Idol of the Crowds

Idol of the Crowds casts John Wayne as a young chicken farmer from Maine who comes from a small town that looks suspiciously like Mandrake Falls where Gary Cooper as Longfellow Deeds hailed from. I've no doubt that George Waggner who wrote the story and screenplay and later directed the Duke in The Fighting Kentuckian and a personal favorite of mine, Operation Pacific was very much influenced by Mr. Deeds Goes to Town when he did this B film for Wayne and Universal.

This film was one of a series of six that Wayne did for Universal from 1936-1937 where he was trying to expand his image from simply being a B picture cowboy. Those films are rarely seen today, one of them Adventure's End, is considered lost.

Though I think that some of them were a cut above the B films Wayne was doing for Lone Star Productions at the time, this isn't one of them. The Duke really doesn't cut it as a hockey player, he was so much better as a football player in College Coach, a football coach in Trouble Along the Way or a boxer in The Quiet Man. Then again he's positively graceful on skates next to James Stewart in Ice Follies of 1939.

Wayne who just wants to have the biggest and best chicken farm in the state of Maine, signs with a professional hockey team to make enough money to do just that. Younger brother Billy Burrud goes along with him to the big city and becomes the team mascot.

Of course Duke runs afoul of gamblers who offer him big money to throw the championship series. And there's the romance with Sheila Bromley which plays a lot like Jean Arthur and Gary Cooper.

But if you're dealing with either John Wayne or Gary Cooper you know very well how things will work out.

Could it be that John and Sheila did get married and eventually raise three strapping misfit Hanson sons who went on to play hockey for the Charlestown Chiefs and Paul Newman?

Bobby and Johnny Hanson move from a chicken farm into the high-profile pro hockey world. These were hockey's ORIGINAL 'Hanson Brothers.' The classic Paul Newman film 'Slap Shot' would introduce a less sympathetic version some 40 years hence (and none of that stinking root beer..).

And while the hockey is a bit hokey, 'Idol' had some good things going for it. First of all, it was a hockey movie, which endears itself to me for that reason alone. Secondly, 'Duke' Wayne is dashing and handsome in this 'B' film from the dawn of his cinematic career. Its the typical 'small-town-boy-does-good, has-a-brush-with-gangsters, but-emerges-with-the-girl-unscathed' story of its era.

One feels great sympathy for the goalie Johnny (Wayne) scores all his goals against. Looks like his pants had to be patched up by 1/2 a roll of hockey tape! Like so many big time Hollywood actors who portrayed hockey players, "The Duke" looks awkward skating in this flick - you can see plenty of chicken farmer thigh between the socks and pants most of the time - but he seems to be as good (or maybe as BAD...?) as the other players. Fortunately for his career in westerns, he eventually learned to ride a horse...

Aside from the novelty of seeing John Wayne on ice skates*, "Idol of the Crowds" is a pretty routine sports B-movie with many familiar story elements.

When the story begins, the New York Panthers hockey team is having a lot of trouble and they send out scouts to find good players. Oddly, they invite Johnny Hanson (Waybe) to try out even though no one on the team has seen him play. As for Hanson, he only wants to play long enough to make enough money to buy a nice chicken ranch!

Well, Johnny is a huge success but gamblers are eager to trip him up...so they first get a girl to pitch woo to him and then try to get him to throw a playoff game. When that doesn't work, they hurt Johnny's kid brother! And, you wonder what's next!

No major surprises here but a modestly enjoyable B-picture.

An American drama; A story set in New England about a retired hockey player who is persuaded to turn professional so he can afford ot enlarge his chicken farm, but he is threatened when a gangster wants him to throw a championship game. Routine, predictable, but it has some neat sporting action and interesting footage of Madison Square Garden staging Detroit Red Wings and New York Rangers that double for the two fictional teams in the film. The romance subplot is absurd and even the general plot skates on thin ice. John Wayne's athleticism on the ice isn't put to the full test but he plays his role well enough.

The 30 year old middle class John Wayne does not always get the scripts that endear him to universal audiences. Although he can demonstrate range in his acting abilities, when he tells a black maid that she better get out of the room before he ships her back to Africa, this immediately demonises Wayne even to his hard core fans. Bearing in mind that he married a Mexican, we do not have to be lulled into thinking that he was averse to diversity, but the scripting of this film had a lot to be desired. Both the writer and director take pride in insulting the quintessential mammy whose bustle turns out to be the rest of her body. Her eyes roll like a caricature, and the lines that she is given is unpalatable.