Stubs - Heat Lightning

Heat Lightning (1934) Starring: Aline MacMahon, Ann Dvorak, Preston Foster, Lyle Talbot, Glenda Farrell, Frank McHugh, Ruth Donnelly Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Screenplay by Brown Holmes, Warren Duff. Based on the play Heat Lightning by Leon Abrams and George Abbott (New York, 15 Sep 1933). No Producer Credited. Runtime: 64 minutes USA Black and White Drama, Pre-Code

Some films are sadly forgotten over time even though they were, in their own time, controversial or milestones. Case in point, Warner Bros.’ Heat Lightning (1934), which was not only banned by the Legion of Decency but was also one of the last studio releases before the Production Code was fully enforced. A lot of times with so-called Pre-Code films its hard to see what made about the film couldn’t have been made during the run of the PCA (Production Code Administration).

Like many Hollywood films, this one is based on a play. Heat Lightning did not particularly burn up the Broadway stage, playing only 44 performances after its opening on September 15, 1933 at the Booth Theatre. The resulting film maintains that sense of the stage, with most of the action, but not all, taking place in the lunchroom of a filling station on a highway cutting through the Mojave Desert. However, the film crew, according to contemporary reporting in Daily Variety, was on location in Vacaville, California for two and a half weeks, as there are several exterior scenes in the film.

Gladys (Jane Darwell) and Herbert (Edgar Kennedy) have car trouble in Heat Lightning.

The film opens on the desert setting of the film, with a gas station/lunchroom/motor court the only structure for miles around. We soon see two people in need of saving: Gladys (Jane Darwell) and Herbert (Edgar Kennedy). Their car has apparently broken down and with Gladys steering them Herbert is pushing the car. Raising from the radiator is a steady stream of steam. Herbert manages to push it to the gas station and the couple go inside to get help.

Myra (Ann Dvorak) works at the cafe and Olga (Aline MacMahon) takes care of the garage.

The first person they meet is Myra (Ann Dvorak) who is tending the café. Gladys tells her they need a real man to take off the radiator cap and Gladys tells them that her sister will take care of it. Olga (Aline MacMahon) stops her work on another car and comes over to help. Even though Gladys insists that a man is needed, in no time, Olga has the cap off and, despite Herbert trying to help, gets the car back into running condition.

Myra calls Steve Laird behind Olga's back to arrange for a clandestine meeting.

Myra is admittedly bored by her predicament. There is a great big world out there that she is never allowed to see. Olga is overly protective of her and doesn’t want her to go out with a local, Steve Laird (Theodore Newton), that she claims to be in love with. Behind Olga’s back, Myra calls him and arranges for a clandestine meeting later that night after Olga is asleep.

 George (Preston Foster) and Jeff (Lyle Talbot) are men on the run from the law.

As soon as Olga gets back to work, two men show up, George (Preston Foster) and Jeff (Lyle Talbot). They are men on the run. There was a bank robbery in Salt Lake City that they were a part of. One of the cashiers was shot and killed by George and they are headed for the Mexican border.

Unknowingly, Myra serves them barbecue sandwiches and beer. George asks Myra about the place, and she points out her sister who is still working on the car. She is dressed as she normally is, in overalls and her hair in a bandana.

Everett Marshall (Willard Robertson), a local rancher, shows up. It is his car that she is working on. While he doesn’t come out and say it, he is attracted to Olga. He decides to hang around and stays until late at night.

Popsy (Harry C. Bradley) arrives with two hitchhikers Blonde Cutie
(Muriel Evans) and a Girl with Black Bangs (Jill Dennett).

Back at the gas station, another car drives up. In it are two starlets on their way to Hollywood, a Blonde Cutie (Muriel Evans) and a Girl with Black Bangs (Jill Dennett). They are apparently hitchhikers and their ride is an older man, Popsy (Harry C. Bradley). While Popsy is outside taking care of the car,  the two girls come inside. With no one else in the place, George serves them each a beer. The girls ask if they could tag along with them but unfortunately, George and Jeff aren’t going their way. Stuck with Popsy, one girl tells the other, "Say, it's your turn to sit up in front with that old thigh-pincher.” It is obvious Popsy is not as docile and innocent as he may look. The girls also remind him to get directions so that they don’t keep getting lost and dead-end trails.

George and Olga have a history.

