Suicide Squad

In the 1920s and early 30s, William Haines made a ton of movies with essentially the same plot. The formula went like this: A braggart manages to do well, for a while, because he's very talented. However, along the way, whatever team he's on (such as the marines, a college team or the like) grows to hate him because he is so full of himself. Eventually, this attitude results in him committing some horrible infraction and he's ruined on the team. Then, near the end, something comes out of nowhere and the guy manages to save the day—proving he's learned his lesson about teamwork. And, in the final scene, all is forgiven and he's back on the team. While the ratings on IMDb are not bad for his films, I suspect some of the high ratings are because the folks reviewing the films hadn't seen his MANY other extremely similar films. If they had, I can't believe they would have gotten such high scores.

Although "Suicide Squad" is not one of Haines' films, it is essentially his in every other way. In this case, Norman Foster plays the obnoxious braggart and after pushing Mary's father very hard to join the Rescue Squad, he spends all his time aggrandizing himself at the expense of the fire company. At first, this pays off very well when he foils a robbery. However, eventually it results in a serious near-tragedy because he was more busy posing for the camera than doing his job. Then, when another incident occurs and the company THINKS he was once again grandstanding, he quits the force—only to save the day and win the girl.

The film IS entertaining and is a lower budget version of the same old formula. If you've never seen this sort of thing, by all means watch. But, it isn't very good when you consider it has no originality whatsoever to it and the leading character is amazingly obnoxious and unlikable.

Norman Foster and Joyce Compton are in love, but her father, Robert Homans, doesn't approve. He's the chief of the Suicide Squad, the unit of the Fire Department that goes into burning buildings and brings 'em out alive. Foster's application is finally accepted, but he's one of those guys who can't follow orders inthe heat of the moment, This endangers lives. Worse, his best friend is a newspaper photographer who catches him in heroic poses, so his fellow fire fighters think he's a dangerous publicity hound.

Sounds a lot like a Billy Haines vehicle from a decade earlier, doesn't it? Haines kept playing the star player of the football team or the golf squad or the Marine Corps, who thought well of himself, until taken down a peg by reality, then came back to save the day, having learned his lesson.... until the next movie.

That's pretty much what we have here. Foster had come down in the world from the days when he was playing juvenile leads at Paramount, and Miss Compton had not yet established that she was a comic actress of considerable talents. the rest of it is a cheaply done effort, with a lot of footage shot wild or taken from the archives, and little care taken in matching shots: there's one point at which Foster is cutting a path through a ship's hull with an oxy-acetylene torch, and workers on the other side are doing the same -- and the ones outside have broken through some time before the metal is cut away on Foster's side.

The performers give their all, despite a soundtrack that is very erratic, but it's a rote effort otherwise.