The greatest movie ever made..!

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Speed (1936)This movie has a small bit of historic interest for reasons that don't make it a very good movie. First of all this is James Stewart's first official leading role. As he commented once, he got lots of small parts in big movies, and in this on he got a big part in a small movie. The movie is small because it's low budget and rather poorly written (both in its plot and its dialog). Secondly, there are scenes of early (1935) Indy 500 racing. The most surprising part of this is having two people in each car, a driver and a mechanic who kept the systems going at their peak (or just keep them going at all in some cases). This allows for some pretty corny scenes where one of the people in one car will make faces or gestures to someone in another car (as they are cruising at 140 mph). If you like Stewart you'll like him here despite the various limitations. He plays Terry Martin, whose love of racing at a track leads eventually to his going after a land speed record in a bizarre car with a giant fin for stabilization. (This was a special vehicle supplied by Chrysler for the shoot, not quite the real deal.) Of course this leads to a crisis and then the woman of the story, played with lackluster but reasonable ease by Una Merkel, gets her chance to win the hero's heart. This gives nothing away, believe me. It's all in lights from the get go.A better movie, if still not even slightly brilliant, is certainly the 1950 Clark Cable movie with Barbara Stanwyck in the leading female role (and with a far more empowering part for a woman) , "To Please a Lady." And if you really want to round this out, the Paul Newman movie from 1969 called "Winning" is another faltering attempt at making this scene work on screen. Maybe if all three were played simultaneously on three screens you could get the roar and some interesting plots mixing together well. Individually they make for some fun moments and lots of stalling and pits stops. The actors, at least, are stars that hold their own in each case."Speed" is never slow, but that's not the same thing as getting any kind of checkered flag. Watch as filler.

"Emery Motors" cars are being tested by race-car driver James Stewart (as Terry Martin). Although he should be wounded in the opening crash, Mr. Stewart emerges from a car unscathed. He must be invulnerable. "Woman drivers" make Stewart nervous, so he takes the driver's seat to show arriving publicist Wendy Barrie (as Jane Mitchell) how cars are created on an assembly line. "A whole lot of man and a while lot of machine make a whole lot of automobile," Stewart explains...From the engineering department, Weldon Heyburn (as Frank Lawson) also likes showing Ms. Barrie around the factory. He doesn't seem to notice the loving glances being thrown around by Una Merkel (as "Jo" Sanderson). Stewart gets his new carburetor in shape for the "Indianapolis 500" with help from comic sidekick Ted Healy (as "Gadget" Haggerty). "Speed" amounts to little more than stock footage and juvenile romance. In the end, Stewart learns "a girl can have horse sense too." *** Speed (5/8/36) Edwin L. Marin ~ James Stewart, Wendy Barrie, Weldon Heyburn, Una Merkel

**SPOILERS** Pre "Mister Smith goes to Washington" James Stewart as automobile greasy monkey Terry Martin who's come up with this great invention that would revolutionize the auto industry. Terry inverted this real cool carburetor that can increase the speed of a car, without increasing the gas intake, at least 30%. The trouble is that the super cool carburetor doesn't seem to work in the tests at the Emery Auto Factory that Terry is employed at. It's when hot shot auto engineer Frank Lawson, Weldon Heybrun, shows up at the plant that he finds a way to put Terry's carburetor to work.That's with a horizontal inlet value that he invented that will have the flow of air adjusted to the carburetor's burning of gasoline.Putting aside all this boring technical stuff about super cool carburetors and horizontal inlet values the film really gets going when pretty Jane Mitchell, Wendy Barrie, shows up on the scene as a publicity agent for the auto company. It's then that both Terry and Frank start knocking themselves out to get Jane to go out on a date with them. It's Frank, in being a collage graduate with an engineering degree, who ends up with Jane making Terry, a self made mechanic, feel a bit down and resentful, of both Jane for turning him down and Frank for ending up with her.Determined to show that his carburetor is the real deal Terry together with friend and fellow grease monkey Clarence Maxmillian "Gadget" Haggarty, Ted Haley, test the contraception out at the pre trials of the Indianapolis 500 and set a track record with it! It's when later Frank has his horizontal inlet valve installed that the car that Terry & Gadget were driving flips off the track putting gadget into a wheelchair and leaving Terry with a mild brain concussion!***SPOILERS*** Terry is now given permission from his boss Mr. Dean, Ralph Morgan,to drive the super car Falcon, that's the spitting image of the later Batmobile, in at test drive at the Salt Flats in Utah. As Terry attempts to brake the worlds speed record he almost ends up almost killing himself when the car,that mysteriously caught fire, overturned and almost crushed him to death! With now Frank rushing behind the wheel he drives to the nearest hospital at super speed all the way to L.A with an unconscious Terry as his co-driver. In the end Frank not only saves Terry's life but breaks the world speed record giving Terry, the driver of record, the credit of doing it! And as for Jane it soon comes out that shes the niece of the company's owner Mr. Emery! It was Jane who was influential in getting Terry's carburetor tested and having Frank, who was in on whom she really was, perfect it for him! Terry in the hospital recovering from his injuries begins to realize what a sap he was and makes up for it by letting Jane, whom he had earlier broken up with, kiss him goodnight.

This film was made well before Jimmy Stewart was a real headliner. And, the studios didn't yet know exactly what sort of caliber actor they had on their hands. So, they experimented with him in a variety of films--some successful, some not. This one falls in the middle and while isn't playing the sort of character you'd expect from Stewart, he isn't nearly so out of his element as he would be just a short time later in BORN TO DANCE--where he sings!!! This film is very very reminiscent of a Jimmy Cagney film from just a few years before, THE CROWD ROARS. Both are in fact pretty indistinguishable. Yes the plots differ, but they all just seem like a lot of race cars spinning around track that are obviously the result of rear projection and stunt men. Not both but not particularly good either.