George finally goes out to meet Olga and they obviously recognize each other. Apparently, they have a history from when they were both in Tulsa. She calls him Jerry, the name she knew him as back then. There are obviously things in Olga’s past that she doesn’t want to get out but you get the strong feeling that he is why she’s where she is and why she’s overly protective of Myra. He tells Olga that he and Jeff are businessmen and only passing through.

James Durkin plays the local sheriff in Heat Lightning.

Jeff is anxious to get going, knowing that they are both wanted men. Things get tight when the local sheriff (James Durkin) shows up. He asks Olga if there had been any suspicious men around lately, she notes that they’re all suspicious. George and Jeff talk as if they are in the oil business. When the sheriff starts to question them, Olga vouches for them, which is good enough for him.

Recent divorcees Mrs. "Tinkle" Ashton-Ashley (Ruth Donnelly) and Mrs. "Feathers" Tifton
(Glenda Farrell) arrive, driven by their hen-pecked chauffeur, Frank (Frank McHugh)

Soon after, a fancy car arrives with two women heading home after getting their Reno divorces, Mrs. "Tinkle" Ashton-Ashley (Ruth Donnelly) and Mrs. "Feathers" Tifton (Glenda Farrell). Friendly but competitive, they try to one-up each other at every turn. Their hen-pecked chauffeur, Frank (Frank McHugh), is tired of them and of driving and when they stop, he pretends there is something wrong with the car and it won’t be ready until the morning. Olga goes along with the ruse. They settle for a shed each with Frank in one between them.

The women each take their own shed with their chauffeur staying in between them.

George notices the rings the women are wearing and assumes, correctly, as Frank will bear witness to later, that they have more jewelry in their bags. Jeff doesn’t care about the jewelry but George tells them that they may need money for bribes. George tells Olga that they are going to stay the night.

 A large Mexican family on their way to a fiesta camp out on Olga's property.

A large Mexican family on their way to a fiesta across the border stop and the father (Chris-Pin Martin) convinces Olga to let them camp behind the sheds for free. As night falls and the heat lightning starts up, Tinkle gets concerned that the Mexicans, who she calls gypsies, will try to steal their jewelry so she has Olga lock them in her safe, which George sees.

Everett Marshall (Willard Robertson), a local rancher, has a thing for Olga.

Even though Everett is still there, Olga succumbs to Jerry’s charms and dolls herself up. Everett takes his leave. In the confusion of the moment, Myra slips away with Steve. Olga takes George back to her room.

In the early morning, Steve drops Myra off. She is tired and looks worse for wear. As she sneaks back into the residence behind the lunchroom, she sees George emerge from his sister’s room. Olga comes out and goes into Myra’s room. Myra is upset and confesses to her sister that she was right about Steve. The two sisters hold each other.

Olga hears George out in the lunchroom, ordering Jeff, at gunpoint, to break into the safe. She overhears George tell him that he only slept with her so Jeff could break into the safe. Olga slips away but returns with a gun and shoots George, fatally wounding him. She suddenly realizes what she’s done and George tries to explain things but gives up and dies. Jeff asks what’s to become of him and Olga lets him leave, even telling him what route to take to the border.

Hearing shots have been fired, Tinkle, Feathers, and Steve come running up. Olga tells them that she shot a rat. Tinkle becomes aware that Steve was in Feathers’ shed when they heard the shots. He says, trying to sound innocent, that he was protecting her. Tinkle wants nothing to do with that but tells them they can stay with her until at least the next town.

Later, with George’s body still lying on the floor, Olga prepares to start the day. Everett comes back to check on her and she shows him the body. He promises to talk with the sheriff on her behalf before she goes to take care of a new customer (Eddie Shubert), who is anxious to get going before the day gets hot. It is obvious that after her walk on the wild side, Olga returns to her emotionless life as a mechanic.

The film, which was called "a drab melodrama with occasional flashes of forced comedy" by reviewer Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times, is better remembered for its notoriety. The film was one of the first condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency and derided by the Hays Office. There were several instances that were found objectionable. First, it was all the seductions that were going on. Olga and George, Myra and Steve, Feathers and Frank. We even see George leaving Olga’s room the next morning and we know that they were not just talking up old times, a violation of the Production Code.

There is also the suggestion of sexual harassment or maybe even assault as the two starlet hitchhikers appear to be having to fight off the unwanted advances of Popsy. In particular, the PCA called out the line about the "old thigh-pincher."

