.

Anyway, the film goes through all of the expected melodrama.  Blackie wants to reform.  Blackie decides not to reform.  Father Tim believes that there’s good in Blackie.  Father Tim gives up on Blackie.  Father Tim decides to give Blackie another chance.  Mary loves Blackie.  Mary fears Blackie.  Mary leaves Blackie.  Mary comes back to Blackie.  Mary leaves Blackie again.  Mary sings.  And sings and sings and sings…

But then, just when you’re about to fall asleep, the city starts to shake and all is forgotten in the wake of a natural disaster.  Even earthquakes serve a purpose…

San Francisco was a huge box office success.  It was nominated for best picture.  Somehow, Spencer Tracy received a nomination for best actor, despite the fact that he’s really not that impressive in the film. (His role is primarily a supporting one and he’s consistently overshadowed by Gable.)  The only Oscar that San Francisco won was for best sound recording and it must be said that, after all these years, the earthquake still sounds terrifying.

As for the film itself, I’d suggest skipping ahead to the earthquake.  That, after all, is the main reason anyone would be watching the film and, by skipping ahead, you’re spared having to sit through an hour and a half of Jeanette MacDonald singing.