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"A great boy and a fast car, and that's a combination hard to beat," naturally Howard Hawks focuses on the women behind it all. The Indianapolis champ (James Cagney) comes home, he has a worried mistress (Ann Dvorak) who wants him out of the business and an avid brother (Eric Linden) who wants in. The gal pal (Joan Blondell) seduces the brat as part of a revenge scheme and instead falls in love with him, "fifty million drivers can't be wrong," it's all resolved in the racetrack. Metallic cylinders in dusty circles, the pure arena of dash and danger. (Red Line 7000 pushes it even further into the realm of abstraction.) Man and machine in kinetic detail, down to the Ben-Hur close-up of sparks flying out of grinding wheels. Death-defying jockeys shouldn't have families, it is said, and there's the happily married friend (Frank McHugh) screaming in flames, leaving only the smoke of burning flesh. Spectacle and audience: "All they want to see is that car turn over half a dozen times so they can hold their breath!" Between air (The Dawn Patrol) and water (Tiger Shark), the earth ground up into clouds by thunderous speedsters. "A hero today, a bum tomorrow," everyone accepts the terms of the game, the protagonist is down and out until he crosses paths again with his beloved at a hash stand by the pit stop. (Broken and unshaven Cagney bending down for a discarded piece of fruit anticipates Dean Martin and the spitoon in Rio Bravo.) Corman's The Young Racers, Frankenheimer's Grand Prix, Katzin's Le Mans... "That's a thrill I'm saving up." The gag finish goes into Rush's Freebie and the Bean. With Guy Kibbee, Billy Arnold, Leo Nomis, and Stubby Stubblefield. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |