User reviews

The version I downloaded from the Internet Archive must be heavily cut, as it's only 53m. Despite this inexcusable decimation, I found this flick to be quite satisfying, for what it is. We've got cocksure telephone linesmen, surly switchboard operators, kids with shortwave radios, a failing dam, and a terrific flood - 30's style, and stuffed into little more than an hour! The cast are all sufficiently capable in their roles, particularly leads Allen and Withers, but it was the colorful details that really sustained my interest. Things like Helen's kid brother setting his alarm for 5 so he can listen to a Boy Scout rally from England on the shortwave. The film is a nifty little time capsule of the 1930's telecommunications industry at work, and its importance to daily life in that decade.

This potboiler B film from Monogram is a salute to that unsung group of heroines, the telephone switchboard operators. And for a product coming from Monogram Pictures this thing was a piece of cinematic art.

Grant Withers and Warren Hymer are a pair of telephone linemen who arrive in town on a new assignment and find romance with switchboard operators Judith Allen and Alice White. It's a bit of rough going with Withers and Allen and even rougher going with Withers and new boss Pat Flaherty.

And Flaherty has his own problems with a young wife out stepping with the engineer in charge of the local dam Cornelius Keefe. For reasons only explained that Flaherty is such a nice guy all of them try to protect him from the scandal and all of them get in trouble because of it.

Everyone's problems gets washed away when Keefe's dam bursts in a flood. At that point Allen and White are a pair of heroines keeping the switchboard open as a center of communication as the flood waters rise.

For a Monogram Picture the editing of newsreel flood footage into the film is nicely done as that studio did not have a true special effects department. In fact it will stand up to several of the major studios in terms of how good it was.

Not a bad B picture and for Monogram it was great art.

I have to put it down to personal misfortune that I watched a chopped up copy, with voices cut off in mid-sentence and abrupt changes of scenario - but, in spite of those shortcomings (which some rate 'dated' and 'old' because they are rooted in the present), I still found it arresting enough to watch it to the final frame.

Direction by Scott Pembroke (about whom I know nothing) is quite good, as is the script brimming with funny situations and sharp one-liners as a number of men try to win over a gorgeous telephone operator nicely played by stunning Judith Allen... and suddenly Riverdale Dam bursts open and all hell breaks loose as Allen goes to the switchboard to convey warnings, save lives... and be proposed marriage! 6/10.

Lively, well-made programmer from lowly Monogram, with a great look at how telephoning used to work. Get a load of the old-time technology, back when calls had to go through switchboards with operators to plug you in to your party, maybe requiring row after row of nimble fingered women. It's quite a sight and contrast to today's magical cell-phones.

Seems Red and humorous sidekick Shorty are linemen who keep the phone lines operating across long distances. It's a heckuva job, climbing high poles in all kinds of weather. Plot-wise Red's got a crush on cutie operator Helen who's plenty distant at first. But of course things warm up when they battle to keep lines working during a monster rain and flood.

Happily, there's plenty of snappy dialog as the characters bounce off one another before settling down, while director Pembroke keeps things moving. Then too, the raging flood footage blends in skillfully with the dramatics to create a bigger budget effect. And catch the artful rising water in the phone office; that had to be studio sets, but you'd never know it. The humorous asides are also well modulated and smoothly inserted. It helps too, that the actors appear geared into their roles, especially Allen who centers the film.

All in all, for a programmer, it's extremely well-crafted, showing that budget need not determine quality when, thanks to a common effort, the elements come skillfully together.

I lived through the great flood in the San Fernando Valley of 1937. I even have some 16 mm home movies that my dad took in the big flood basins that now have the flood control dams. As I see this movie, I see what may be scenes from the same disaster. After all, I am sure that the studios in the area had lots of cameramen out taking movies for possible, and here is one, movies that could use those background scenes. The city scenes could easily have been the streets in Van Nuys and the fast flowing water along the Los Angeles River, which at that time was not the pretty looking concrete channel that it is now in the 2000's. We even have a movie showing a Whippet automobile in the flooded area; we jokingly remark that it was a bigger car and that it had shrunk in the flood.

