The Roaring Road

"The Roaring Road" is an enjoyable silent movie starring the ill-fated Wallace Reid. I say ill-fated because the actor became hooked on morphine...by his own studio which gave it to him in order to get the injured actor back to work. Sadly, only a few years later, Reid died in a sanitarium trying to break his habit.

When the story begins, the very gruff J. D. Ward is preparing to have three of his drivers enter the big race...as he's hoping to have his race cars win it for the unprecidented third time. Well, disaster strikes and the three cars are damaged during shipment....and Ward's salesman, 'Toodles' (Reid), is planning on using the three damaged cars to make one roadworthy car to enter in the race. Well, Toodles manages to do it...and win the race. Now you'd THINK this would make Ward happy....but the old goat isn't. Why and what's next?

This is a fun film, though the characters are a bit one-dimensional....with Ward being a manipulative grouch and Toodles being plucky....and not much more. But it is worth seeing and very good for a film from 1919.

Car salesman Wallace Reid (as Walter Thomas "Toodles" Walden) wants to win the triple crown in a big auto race. His boss, Theodore Roberts (as J.D. "The Bear" Ward), has won two of the three races, and thinks Mr. Reid may muss up the company's winning streak. Roberts decides to test Reid's mettle; but, the plan backfires, and his crack-car salesman quits. Meanwhile, Reid courts Roberts' daughter, Ann Little (as Dorothy "The Cub" Ward). She is the only thing Reid wants more than winning the big race; however, Roberts wants her to wait five years before wedding. Can Reid win both the big race and the girl?

Scenery and cigar chewing Roberts threatens to steal the film from its star; but the likable Reid overtakes Roberts after a contest to see who can pound his desk hardest. In jail for speeding, Reid memorably asks a rat, "How fast were you going?" Car and train racing along the Los Angeles and San Francisco locale provided an exciting ending; at one point, the car and train might collide!

"The Roaring Road" brought in box office returns at great speed; and, Reid quickly became the #1 United States Box Office star; understandably, several follow-up films raced into theaters, including outright sequel "Excuse My Dust!" (1920) ******.

"Toodles" Walden sells cars for J. D. Ward, aka "The Bear." Walden is in love with Ward's daughter Dorothy, aka "The Cub." Toodles wants a crack at driving Ward's racing car, but Ward refuses. When several of Ward's racing cars get wrecked in transit, Walden and his mechanic Tom Darby make a new one out of the parts from the three old ones. Then Walden enters a local race and wins, and asks Walden for Dorothy's hand. Ward says he won't let his daughter get married for five years. Walden more or less tells Ward where to get off. Ward wants to enter a car in the Los Angeles to San Francisco road race, and concocts a plan whereby he will board a train for San Francisco with his daughter, and force Toodles to race after them. Unfortunately, Toodles is in the clink on a speeding violation. So somebody has to spring him from jail. Will Toodles break the speed record for the road race? Will he finally win Dorothy's hand (and the rest of her)?

This is an OK production, with nothing much new. The story goes pretty much as expected. The first race is a letdown, as the camera is stationary and we just see cars whiz by. These scenes were filmed at the Santa Monica Race course. Press reports stated that Reid did his own driving, and exceeded speeds of 100 miles per hour. The climactic road race from LA to San Francisco has some decent camera work, with a driver's-eye view, shots from the side as Ward and his daughter watch, but with the now clichéd "car beating the train across the tracks" scene.

Theodore Roberts, as "The Bear," steals the show. His bluster, messed-up hair, and cigar-chewing are a riot to watch.

Although Wallace Reid is the star attraction in this racing picture he gets less screen time and less concentrated exposure than the secondary attraction, the much older character actor Theodore Roberts. The modest use of Reid was due to his growing morphine dependence which was beginning to show on screen at the time this adventure was filmed, though from the glimpses we get here, he didn't look bad at all at this relatively early stage of his addiction. He participates in very little physical action other than climbing in and out of a few cars, escaping from a prison window and losing his temper a couple of times. To say this movie is dated would be the understatement of the century, literally. Bicycles of the current century move faster than the racing cars of 1918.

Even allowing for the century that has passed since this movie was made the premise and the execution are unremarkable and unbelievable. The original showing back in 1919 must have been much better than the print I squinted through this afternoon. The B&W contrast was wiped out and it was very difficult to see what was happening. But even allowing for that this picture is a potboiler. Almost total lack of scene continuity and only the barest of story line. The constant huffing and puffing of "The Bear" threatened to overtake any semblance of plot and the "racing" scenes were nonsensical. And where did the screenwriter get "The Bear", "The Cub" and silliest of all, "Toodles"? Did they actually give actors these character nicknames back then?