Last night, we found another Tim McCoy non-Western: "A Man's Game"(1934), which begins with Tim tooling down the highway in his sedan, somewhere near Griffith Park. He pulls up behind a roadster, being driven by Ward Bond, who won't let Tim pass. The next thing you know, they're yelling insults car-to-car, and a racing challenge is issued. They go speeding down the road, a motorcycle cop gives chase, and when the boys hit a curve and converge, the cop wipes out. Ward Bond keeps going while Tim pulls over to assist the fallen officer and drive him to the hospital.
As you can imagine, the judge at their arraignment isn't happy. He lets Tim off, though, with only a 100 dollar speeding ticket, the mitigating factor being that he stopped to help the policeman. You'd think Ward Bond would have the book thrown at him; he was clocked at 92mph and didn't stop, but the cop was not badly hurt (injured leg), and Bond's dad is the fire captain at the Hollywood station, and knows the chief of police. Bond gets lucky in avoiding jail, but gets an expensive ticket also, and it turns out the Dads of both these guys know each other. Tim's Dad, the owner of a shoe factory, decides to make it hard on his son: "Since you don't want to work for me, you're on your own from now on. If you want to become a delinquent, that's your business." Hard to imagine Tim McCoy as a delinquent, but in the movie, he has seven prior speeding tickets. Ward Bond is already a fireman, and as Tim starts contemplating the future of his life, he decides to stop goofing off and asks Bond if he can get him in at the fire station. He wants to go straight but dreads a career in the shoe business.
After Tim is accepted in the fire department, his Dad reluctantly gives his blessing, but tells Bond's Dad to "be hard on him, no special treatment." A training sequence is shown, in which Tim has to learn how to jump out of burning buildings and onto a mat. Once trained, he becomes part of a hook and ladder team. Because of his reputation as a speed demon, Tim is made the driver, the logic being that he'll get the company to fire scenes quickly. Ward Bond steers the rear of the rig, with that big steering wheel those guys use, and soon they get their first call, to an apartment building in flames. The two of them rescue young "Judy Manners" (Evalyn Knapp), and in the papers the next day there are two different accounts of her rescue. In one, McCoy is named the hero, in the other, it's Bond. Both guys cut their articles out and read them while going to bed, and over sweet dreams of Miss Manners, they each fall in love, each thinking himself to be the hero who came to her rescue. The next day, Tim pays her a visit, claiming to be a fire inspector, but when he can't produce credentials, she knows why he's really there, with a wink and a nod. Then Ward Bond shows up with the same scam. She ends up in a semi-relationship with both guys and they all go on a picnic together, but over time, it becomes platonic with Bond, while she falls for Tim McCoy.
But then the movie turns into a crime film, with only twenty minutes left. Boy, this is one clever screenwriter. All of a sudden, because Judy is now Tim's girlfriend, he gets her a job at his Dad's shoe factory, where she's put in charge of payroll. Well, once you put "payroll" into a script, you know there's gonna be a robbery, and in this case, a middle-management exec at the company is planning to steal 15 grand in cash (the payroll money), and blame it on Judy the new girl.
He sets her up to take an envelope, which unbeknownst to her is stuffed with the 15 Gees, to a hotel room where his cronies lie in waiting. They take the dough and kidnap her, but as she's being held in a locked bedroom, she gets a brilliant idea. Recalling how she was rescued from her apartment building, she sets fire to the curtains, which sets off the ceiling sprinklers and the alarm. This brings the Fire Department, and Tim McCoy and Ward Bond! Ingenious! This gets her out of the kidnap, but while she's in the hospital, recovering from smoke inhalation, the shoe executive tries to abduct her again! In the process, he knocks over a hotplate, which sets the bedclothes on fire. Here comes Tim and Bond again to the rescue! This is a very clever script, with a ton of stuff packed into 56 minutes, and a whole lot of old Hollywood location shots to boot. One thing we especially like about Tim McCoy was that he worked outside the Western genre on occasion, and was just as good in his city roles. Two Big Thumbs Up for "A Man's Game". The picture is very good. ////
The previous night we returned to Hoot Gibson. I love this guy: he's the Anti-Cowboy, an average Joe, a Schmoe even, who just happens to have the charisma of a star. But Johnny Mack Brown he is definitely not. Still, like JMB, he always gets the girl, and instead of out-drawing the bad guys, he outsmarts 'em. He's got the same beanpole sidekick that we saw the other night (Skeeter Bill Richards), and in "The Dude Bandit"(1933), he plays "Ace Cooper", a cowpoke who investigates the suspicious death of his friend Dad Mason. Now, I have no info on Dad, nor do we see his death. He apparently got blown up by a stove explosion, but this is never shown nor even mentioned until the middle of the movie, because there's some really goofy editing going on. The opening scene seems out of place as we join Skeeter in the middle of a confrontation with some big shots. The scene is all chopped up with missing frames and dialogue, but we get the gist of what is taking place: Skeeter is helping Ace to prevent a foreclosure on Dad Mason's ranch, which - with his death - is supposed to be passed down to his daughter "Betty" (Gloria Shea). Okay fine. But then, without warning or prior context, Hoot turns into The Dude Bandit. And, there's no mention of Dad Mason or his death.
But then, about twelve minutes in, the entire first scene is repeated, without the herky-jerky editing. If this was a botched job for an early TV broadcast, whoever cut it did a complete butcher job. I say all of this to get the Dad Mason murder out of the way, because we know nothing about it at the beginning, and hence we don't know the genesis of Hoot's motivations, until later when he explains things.
He slips into the persona of the black suited Bandit in order to rustle back the cattle belonging to Betty Mason that a land baron named "Burton" (Hooper Atchley) has put a hold on. He says Betty can't have her cattle back until she pays off her late father's mortgage, which of course she can't afford due to exorbitant interest rates. The bottom line is that Burton is trying trying to steal Betty's ranch and The Dude Bandit is stealing it back for her. Skeeter Bill does a lot of the enforcement work because Hoot's persona does not include much gunmanship or fighting. I found it interesting that many commentators on Youtube and IMDB noticed the same things I did about him, and as one fan put it, "Hoot is an unconventional cowboy". In real life, though, he was a rodeo star before working in movies, so he is the real deal. Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Dude Bandit", which would be even better with an intact print. Still, it's recommended and the picture is very good. ////
That's all for tonight. My blogging music this evening is Phil Seymour's debut solo album from 1980, which I owned on vinyl. At the time, I didn't like it as much as the two Twilley albums he was a part of, and it has a poppier sound, but listening all these years later, there are a lot of good songs and I just like his approach, as nobody makes records like this. It has an early rock and roll feel with a slick 80s production, and good hooks. I also listened to the first Automatic Man album from 1976, but didn't make it all the way through, because it was a lot more commercial sounding than I remembered, and not as progressive. It sounded like Journey mixed with Santana. Mostly I didn't like the vocals. But Two Big Thumbs Up for The Dwight Twilley Band and Phil Seymour. Good stuff shouldn't be forgotten. I hope your week is off to a good start and I send you Tons of Love as always.
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