The Stoker

When Natalie Moorhead walks out on their marriage and Monte Blue loses his shipping line, he decides on an ocean cruise...as a stoker on a ship bound for Nicaragua. There he winds up working on Dorothy Burgess' coffee plantation, and the sparks fly. Meanwhile Noah Beery is a bandit raiding the coffee warehouses, who tries to roughly woo the lovely senorita. When she marries Blue, Beery decides if he can't have her, he and his bandits will wipe out everyone at the plantation.

Chester Franklin directs this standard script with an immobile camera and a few interesting point-of-view scripts, but the cliches run riot, from Beery's Frito Bandito serape and hat, to the moment when he's eavesdropping and walks away at the wrong moment. Miss Burgess sports an accent -- she was often cast as a Latin American beauty -- and is very charming, despite her uninspiring dialogue. Keep a look out for Chris-Pin Martin as a Nicaraguan police chief.

Producer M.H. Hoffman and son, M.H. Junior, tried some ambitious projects in the early 1930s, hampered by Poverty Row budgets and down-on-their-heels talent like Blue and Franklin. This one looks like it was intended to keep the pot boiling.

Today, this story would have come from a 1,000 page novel and been spread over many hours. Here, telling the tale in 70 minutes did not allow for any reflection on credibility, acting or production, but the result was nevertheless very watchable. Dick is CEO of the family business. The directors do not agree with his plans, so he asks his wife to help him buy them out using her money. At first she agrees, but then reneges, telling Dick she is leaving him for her accountant. (I think this was meant to be funny). Dick resigns from the company and ends up in a dockside bar, where he is taken on as a stoker in a ship bound for Nicaragua. The scenes in the stokehold were very well done. Passengers on the ship include a wealthy Nicaraguan coffee planter and his beautiful daughter, Margarita (erotically played by Dorothy Burgess). She flutters her eyes at a deck officer who agrees to show her the stokehold, where she drools over the stokers, stripped to the waist and sweating profusely. The ship pitches and she is thrown towards a firebox, but Dick saves her, though he falls against it and his back is badly burned. Margarita shows interest in him while he convalesces, but he is once bitten twice shy as far as women are concerned. In Managua he gets into a fight and is thrown is gaol along with a Negro fellow stoker. After a week in gaol and a riot outside, they are bailed to the coffee planter. Dick is taken into the house, the Negro sent off to the packing sheds (I think this was meant to be significant). Dick becomes accountant to the business, but still resists Margarita. However, he weakens when he rescues her when her horse bolts. Meanwhile, bandits are trying to steal the coffee, but the US Marines in Managua won't help Dick as he is outside their secure perimeter. Dick now kisses Margarita and they immediately get married. On her wedding night, Margarita tells her father that now she is an American, the Marines will have to help them. Dick overhears and feels betrayed, so stays out of the marital bedroom. Next morning he leaves on horseback for Managua. However, the bandits attack the plantation and give chase to him. Margarita drives up in her car, rescues him and they both return to the compound, now under siege. The Negro is now sent to Managua to call up the Marines who arrive in three trucks and slaughter the bandits. (From a military perspective, I suspect with their tactics the bandits would have wiped them out). Dick now realises that Margarita really loves him for himself, and agrees to stay, commenting, "Now the actions all over". To which, and remember this is pre-Code, Maragrita replies, "You're wrong, the action's only just beginning" as she drags him towards the double bed!