King of Hockey

Hollywood had many sad stories, but here is a swift, engaging yarn, starring four attractive, capable actors, who all died at a rather young age, with the two men playing professional athletes: Dick Purcell (38), Wayne Morris (45), Anne Nagel (50), and, as the paradigmatic pretty and dizzy blonde, Marie Wilson (56). It seems that people who entertain others should have a happier fate. The story is not much, but it involves friendship and forgiveness and the proud, self-reliance of the main character. Movies about boxing, baseball, football, running, horse-racing, and track and field are more common, but despite "Slap Shot" (1977), hockey is a rarity.

Dave Hodge, host of Hockey Night In Canada introduced King Of Hockey in serialized fashion during intermissions back in the 1970s. Many of we Canadian kids who watched never forgot. Synopsis: A hotshot ice hockey player named Gabby Dugan gets involved with the wrong crowd and his goaltender friend thinks our hero has sold out to the mob.

A scuffle breaks out and the goalie bops our hero over the melon with the modified cricket bat we hockey fans call a "goalstick." Everyone knows that high-scoring forwards and stingy goalies are always at odds and alternately admire and despise one another. This story seems to bank on that conflict.

The final game comes and Gabby has to play. Is he up to the task without vision? Does a team with the audacity to call themselves "The Violets" deserve any chance at the hallowed Stanley Cup?

This movie no doubt inspired many big Hollywood movies in years to come, including probably the 2003 flick, "Daredevil."

It should be distributed on DVD. If not, we may as well all be Gabby Dugans, because we'll probably never see this beauty again. I'll have to join Dave Hodge and toss my pen away in disgust and that wouldn't be pretty.

Great action highlighted by some superb camera work and excellent skating more than make up for a fairly lame script.

The actors were good. Dick Purcell was well cast since he had played hockey in college.

Wayne Morris in this early role was thoroughly charming and boyish.

George E. Stone as the bad guy stood out because of his charm. He obviously couldn't have been really evil, not with that smile.

This could have been a great movie if the story had been allowed to develop, but apparently the bosses ordered it kept to an hour. Too bad.

With this very talented cast and crew, "King of Hockey" could have been a classic.

According to Wikipedia, this is the first hockey movie ever made. Not a bad start for a movie made almost 20 years before the first televised NHL game.

This short film is simple, charming and funny at time. There's definitely some original ideas (I don't think I've ever seen a story about a hockey player going blind), but the love story isn't much different from a ton of other 1930s movies.

The hockey scenes are what made this film truly enjoyable. For a 1936 movie, the on-ice cinematography is extremely surprising. It's fast, dynamic, agressive, and full of action shots. Some of them are exaggerated (especially the wall jumps that you will absolutely never see in a real hockey game), but still entertaining in the same way that the boxing scenes in Rocky are fun to watch. The 1930s arena is also a fun and rare thing to see if you like hockey history.

If you are a hockey fan, I recommend it.

I had the feeling that Warner Bros. was trying to showcase some up and coming stars near the start of their careers: both Dick Purcell and Wayne Morris started to get onscreen billing in 1936, and a hockey sports drama was chosen because Purcell was on the Fordham University hockey team and had experience playing the game. His hockey sequences look pretty good, but Morris looked very uncoordinated as the goalie. With the exception of Max Hoffman Jr., who you never see playing very much, the other players were hired from the University of Southern California and Loyola University hockey teams, making the action on the ice look very good indeed. The female leads, lovely Anne Nagel and her cute kid sister, Ann Gilles, were easy to enjoy, and the plot, involving gamblers trying to get Purcell to throw games, was the passable but predictable. Hockey fans will like this film, if only for action.