No one’s much fun to be with in this Warners programmer about a banned racecar driver who sues a bus company for damages when one their coaches wrecks his speedster. But he just might change his mind after meeting the company owner, a pretty gal in danger of being run out of the biz thru sabotage from within and a power play from without by a larger competitor. Sounds like a workable plot, and with second-unit action director B. Reeves Eason calling the shots over a one-hour running time it should make some sort of mark. But the minor league players in the cast are anything but good company (alpha male Dick Purcell, a poor man’s James Cagney, especially weak*), and there’s not enough racing footage to make up for what’s missing. (All stock shots, newsreel accident footage & backscreen process work.) A pity, because hiding in plain sight is a perfectly hilarious story idea Purcell proposes to get back on his feet: use underemployed race car drivers on all the bus routes for extra-speedy service runs! A spectacularly silly idea! Imagine terrified customers & uninsured accidents as motorbike cops chase revved-up buses on those curvy two-lane country highways. Kids on the bus in thrall to all the excitement & danger; oldsters losing their lunch as the bus all but tips over on hairpin turns. You get a taste of this when company owner Beverly Roberts drives a bus with failing brakes, but it’s a suspense sequence not comedy. Too bad.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Spot some company siblings in debuting Gloria Blondell (kid sister of Joan) and Charley Foy (kid brother of King of the ‘Bs’ producer Bryan Foy) doing comic relief. He’s okay; she overplays something awful.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: * The real James Cagney hits the race track (and Joan Blondell) in Howard Hawks’ THE CROWD ROARS/’32.
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