Given this movie's solid rating, it obviously strikes a chord with those who see it, which means that I obviously missed something. Certainly, the movie gives a taste of the importance of telephone communication in the era. As Helen (the Operator) repeatedly spread news of the disaster as she connects with person after person ("the Riverdale dam is out!" over and over again) it reminded me a little bit of a primitive version of Twitter. The technical quality wasn't bad (although the version I saw was, I believe, heavily edited) and the scenes portraying the rising flood waters in town were pretty realistic (although the shots of the bursting of the dam itself seemed less so.) But still - aside from the basic soap opera like story of Helen trying to cover up her boss's wife's affair - the reality is that nothing much of interest (aside from a couple of pretty well staged fight scenes) happens until the last 10- 15 minutes of the movie when the dam finally goes, although in the end one has to appreciate the irony of the three heroes also being the three who got fired earlier in the film. 3/10

Grant Withers and Warren Hymer are two tough line men for the company. They come to Riverdale, where they set their sights on operators Judith Allen and Alice White.

Given director Scott Pembroke's grounding in comedy -- he was the director of Stan Laurel's burlesques of big hits, like RUPERT OF HEEHAW and DOCTOR PYCKLE AND MISTER PRYDE, you'd think the comedy bits in this early Monogram would be better; well, Miss White is pretty good, but the other actors are rather lugubrious. Until the big finale, it's all tough guys in leather jackets and fedoras pounding on each other, and slow-and-steady progress in the romantic plots.

The big set piece is the flood, and that's handled using stock footage of floods and ranks of telephone operators standing at their boards, while voice-overs tell people "There's a flood. Tell your neighbors." Oh, so that's why the third floor of my house is underwater?

Actually it's a decent movie until that repeated voice-over. Not bad for a Poverty Row Second Feature. Withers is typically fine. t's just that the finale goes on too long.

This movie highlights the efforts of telephone operators in warning people when the Riverdale Dam breaks. Withers and Hymer play two linesmen (the best there ever were as they tell everybody) were sent to the town to string more lines by the dam. I disliked this movie almost from the beginning and finished watching it only to see if I could revise my early opinion. Another reviewer refers to the chronic sexual harassment in the movie and that it might ruffle a few feathers. The arrogant, overbearing lout played by Withers is thoroughly obnoxious. Early in the movie at a dance, Withers grabs Judith Allen who cries out in pain and asks him to let her go. He won't until another man comes along (who Withers ends up socking - what a guy). Evidently this abusive behavior was acceptable in the 1930s, so the audience would not have been surprised that Withers and Allen end up falling in love and saving the day. There were two good things about this movie, 1) the cute kid and 2) the flood footage. Oh, there's a third good thing – many minutes of this film are missing and it's now only 53 minutes long.

Not sure how this film is getting such a high rating, there are other films that would deserve a higher one and aren't going past the 6 out of ten mark.

Anyways, this is really dull stuff. I watch a lot of old cheap production of the day, most of this stuff is free domain and can be watched on archive.org. The majority involves the same formulas, but there is always something charming about them that really gets to you. Most of them, however, are simply cheap and dull.

This one film is based around the fling between two telephone operating ladies and two linemen, which takes place in the middle of a rainstorm that turns into a disaster when the dam breaks. I'm not into disaster films, I find them two dimensional crap, but when a film is so evenly divided into two parts - the cheesy romantic comedy with the usual sketchy characters, and the dramatic disaster flick which it turns into towards the end - it's hard to know why anyone would consider it worth watching. Furthermore, the lines in this film are not memorable at all, and seem to be the rejects from the famous one liners that were in films of the time.

Plus, speaking of dialogue, I realise the speech of those times was different, and I really do like it, don't get me wrong. But even I can get fed up of hearing 'gee that's swell' or 'that's fine' in the same tone of voice. Eventually you think everyone is trying to be a louder version of Humphrey Bogart (one of my heroes).

Whatever morals, standards, conventions existed before WW2 (see other review), this story is sweet and nostalgiac. Those days when telephone operators and switchboards were the latest in technology are shown for us to visit past times and lifestyles. The wardrobe and dance scenes are lovely. The acting is excellent. Characters who may at first seem sketchy and self-serving are challenged to step up to the plate and choose to do the right when called up, Their character transformation and growth in relationships is fulfilling and the ending is happy!

Not too heavy nor scary but some tense times. Some comedy and some romance. Delightful.