Fast Life

This is a so-so story, with the typical formula of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again, in combination with a story about speedboat design and racing. There isn't much here to interest today's movie viewer. While there are some movies of the early 1930s which continue to delight us (e.g. Dinner At Eight), this movie isn't one of them.

Lead star William Haines was at the end of his film career. In his biography of Haines, "Wisecracker", author William J. Mann alleges that Haines's career was on the decline partly due to his aging out of the roles he had become typecast in, and also to becoming pudgy. Yet, Haines appears in a swimsuit in this film, looking fit and trim.

The Great Depression made film studios reluctant to make long-term contracts with actors, and when they did, they substantially reduced the salaries paid. Stories of Haines's enmity with MGM brass, and the effects of his personal life, may be apocryphal. The net net is that Haines wasn't making money for MGM any longer, and so he was out.

I wouldn't recommend this film unless you are a real die-hard Haines fan.

William Haines is a fast-talking ex-sailor with big ideas for building the world's fastest speed boat, winning the love of a rich man's daughter and foiling the plots of a crooked young banker. Maybe some of his dreams will come true, if he can only slow down his hectic FAST LIFE.

The story is silly, as were most of Haines' pictures, but he's always enjoyable to watch. Extensive location shooting around the Catalina Island waterfront gives the film a boost.

Haines is his normal antic, brash self, doing all he can to annoy Madge Evans, as the love interest. Conrad Nagel is the banker, in a pleasant departure from his usual good guy roles. Little Cliff Edwards is funny as Haines' buddy. Karl Dane appears uncredited in a bit part as a wharf watchman. Only a few years before he'd been one of MGM's silent stars, but his thick Danish accent didn't pass the grade in the new world of talking pictures and he quickly faded. He would die a suicide two years after FAST LIFE was released.

This was also to be William Haines' last MGM film. He & Louis B. Mayer had loathed each other for years and Haines was finally given the shove. After a couple of films at a minor studio, he would become a very successful interior decorator.

Ex-sailors William Haines and Cliff Edwards have developed a new kind of engine for motor boats and have come to Catalina Island where apparently everyone has a motor boat to sell it to folks who make a living at racing. Haines manages to blow it with Madge Evans, but with her father Arthur Byron who owns a boat yard and races he scores a big success.

But this is both the Depression and Prohibition and no one including Byron has money to splurge on new inventions. On the romantic front banker Conrad Nagel is cutting in on Evans at Haines's expense. Nagel does however have some secrets that he has to be most discreet about.

This was Billy Haines last film with MGM. He did two more for minor studios and then left acting for the more gay friendly atmosphere in the interior decorating business. It was hard enough to keep Haines closeted when he truly hated the idea of a closet. Fast Life however gives you a good sampling of the kind of smart aleck character that Haines made his specialty. He gets good support from Cliff Edwards as well in the sidekick part.

Conrad Nagel who was a big name in the silent screen era is playing the heavy for a change. A sophisticated heavy to be sure, but a heavy and he scores well in the part.

Over 80 years old and Fast Life is still a pretty funny item.

Navy buddies, Sanderson 'Sandy' Burton (William Haines) and Franz 'Bumpy' Jurgens, leave the service after blowing up a boat. Sandy had invented a revolutionary carburetor and befriends boat builder John D. Jameson who is eager to race the fastest boat. The daughter Shirley Jameson (Madge Evans) is weary of her father racing, but falls for the rogue inventor.

This is a bit of dumb fun. It is maybe too dumb for some people. I would like it to get even dumber and do it more often. They set up some gags. They just need to push them over the top and I would get rid of the gunplay. This is sometimes fun.

William Haines' last movie for MGM has him and Cliff Edwards trying to get their speedboat engine perfected. After he hitches a ride to Catalina Island with Madge Evans, he convinces her father, Arthur Byron, to back him. But he's almost broke, and when the engine explodes, he's busted, leading Haines to rob yachts and leave IOUs. Meanwhile, Conrad Nagel is trying to marry Miss Evans, which doesn't suit Haines at all.

There's quite a lot of location shooting on Catalina Island, and Pete Smith turns up for a rare on-screen appearance. Yet while this movie follows the Haines performance -- minus all the gay not-quite-subtext --it wasn't enough. The standard story is that Louis Mayer ordered Haines to marry a woman and ditch his longtime partner Jimmy Shields, or else. Apparently Haines chose or else. But in truth his screen vehicles were not drawing as well as they had when he was Metro's solo talking star. He was aging out of his wise-guy-juvenile persona, and his contract was undoubtedly priced above his current drawing power. So he made two more movies a couple of years later, stayed with his lover for the next fifty, and ran a very successful decorating firm. For a Hollywood second act, it was a happy one.