What a waste of my time!!!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Enjoyable vehicle (in more ways than one) for James Cagney as a champion race car driver overprotective of his younger brother. Cagney's always fun to watch and roles like this were a dime a dozen for him. Eric Linden plays the brother and he's pretty corny but, given the time in which this was made, he doesn't stand out much. Joan Blondell is the sexy dame who sets out to seduce Linden, much to Cagney's disapproval. The lovely and underrated Ann Dvorak steals all of her scenes as the "wrong side of the tracks" girl pining after Jimmy. Great character actors Frank McHugh and Guy Kibbee add color to things. Howard Hawks directs and, as you might imagine if you're familiar with his work, he especially shines with the racing scenes. Lots of cameos from popular racing stars of the time, so I'm sure racing buffs will want to see it for that alone. It's an entertaining drama with some exceptional action scenes. It was remade by Warners just seven years later as Indianapolis Speedway, starring frequent Cagney costars Pat O'Brien and Ann Sheridan, as well as Frank McHugh in the same role he plays here. That version is OK but less gritty. It also reuses the script and even footage from this one.

As suggested in another review there was probably stuff left on the cutting room floor that would have filled in some holes in the plot. Still I disagree that we don't get the gist of this gripping melodrama or that the racing scenes aren't great. Cagney is a hard-boiled champion Indy driver, who goes a little psycho when his younger brother wants to follow in his footsteps. Suddenly, the girlfriend who loves him isn't good enough and her friend is a tramp. Before you can say "You dirty rat!", the two brothers are alienated and the girl is broken-hearted. This sets up a great rivalry on the track and some heated racing scenes.I beg to differ with the fussy earlier reviewer who lamented that the racing scenes were over edited. I found these scenes riveting and brilliant. Moreover, they convey a strong taste of a brand of racing long past where death was not so rare. They also show us film of some of the great cars of bygone days in action. Nowadays we are jaded with television cameras on board most high level events. But this footage rivals the modern one for pace and context with the advantage of placing us in a wilder sport. The track is more dangerous, the cars more primitive and of course modern racing is much more civilized.However, the character Cagney plays is remarkably like many modern day racing greats living and dead due to their daring ways. maybe in their childhood they saw Cagney in this flick.

For a three time Indy race champion, Jimmy Cagney's character Joe Greer isn't as flamboyant as some of the ones he portrayed in the handful of films prior to this one. There's the spark of "The Public Enemy" Tom Powers here when he manhandles Joan Blondell, and slaps around kid brother Eddie (Eric Linden). But the story is somewhat uneven with abrupt scene changes and much left to the imagination of the viewer to piece together the motivations of the lead players. Director Howard Hawks peppers the film with cameos of the leading race car drivers of the day, and for movie goers of the era, that was probably a cool feature, but for me, names like Billy Arnold, and Fred Frame don't carry any recognition. The highlight of the movie would probably be the race sequences, and they made me wonder why anyone would take up the profession with enough dust swirling around to blacken the features and choke every driver. I guess you had to love it.As a nostalgic period piece, the movie serves well to evoke memories of the California race tracks mentioned and shown in the story. Even back in the Thirties, it wouldn't be hard to imagine that the race announcer's statement about '100 death defying laps' was anything but accurate, probably even more so than today with all the safety features built into the cars and race track itself. You have to admit, there wasn't much between the drivers and their primitive looking machines to provide escape from serious injury or death. Which made it too bad for Cagney movie regular Frank McHugh, who had to pay the price for getting between Joe Greer (Cagney) and brother Eddie in one of the movie's defining races.I think another reviewer on this board had it right about the film's closing scene in which Cagney prods his ambulance driver to out race a competitor to the hospital. The need for speed can lead to all sorts of reckless behavior, and I wasn't so sure that the movie was finding fault with that as much as glorifying it for the thrill of the audience.

The title means that the crowd is expecting something exceptional will happen:they want blood .When in Rome,do as Romans do.Weren't it for the final scenes the screenplay would look like "a star is born" in the race cars .Two brothers ,one of them (Cagney) is a famous champion when his kid brother wants to follow suit.In spite of Big Brother's good piece of advice (see above),he carries on regardless of the warnings.They have women for them,the elder has Ann Dvorak whereas the kid brother falls for her friend (Joan Blondell).The old champion is not prepared to accept it either.The car races are well filmed for the time and make up for the paucity of the plot,which is entertaining though.