I find it interesting that given that when the film recently aired on Turner Classic Movies, the TV rating was TV-G meaning practically anyone can watch it. Oh, how mores have changed in the nearly 70 years since the film was released.

If you notice a similarity with The Petrified Forest (1936), you are not alone. Petrified Forest also tells the story of a deserted highway gas station/restaurant, in Arizona, that is temporarily taken over by gangsters. Both are also based on Broadway plays. As in Heat Lightning, the waitress dreams of leaving the desert and seeing the world. Understandably, Petrified Forest has gotten more attention. It is a better movie and it stars bigger name actors, Bette Davis and Leslie Howard and introduces someone who would become an even bigger star than either of them, Humphrey Bogart.

This is the first starring role for Aline MacMahon.

In the lead role, Warner cast Aline MacMahon in her first starring role. Prior to this, she had been a character actress. You might remember her for Golddiggers of 1933 and here she plays a more subdued version of the character she played in that film, the wise-cracking Trixie Lorraine. After this film, she made several with Guy Kibbee including The Merry Frinks (1934), Big Hearted Herbert (1934), Babbitt (1934), While the Patient Slept (1935), and Mary Jane’s Pa (1935). She would also be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Dragon Seed (1944). Here her performance is at best uneven as the film goes back and forth between comedy and drama. While she is capable of playing both, she appears without emotion through so much of the film, no doubt at Mervin LeRoy’s direction, that she sometimes comes off as being bored.

Ann Dvorak plays Myra who sort of feels trapped by her situation.

Ann Dvorak had first appeared in a movie when she was only four, Ramona (1916), but she had only been really working in them since The Hollywood Revue of 1929. Most of her roles in films had been uncredited until Warner Bros. Stranger in Town (1932). Her breakthrough came in Scarface (1932), in which she starred opposite Paul Muni in his first big role as well. Dvorak made several films that drew the ire of the Production Code office, including Scarface and Three on a Match (1932), in which she plays a heroin addict. Here she plays a woman with dreams that turn out to be nightmares as she is obviously used and tossed aside by a man she thinks loves her.

While never really a star, Ruth Donnelly always seemed to put in good work. Here she seems pitch-perfect as Tinkle, a recently divorced woman who is traveling back to L.A. after her latest divorce. She has really good comedic timing and puts on the right amount of airs for the part. Like MacMahon, she also appeared in several films with Guy Kibbee, often as his wife.

Unlike Donnelly, Glenda Farrell was a major star of the 1930s for Warner Bros. She appeared in such films as Little Caesar (1931), Three on a Match, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), and The Match King (1932). She was given her own series as Torchy Blane, a never say never newspaper reporter, which ran for seven films from 1937 to 1939. After her contract with Warner Bros. expired, she went back to the theater. In Heat Lightning, her role is relatively small but she gets to display her abilities with comedy that would eventually play a part in the successful series.

Muriel Evans makes an impression in limited screen time.

There are almost too many actors and actresses to discuss at length, chief amongst them Frank McHugh, Edgar Kennedy, and Muriel Evans. Character actors, each had careers in Hollywood with some being more successful than others. Kennedy’s role is very small and could have really been played by a number of actors. There is nothing special about his performance. Evans is blonde, sexy, and flirtatious and makes an impression even though she has relatively little screen time. While McHugh is almost always a sidekick in films and provides comedic relief, he’s good here as Frank, the chauffeur who is bossed around by two rich single women but, as the story shows us, likes that sort of attention.

Lyle Talbot and Robert Forest play the male leads in Heat Lightning.

The two male leads in the film both had long, though perhaps undistinguished, careers. Robert Forest, who received top-billing, had a career that lasted over four decades and appeared in such films as Doctor X (1932), I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), The Harvey Girls (1946), and I, the Jury (1953), though rarely in the lead role. Lyle Talbot, who plays the sidekick, appeared in over 150 films, though he is probably best remembered for his role as the neighbor, Joe Randolph, to Ozzie and Harriet on their long-running TV series. They are both okay, though neither burns up the screen with their star power wattage.

That is sort of the problem with the film. There is a lot of talent but not that much makes it to the screen. Heat Lightning starts out with comedic overtures but ends up firmly as a drama, with Myra all but raped and Myra committing murder. The pre-code controversy is what makes the film noteworthy. If you’re a fan of that era of films, then this is one that you will no doubt want to see. I’m happy to have finally seen it, though I’m not sure it is for everyone.