And Then There Were Four

Five people in Los Angeles get up and start out to drive to their day. One is looking for a job. Several have jobs. We get to see them, their families, what sort of people they are: nice people. After ten minutes, we are told that one won't be coming home that evening.

The movie goes on for another fifteen minutes, while the audience wonders. We get to see their "minor violations". The woman looking for a job gets it. The older man gets sent to driver's education.

It's one of the best driver's safety movies I have ever seen because it humanizes the people, and shows the consequences not in ketchup spilled on the road to simulate blood, but in the reactions of the people waiting for them. James Stewart's folksy, kindly narration is a big plus too.

This is narrated by James Stewart and sponsored by a couple of oil companies. The start reminds me of Our Town. Jimmy tells the stories of five drivers with various issues. He reveals that one of them will not return home.

The acting is all second rate like most industrial educational films. The Jimmy Stewart narration does shock me out of my boredom. Otherwise, this is boring. I would have expected at least a great car crash. All they deliver is an overturned car being set on fire. It's not the action that I needed. They try to generate some tension over the mystery of the one. Only I couldn't care less.

I've seen plenty of highway safety films (almost a hobby of mine), but this one will stick with me for a long time. All five of the people profiled leaving in the morning were ordinary people going about their daily affairs. A widowed mother looking for a job, a newly-married salesman, a hot-rodding teenager, a poor gardener with an old truck and a family, and an impatient well-to-do doctor. Just ordinary people. But one will not return home that night. We must wait along with the relatives of the five, until we find out at the very end who it was. Heart-breaking.

There was another comment here that the acting was subpar and the plot was boring. I respectfully disagree. While the acting was not Oscar-worthy, it got the point across. Made me think that I should drive more carefully. Life can end at any moment.

I just caught this on YouTube. Jimmy Stuart narrates. Life was so different back then, although some things never change. It starts out light hearted but things turn grim pretty quick. The ending was not what I expected.