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Writer's pictureSamantha Glasser

Automobile August: Danger on Wheels (1940)

Start your engines! The invention and development of the automobile coincides with the birth and growth of the movie industry. This month we watch movies where cars play a major role.


RODNEY BOWCOCK: Pop O’Shea has developed a new special race car engine that runs on oil instead of gas. Unfortunately, in a freak accident, the driver of the car dies when the engine explodes. A stunt driver, Lucky Taylor (Richard Arlen) is blamed for the accident. To clear his name, he embarks on a scheme to test the engine in a race and prove that the engine has real possibilities.


SAMANTHA GLASSER: Danger on Wheels was fifth in a series of 14 films that teamed Arlen and Devine. It continued with other actors filling in for Arlen when his contract with Universal expired in 1941. This information sort of surprised me because I didn’t think they were remarkably well matched as a team. They certainly fulfill opposing types but their chemistry wasn’t anything special.

 

RB: By all accounts, these films were quite popular with exhibitors, though one could question if these films are an actual series as Arlen and Devine never actually play the same characters and there is no continuity from one film to the next. I’ve seen a few of these and I tend to enjoy them well enough, although this wouldn’t be the first time that my taste has been called into question.


SG: Arlen’s character is arrogant and brash. He expects the beautiful secretary to go out with him after he messes up the hat she just spent considerable time landing just so, and then tries to yank her away from her desk like a caveman. Fortunately for the modern viewer, it doesn’t work, at least not for quite a while. The culprit could be brain damage from the insane stunts he completes. This man is a living crash test dummy. We actually see him intentionally drive head on into a stationary vehicle to test a vehicle’s safety. This man is going to die from a concussion faster than a professional football player.

 

RB: I’m not sure if that is actually how these things were tested during the time or if a little creative license was taken. I do suspect that Arlen’s behavior was not supposed to be seen as off-putting, which is definitely how it comes across today. To me, Arlen probably supposed to be a sort of he-man.


SG: A he-man woman hater. The studio, stuntman Lucky Teeter and the Studebaker Sales Corporation faced a lawsuit filed by stunt driver Earl Lester “Wild Bill” Simon who sued for $100,000 damages. He claimed that footage of his own stunts made on the Studebaker proving grounds in South Bend, Indiana in 1935 was used in the film without his permission. Teeter was the head of the drivers involved, and Simon acknowledged the footage was taken by Universal’s newsreel department. I could find no mention in the newspapers of the era that disclosed the result of the suit, which makes me believe it was settled out of court.


RB: All of the Arlen-Devine films were generally built around stock footage of action scenes that Universal had in their library. Sometimes it’s easy to tell what films the footage originated in, but I was coming up blank on this one. Knowing that the footage came from newsreels makes sense to me, and it’s a bummer that it’s so difficult to see that sort of film. I bet there’s all kinds of neat stuff to see in those.


SG: Frankly it seemed odd to see such bulky sedans doing jump stunts so I enjoyed the early scenes more than the race scenes.

 

Speaking of stuntmen, I spotted David Sharpe in the first big fight scene.


Andy Devine is always a welcome presence. I found the image of him wearing an enormous apron tied high up into his armpits to do housework great fun. Mary Treen doesn’t get enough screen time as the henpecking landlord. I was delighted to see James Morton at the end of this film as the police officer, a role he often played in his time with Hal Roach. His stare down with Andy is laugh-out-loud funny and he doesn’t say a word.

RB: I generally always enjoy Andy Devine and his comic relief in this film is really welcome and provides some of my favorite bits.


SG: The movie has all the hallmarks of a low budget programmer: the premature fade-out, stock characters and lots of rear projection.

 

“This series has very little first run value, but Dick Arlen proves a very good draw in the nabes and subsequent runs, particularly where action pictures are popular,” wrote Box Office Digest.

 

The Film Daily said, “Picture is fairly well paced and the story holds together, although it telegraphs its punches.”

 

The Movies… And the People Who Make Them wrote, “Andy Devine injects considerable comedy as faithful but slow-witted mechanic Guppy. The real hero, however, is speed, the roaring speed of the racetracks, and ‘Lucky’ Teeter, professional racer, does the doubling there for some spectacular shots.”

 

Showmen’s Trade Review said, “The setting of this one, the automobile racing tracks, make for some of the fastest action these two have seen and as a result, the picture is mighty good entertainment for the weekend fans who delight in this type of story. Of course, it has the requisite amount of hokum, but it isn't laid on too thick and the romance is properly subordinated to the action at all times.”

 

RB: Of course, this is the sort of film that the neighborhood theatres loved. While scouring the reviews in What The Pictures Did For Me, I couldn’t find a single negative review. Here is a sampling of what the theater managers had to say:


“The best in this series of pictures thus far. These stars well liked and get us business for bargain nights better than most program pictures.” - Park Theatre, North Vernon IN


“A good picture for any day and will send them out more than satisfied.” - Elite Theatre Laurens IA


“The Arlen-Devine series is a good little action group for our house. Universal can number the series among its assets” - Uptown Theatre Pueblo CO


SG: I found the characterizations to be better than most movies churned out for the bottom half of a double bill, especially in the case of Peggy Moran who isn’t a pushover for any many with a pretty face, so although the racing plot and track scenes bored me, I enjoyed the interplay between the characters. 2.5 stars.  


RB: The film is competently made and while the stock footage doesn’t necessarily blend in seamlessly, it does work. Andy Devine is always fun, and I enjoyed the stunts and racing more than I often enjoy this sort of things. Three stars for a decent way to blow an hour.

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Arlen and Devine were often billed as The Aces of Action, which has become the informal name for this series, and yes, they were designed specifically to utilize as much of Universal's stock footage library as possible. (Producer Ben Pivar was a former editor who had a natural instinct for this sort of thing.) I can highly recommend Thomas Reeder's biography of Pivar, "Stop Yellin'," for more depth on him and his cinematic legacy.


BTW, the last Arlen/Devine title, "A Dangerous Game," subverts the formula by being a comedy whodunit filmed almost entirely on a single standing set. It's really quite delightful.

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