Pelo Telefone

The version I downloaded from the Internet Archive must be heavily cut, as it's only 53m. Despite this inexcusable decimation, I found this flick to be quite satisfying, for what it is. We've got cocksure telephone linesmen, surly switchboard operators, kids with shortwave radios, a failing dam, and a terrific flood - 30's style, and stuffed into little more than an hour! The cast are all sufficiently capable in their roles, particularly leads Allen and Withers, but it was the colorful details that really sustained my interest. Things like Helen's kid brother setting his alarm for 5 so he can listen to a Boy Scout rally from England on the shortwave. The film is a nifty little time capsule of the 1930's telecommunications industry at work, and its importance to daily life in that decade.

I have to put it down to personal misfortune that I watched a chopped up copy, with voices cut off in mid-sentence and abrupt changes of scenario - but, in spite of those shortcomings (which some rate 'dated' and 'old' because they are rooted in the present), I still found it arresting enough to watch it to the final frame.

Direction by Scott Pembroke (about whom I know nothing) is quite good, as is the script brimming with funny situations and sharp one-liners as a number of men try to win over a gorgeous telephone operator nicely played by stunning Judith Allen... and suddenly Riverdale Dam bursts open and all hell breaks loose as Allen goes to the switchboard to convey warnings, save lives... and be proposed marriage! 6/10.

Whatever morals, standards, conventions existed before WW2 (see other review), this story is sweet and nostalgiac. Those days when telephone operators and switchboards were the latest in technology are shown for us to visit past times and lifestyles. The wardrobe and dance scenes are lovely. The acting is excellent. Characters who may at first seem sketchy and self-serving are challenged to step up to the plate and choose to do the right when called up, Their character transformation and growth in relationships is fulfilling and the ending is happy!

Not too heavy nor scary but some tense times. Some comedy and some romance. Delightful.

I lived through the great flood in the San Fernando Valley of 1937. I even have some 16 mm home movies that my dad took in the big flood basins that now have the flood control dams. As I see this movie, I see what may be scenes from the same disaster. After all, I am sure that the studios in the area had lots of cameramen out taking movies for possible, and here is one, movies that could use those background scenes. The city scenes could easily have been the streets in Van Nuys and the fast flowing water along the Los Angeles River, which at that time was not the pretty looking concrete channel that it is now in the 2000's. We even have a movie showing a Whippet automobile in the flooded area; we jokingly remark that it was a bigger car and that it had shrunk in the flood.

Lively, well-made programmer from lowly Monogram, with a great look at how telephoning used to work. Get a load of the old-time technology, back when calls had to go through switchboards with operators to plug you in to your party, maybe requiring row after row of nimble fingered women. It's quite a sight and contrast to today's magical cell-phones.

Seems Red and humorous sidekick Shorty are linemen who keep the phone lines operating across long distances. It's a heckuva job, climbing high poles in all kinds of weather. Plot-wise Red's got a crush on cutie operator Helen who's plenty distant at first. But of course things warm up when they battle to keep lines working during a monster rain and flood.

Happily, there's plenty of snappy dialog as the characters bounce off one another before settling down, while director Pembroke keeps things moving. Then too, the raging flood footage blends in skillfully with the dramatics to create a bigger budget effect. And catch the artful rising water in the phone office; that had to be studio sets, but you'd never know it. The humorous asides are also well modulated and smoothly inserted. It helps too, that the actors appear geared into their roles, especially Allen who centers the film.

All in all, for a programmer, it's extremely well-crafted, showing that budget need not determine quality when, thanks to a common effort, the elements come skillfully together.