Fireman, Save My Child!

Joe E. Brown plays a small town inventor and fireman, who creates a small bomb which puts out fires. The story involves his efforts to patent it; baseball provides the means by which he earns the money to do so. It is a typical Brown comedy - a fairly involved plot, romance in the form of Evelyn Knapp and plenty of action sequences, mainly involving fire. (The opening sequence contains a fire at the local Sauerkraut Factory, which indicates the elaborate production values contained in the film.) There are problems with the film, I think, displayed in the also typical Joe E. Brown swagger and bragadoccio, (which can be very annoying) and the character's involvement with con men and a femme fatale, who take him for a good deal of his savings. This twist is strangely unresolved at the film's end. And it is frustrating to the viewer in that one wonders how anyone could be so uncaring as to ignore the fact that he's supposed to pitch in the seventh game of the World Series. It's well worth watching, though, as a well produced film with some great sequences, not typical fare for 1932.

Joe E. Brown stars as a lumbering galoot, who is a great baseball player and who invented a new, chemical based fire extinguisher, delivered in a baseball sized sphere. This wildly improbable yarn includes two of the beauties of the period, Evelyn Knapp and Lilian Bond, two of the many young women, who flocked to the dream factories at the outset of the Great Depression. Demonstrating the effectiveness of his invention and leading St. Louis to victory over New York keeps Brown busy in Lloyd Bacon's involving, suspenseful 67 minute yarn. When he's not eating bananas, Brown has a hectic schedule, swinging from one task to another. Even New Yorkers can cheer this daring young man!

Joe E. Brown could be a very funny guy, but you had to appreciate his particular brand of humor. He got a lot of mileage out of playing cocksure hayseeds, which he does here. There are always some visual jokes but normally you had to keep your eye on him and listen for his mid-western cornball replies, which varied in the degree of jocularity.

But this was the early 1930's, and this type of comedy would not work on today's audiences. Most of the situations take too long to develop and his sense of humor is too droll for modern times, in the same way you could not make, for instance, "Mr. Hulot's Holiday" nowadays. Modern moviegoers would rather see Adam Sandler or Jim Carrey.

"Fireman, Save My Child" is worth seeing if you can remember Joe E. Brown and savor his goofy, good-natured style. There are some good, funny moments embedded in a forgettable tale about a fireman-inventor who plays baseball. But if you don't remember him you might as well forget this picture.

Joe Grant (Joe E. Brown) is a small town inventor, a fireman and a baseball player. He puts it all together by inventing a fire extinguishing ball. He's trying to earn money pitching in the big game when the fire alarm is sounded. He drops everything to fight the fire. He gets called to the big leagues, but he is still more interested in other things. He is spending all his money on his invention. He has his small town girl Sally Toby. Big city gal June Farnum is nothing but trouble.

It's a light comedy. It's mildly amusing. Joe E. Brown is likeable enough and has some fun light moments. Instead of being seduced by June, I would like the villain to be an evil male rival. It's just that he shouldn't have eyes on another girl if he is truly in love with Sally. It's not an appealing side of his character.

I just don't understand the phenomenon that was Joe E. Brown's career in the 1930s. Again and again in films he played a doofus--and often a tough to like one. In this movie he wasn't ask selfish and despicable as he was in another one of his baseball films, ELMER THE GREAT, but he nevertheless seemed to care little about disappointing his teammates or the fan. And throughout the film, his main schtick was his love of fire prevention and his rubbery face. To me, after a while, this all wore very, very thin.

Fortunately, despite my general ill feelings towards Brown's characters, the rest of the film was a very interesting time capsule, as the film is about the 1932 St. Louis Cardinals and their race to the World Series. Unfortunately, cameos by old-time athletes are not featured in the film.

Also, while you might not readily notice, this movie's plot was re-worked into the great film THE NATURAL. Think about it--a country bumpkin comes to the big leagues and becomes a star, only to be de-railed by a "bad woman" (forgetting his sweetie back at home in the process).

Overall, it's a mildly interesting time-passer and that's about it. This film sure hasn't aged well.