Speed

Terry Martin (James Stewart) test drives prototype cars for Emery Motors in Detroit. Jane Mitchell (Wendy Barrie) is the new hire at the publicity department. Frank Lawson (Weldon Heyburn) is the head engineer and designer. Josephine Sanderson (Una Merkel) is the office manager. There is friction between mechanic Terry and the engineering department. Terry has made a new carburetor. With Frank's alterations, they test it in the Indianapolis 500.

This starts with a nice car stunt and then it turns into a ten minute industrial educational film. They need to show off the machinery. I like my heavy metal and this is fascinating for me. For other people, it's probably rather boring. There is a nice little love triangle and then a quadrangle. For sure, Jimmy Stewart is the cat's meow and the audience knows it. It's an early lead role for him. He is certain to get a girl. The car action has some good stock-footage crashes. This seems to be a movie written by the auto industry. I like Jimmy and I like cars. The movie is ok.

Nope, not that Speed. Here we have one of Jimmy Stewart's first starring roles. He plays a test driver (sort of a living crash test dummy) for Emery Motors with ambitions to become something more and win the heart of pretty Wendy Barrie. So he designs a new carburetor and works with a rival to make it work before testing it out at the Indianapolis 500.

Jimmy Stewart fans might be a little surprised by this one. This isn't the usual likable guy-next-door Jimmy we all know and love. In fact, he's kind of a jerk at times. But that's the way the character is written so we can't fault Jimmy much for that. It feels like it was written with someone like James Cagney in mind. Weldon Heyburn (who?) plays Jimmy's rival for Wendy Barrie. Ted Healey plays Jimmy's comic relief best friend. The always adorable Una Merkel has a supporting part as an executive at Emery. Pretty surprising to see that, given the time in which this was made. Of course, she's in love with Heyburn's character and wonders aloud if the promotion to executive was worthwhile since it's come between them. But she never gives up her career during the film. There's also some talk at the end about gender fairness as relates to Wendy Barrie's character ("A girl can have horse sense, too!"). So this is pretty forward-thinking for a B picture from 1936.

The movie makes good use of rear projection effects and stock footage. It's interesting stuff if you're an automotive history buff. I liked seeing the old cars, auto factories, and the racing and crash footage. The "Falcon" car that Jimmy drives in the exciting climax was created just for the picture and it's pretty cool. All in all it's a decent movie with a few extras that make it a little more interesting than you might expect.

If one is asked to name the top 10 actors of the classic era, certain names always show up: Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, and James Stewart. Before Stewart became a megastar, though, he acted his way through small roles in big films - Rose-Marie, Born to Dance, Small Town Girl, Wife vs. Secretary, and a big role in a B film, Speed (1936). At 70 minutes, one wouldn't think it would be too long, but it is.

Speed is the story of a young man, Terry Martin (Stewart) who is the chief car tester for an automobile company. He has invented a carburetor which has not been refined or tested yet, but he has high hopes for it. A young woman, Jane Mitchell (Wendie Barrie), arrives there to work in publicity, and both Terry and an engineer in the company, Frank (Weldon Heyburn) are interested in her. When Frank is assigned to work on the carburetor with Terry, Terry isn't happy about it. And when he asks Jane to a dance and she refuses, saying she has too much work to do, and shows up with Frank (she's doing him a favor), then Terry is really unhappy and resentful.

Ultimately the company decides to enter the finished carburetor in the Indianapolis 500 race, even though Terry isn't satisfied that it's ready.

Lots and lots of racetrack footage, with Stewart playing a guy with a chip on his shoulder about his background. Una Merkel has the role of a secretary who has become an executive and is in love with Frank. "I wonder," she says with a sigh, "if a woman should rise too high." Yeah, it's the '30s all right.

I love James Stewart and I really believed I could watch him in anything. This film is certainly of interest to see how he was brought along in his career, but that's about it.

... because when he joined the Army air corps and left Hollywood behind, shortly after having won the Best Actor Oscar and the year after having starred in two classics ("Shop Around the Corner" and "The Philadelphia Story"), he had to look back on the earlier part of his career and remember films like this one, realizing that he might go right back to such dismal roles if he returned to acting. After all, Ronald Reagan hit it big with "King's Row" in 1942, but his military service in WWII set his career back aways, maybe permanently.

Terry Martin (James Stewart) is a test driver for the fictitious Emery Automotive Company (a real auto company like GM or Ford would have sued for being named in this turkey), where he becomes romantically interested in in PR person Jane Mitchell (Wendy Barrie). But romantic and professional misunderstandings keep the two apart. Meanwhile, Martin is designing a new carburetor without an engineering degree so he isn't bothered by pesky things such as advanced mathematics or physics. Oh, and MGM decides that Una Merkel, always such a spritely comic presence, is best put to use by playing...a rather stern auto executive??? The auto company decides to put Martin's carburetor to the test by putting it in a car and entering it in the Indianapolis 500, thus producing an opportunity for some very pedestrian and boring back projection and stock footage.

The dialogue is lackluster, the comic parts aren't funny , and the dramatic parts are boring. And who does the film turn to for comic effect? - Ted Healy! The guy who did The Three Stooges the best favor ever by cutting them loose. He's not funny now and I doubt that he was funny then, but then MGM was never known for its comedy chops.

The one interesting thing about it? Early on there are a few minutes of actual footage of how automobiles were made in 1936. But then they could have stuck that in a newsreel and not wasted an hour of everyone's time.

The point of interest in this movie is that it is the first starring role for James Stewart. Being a Three Stooges fan, as well as a fan of Mr. Stewart, I enjoyed Ted Healy's fairly substantial supporting role. If you don't know, Ted Healy started the Stooges act - they were HIS Stooges, at first - with first Moe Howard, then adding Shemp Howard, Moe's older brother, and finally adding Larry Fine in 1925. Ted was their boss; they basically responded to him as the central figure in their stage act. They signed with MGM in 1933, with Jerome Howard (Curley) as the third Stooge instead of Shemp (who quit), did a few shorts and had some minor roles in some features, then separated over money (mainly) in 1934. Ted went on to appear in a number of MGM films before his untimely death in 1937. In "Speed", he plays Gadget, Terry Martin's (Stewart) comic sidekick. Ted does a few things reminiscent of the Three Stooges, like having three incompetent assistants in one scene, letting out a "woo-woo" like Curley in another, and pulling the old "Gentlemen" gag (looking behind him when someone addresses them, as if he doesn't know who he's talking to). Not a great movie, but enjoyable enough. Also look for the underrated Una Merkel as "Jo".