Men of Action

They're building a dam. The local ranchers are financing it, putting up their spreads to finance the bonds; Edwin Maxwell is the money man; Arthur oyt runs the construction company that is building it; and Leroy Mason is the engineer in charge of the construction. He's also sweet on Barbara Worth, Hoyt's daughter, who is the secretary/radio operator of the site.

Trouble begins when Frankie Darro's father is killed on site. Mason takes him under his wing, but troubles continue, and it soon becomes apparent to the audience, if not the characters, that he's trying to delay the opening of the dam so he can grab all the land that's been pledged for the work.

In other words, it's a modern variation of a western plot that's been used several times in the movies. As such, director Alan James hires a lot of western regulars. Where it really succeeds is the nice integration of film about the construction of the Hoover Dam into the movie. That makes it an extensive editing job, and editor Charles Harris is up to the task. There are a lot of short takes, and a nice pace of editing in the final confrontation, with a chase where the bad guys want to blow up the dam, and the good guys want to stop them. Plus there's a general melee at the end in which, if the fight choreography isn't particularly well done, the speed of editing holds the audience's interest.

In short, it's a B movie from 1935, a year when faster editing techniques were beginning to permeate Poverty Row. A few years would see considerable advances, but for the year it's about as good a you could get.

This low-budget Great Depression era independent work was produced during transitional periods for a number of its principal players. MEN OF ACTION'S first-billed Frankie Darro is in reality second in story importance to Roy Mason. The latter, who had garnered moderate success as a romantic lead during the late silent film period, was soon to become a prominent Western genre villain (as LeRoy Mason), trading his motorcycle riding roles, as in this piece, for those on horseback. Lead actress Barbara Worth, who took that name for her cinema career (formerly Verna Dooley) after a well-known fictional silent film heroine (THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH -1926), found it to be an untoward choice after the sound period began, with 1935 being the final year of her acting credits, as she then converted to screen writing for a vocation. Second female lead Gloria Shea's disfigurement from an automotive collision that occurred not long after this film's release ended her screen performances. Meanwhile, diminutive Darro, 17 years old at this time and a former popular child actor, remained true to his Awkward Age persona while well into his twenties. Darro plays as Jimmy Morgan who, along with his father (John Ince), is employed by the Evans Construction Company, a firm that is engaged in building a massive dam for the purpose of aiding local high desert fruit growers. Most of the film's scenes were completed at the actual construction site of Boulder Dam along the Arizona/Nevada border, and there is a good deal of footage of the dam's building process, completed in 1935. The narrative shows us that the work crew has been infiltrated by a group of homicidal roustabouts led by one Thorenson (Fred Kohler), all retained by a devious banker, Jefferson (Arthur Hoyt), whose purpose in the tale is to prevent the project's completion, thereby increasing chances of heavy flooding that would destroy orchards and enable Jefferson to purchase the fruit growing land for a very low price. Jefferson's bank is the financial surety for the Evans project, but crew foreman Jim Denton (Mason) has realised the financier's vile plans and manfully attempts to keep the construction on schedule despite trouble caused by the Forces of Evil, in particular a Thorenson-led mass walkout. Jim, in concert with his little friend Johnny, who has remained at his post as water boy even after the death of his father during the film's opening episode as a result of an illicit dynamite charge laid by saboteurs, have along with Ann, the daughter of Evans (Worth), have arranged the advertising for, and hiring of, 1000 "unskilled men" to work at the dam site, as replacements for those employees lost due to the walkout. Those of the workers who remained loyal during the labour trouble are given uniforms and guns, being reassigned as security police to protect the newly hired Evans personnel. Johnny is among the freshly caparisoned guards, and he soon finds himself, along with Jim and his love interest Ann, waging fierce physical combat against Jefferson, Thorenson, and their collection of rounders. Director Alan James, habituated to working with meagre financing, uses single takes, but the seasoned cast is generally able to cover its lines, although there are some notable shortcomings relating to continuity and logic. A goodly amount of stunt work is here, but is largely substandard, especially during the film's frequent fight scenes. Hoyt handily gains acting honours for the film with a supremely unctuous performance as the dastardly Jefferson. Veteran comic actor Syd Saylor is clearly on board for humorous relief but is instead pitifully inept in his attempts at slapstick drollery. Since Boulder Dam upon its completion was the largest concrete structure in the world as well as the location of the globe's greatest hydroelectric energy supply, its footage impersonating the Evans Company project, as enthralling as it is, seems absurd as a means of abetting local fruit farmers with flood control. This rather witless affair has been released, along with another lightweight, but better, Darro starring feature film, ANYTHING FOR A THRILL (1937), by Alpha Home Entertainment, with the two together comprising a bargain for those interested in U.S. cinema of the Depression Era 1930s. As is the case with all Alpha offerings, there has been no effort to remaster the originals, and no extra features are included other than scene indices.

Roy Mason is the foreman, Frankie Darro a water boy, and Barbara Worth the boss's daughter. Their company is building a dam that will help bring water to hundreds of farmers. But wait! Edwin Maxwell, crooked banker, stands to gain control of all of that land if the project isn't completed on time. His henchman will stop at nothing, not even murder, to derail the project.

Simple plot, straightforward script—including your standard variations such as the romance between Worth and Mason, the death of Darro's father in a deliberately-started rockslide, the comic antics of Syd Saylor (who needs to be told, for example, that a stick of dynamite tossed to him will not explode if he drops it).

There's plenty to enjoy, however, including many head-shaking moments of one sort or another—such as lovely Barbara Worth arriving at the dirty, dusty, noisy construction site and stepping out of her big shiny automobile in a snazzy white outfit so perfectly dazzling you know it would be ruined in about ten seconds. Or watching construction crews digging and blasting on the side of a mountain wearing no hard hats, no safety glasses, no hearing protection, no nothing! OSHA was not around yet, obviously. Also a lot of fun is the help wanted sign posted by our heroes when they decide to soldier on with the project: "Mounted guards will patrol entire workings," it announces, "1000 unskilled men wanted at once."

Indeed, if I were prone to political-economic analyses of B movies from the 1930s, I might want to make a case that this picture takes a pretty strong pro-business stance: We have a kind-hearted owner refusing to carry on the project until the "accidents" can be stopped because it's too dangerous for his men; we have loyal workers who just want to work hard to feed their families; and we have some baddies who are sabotaging the project and trying to scare the workers into quitting—probably a gang of Bolshies or something as bad. –Okay, I know that On the Waterfront it ain't….but I certainly can't pass up a chance to mention Frankie Darro and Marlon Brando in the same sentence.

The story moves briskly and builds nicely to an exciting climax involving a huge brawl and some level of individual victory for each of our heroes. Overall, it's a pretty decent B picture that is perhaps short on realism but at least packs in plenty of energy.