Danger on Wheels

crappy rear projection lucky is obnoxious

"Danger on Wheels" is a cheap B-movie, and Richard Arlen made a ton of them. However, the film is different in that although it clearly stinks, it was made by one of the larger studios. While Universal, at that time, was not nearly as big or successful as studios like MGM, Warner or Twentieth Century-Fox, it was big enough that it should have been making better films than THIS. In quality and especially writing, this film looks like sometime from tiny PRC or one of the other so-called 'Poverty Row' studios!

Arlen plays a stunt driver named 'Lucky', though I think a better nickname would have been 'Fat-head', as his character is extremely conceited. Not surprisingly, his attitude is very off-putting and the unfortunate girl he's set his sights on wisely isn't taken in by his brash attitude. Is this because she's intelligent. No...she's clearly an idiot as you'll see through the course of the film-- especially when Lucky and his friend (Andy Devine) try to help her and her father from losing their car company...and she behaves very strange and incredibly hostile. In addition to the film rarely making sense, the leading man being a jerk and the girl being empty- headed, the film uses crappy rear projection and a lot of clichés to bring you 61 minutes of barely passable entertainment. If you care to see it (and for the life of me I don't know why), you can copy it for free from archive.org--a website dedicated to public domain films. And, considering what I just saw, I can clearly understand why Universal didn't bother renewing their copyright on this one!

Richard Arlen and Andy Devine play a racing car driver and his mechanic. Arlen is a cocky sonavagun who is a daredevil and the track and really earns the nickname of Lucky.

The film breezes by with the speed of one of its subjects. After being held responsible and cleared of the matter of the death f another driver, Arlen makes his own tests of the car with a special motor in it that killed the other driver. At the same time winning Peggy Moran.

The racing sequences are nice and make up for the holes in plot and characterization.

Richard Arlen is a stunt driver. When Vinton Hayworth walks out, Arlen is promoted to race driver, and there's a fatality. He's found not responsible, but he's considered a rotter by Peggy Moran, whose ailing father has developed a new motor in collaboration with Andy Devine. Miss Moran doesn't like Arlen, so how are they going to prove the motor and get these two kids together?

It's a super-quick Universal B, distinguished only by some cut-in race-track photography. Andy Devine performs some decent clowning, but Miss Moran's line reading is erratic and Arlen is unengaged near the end of his starring days, ready to head off to Poverty Row in this programmer that has Second Feature written all over it.