Telephone Operator

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.

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.

Grant Withers and Warren Hymer are two tough line men for the company. They come to Riverdale, where they set their sights on operators Judith Allen and Alice White.

Given director Scott Pembroke's grounding in comedy -- he was the director of Stan Laurel's burlesques of big hits, like RUPERT OF HEEHAW and DOCTOR PYCKLE AND MISTER PRYDE, you'd think the comedy bits in this early Monogram would be better; well, Miss White is pretty good, but the other actors are rather lugubrious. Until the big finale, it's all tough guys in leather jackets and fedoras pounding on each other, and slow-and-steady progress in the romantic plots.

The big set piece is the flood, and that's handled using stock footage of floods and ranks of telephone operators standing at their boards, while voice-overs tell people "There's a flood. Tell your neighbors." Oh, so that's why the third floor of my house is underwater?

Actually it's a decent movie until that repeated voice-over. Not bad for a Poverty Row Second Feature. Withers is typically fine. t's just that the finale goes on too long.

This potboiler B film from Monogram is a salute to that unsung group of heroines, the telephone switchboard operators. And for a product coming from Monogram Pictures this thing was a piece of cinematic art.

Grant Withers and Warren Hymer are a pair of telephone linemen who arrive in town on a new assignment and find romance with switchboard operators Judith Allen and Alice White. It's a bit of rough going with Withers and Allen and even rougher going with Withers and new boss Pat Flaherty.

And Flaherty has his own problems with a young wife out stepping with the engineer in charge of the local dam Cornelius Keefe. For reasons only explained that Flaherty is such a nice guy all of them try to protect him from the scandal and all of them get in trouble because of it.

Everyone's problems gets washed away when Keefe's dam bursts in a flood. At that point Allen and White are a pair of heroines keeping the switchboard open as a center of communication as the flood waters rise.

For a Monogram Picture the editing of newsreel flood footage into the film is nicely done as that studio did not have a true special effects department. In fact it will stand up to several of the major studios in terms of how good it was.

Not a bad B picture and for Monogram it was great art.

This movie highlights the efforts of telephone operators in warning people when the Riverdale Dam breaks. Withers and Hymer play two linesmen (the best there ever were as they tell everybody) were sent to the town to string more lines by the dam. I disliked this movie almost from the beginning and finished watching it only to see if I could revise my early opinion. Another reviewer refers to the chronic sexual harassment in the movie and that it might ruffle a few feathers. The arrogant, overbearing lout played by Withers is thoroughly obnoxious. Early in the movie at a dance, Withers grabs Judith Allen who cries out in pain and asks him to let her go. He won't until another man comes along (who Withers ends up socking - what a guy). Evidently this abusive behavior was acceptable in the 1930s, so the audience would not have been surprised that Withers and Allen end up falling in love and saving the day. There were two good things about this movie, 1) the cute kid and 2) the flood footage. Oh, there's a third good thing – many minutes of this film are missing and it's now only 53 minutes long.