The Last Ride

The Last Ride (1944)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Bizarre but entertaining "B" movie from Warner deals with the classic tale of a good brother going up against the bad one. In this film, the good guy (Richard Travis) happens to be a detective trying to crack of the case of some bootleg tires being sold around the town and which has caused the death of a couple kids. The bad brother (Charles Lang) works for the underground operation and clashes with his brother over the rights to do so. THE LAST RIDE is a pretty entertaining gem that works for a number of reasons but one of the biggest is its story. I've seen quite a few crime pictures were all sorts of things were being stolen or illegally sold but this is the first one where those items were tires. This actually made for a pretty interesting set up early on and I really liked the racket these guys were running of stealing tires, then making those victims order new tires from them. I think things get a bit watered down towards the end when we start to get into more of the bad vs. good brother subplot, which is one we've seen countless times. Director D. Ross Lederman does a pretty good job at keeping the film moving at a very fast pace and it should be noted that it clocks in at just 58-minutes so there's certainly no down time. Both Travis and Lang fit into their roles very nicely and we get some nice support from Eleanor Parker, Jack LaRue and the always dependable Cy Kendall. THE LAST RIDE certainly isn't going to be found on lists containing the greatest movies ever made but it's certainly unique enough to where it's worth viewing.