User reviews

In this remake of The Crowd Roars (1932), John Payne was more believable than Eric Linden was in the original, as the kid brother who wants to be a racing driver, but I'll take James Cagney over Pat O'Brien in the lead for this type of role. I also enjoyed the original female stars, Joan Blondell and Ann Dvorak, more than Ann Sheridan and Gale Page in this film. Still, both films were comparable in enjoyment for me. This film is almost a scene by scene remake, including the cute ending where each injured racing driver instructs his ambulance driver how to beat the other to the hospital. They still have racing in their blood even when it's spilled.

I watched both films on successive days, so each was fresh in my mind. It was a shock to see how much footage from the earlier version was put in the later version. I'm sure it saved Warner Bros. lots of money and were it not for video tape recorders, nobody would notice. (I was also able to play both films simultaneously on two separate VCRs, stopping one when the other was playing, in order to quickly compare any two scenes.)

The studio got away with using the old footage by several ways. First, the new screenplay used the same names (Joe Greer and Eddie Greer) for the brothers. This allowed the footage of the four announcers (Wendell Niles, Sam Hayes, John Conte and Reid Kilpatrick) for the three racing sequences of the first film to be incorporated in toto in the later film. They are extensive sequences involving hundreds of words and many images, but I am sure none of the four got a paycheck for this film, although some outtakes from the earlier film may have been used. Also, several other actors reprised their roles: Frank McHugh, Regis Toomey, John Harron, Ralph Dunn, Sol Gorss, Billy Arnold and Billy Wayne. Some new scenes were shot when they interacted with the new actors, but scenes otherwise were lifted from the earlier film. We see Frank McHugh coughing, laughing and finally dying when his car catches fire, all from the old footage. We see his wife crossing the track to get to him from the old footage, and even though the earlier wife was played by Charlotte Merriam and his wife in this film was Grace Stafford, you cannot tell the difference in longshot. But the police who restrain her made it obvious it was from the old footage. Old footage is also used when the pitmen, John Harron and Billy Wayne, signal the driver with signs. And every crash, spinout, fire, crowd scene as well as the cars racing around the track was from the old footage. (At one point a horse inexplicably appears on the track in both films at the same place.) When seen in closeup with the new actors, these cars had the same numbers painted on their sides, so that the announcers' descriptions made sense. All of the old footage, however, was smoothly edited in with the new. Since a good deal of the cost of the original film was in the racing sequences, this really was a great object lesson on how to remake a film cheaply.

While not quite the carbon copy that the two Dawn Patrols are to each other, Indianapolis Speedway and The Crowd Roars did use a lot of the same footage and dialog for its principal players. In the case of Frank McHugh since his character is killed in both Jack Warner really pleased the bean counters in his place.

The film was trying to establish John Payne as an action star. Payne who was newly acquired from Paramount really doesn't get his career stride until his next move over to 20th Century Fox. Here he and Pat O'Brien are brothers just as James Cagney and Eric Linden were in The Crowd Roars.

For reasons never fully explained O'Brien wants to both keep Payne away from a career in racing and Ann Sheridan. As Payne is an adult O'Brien is way out of line. But after their friend McHugh is killed it's O'Brien whose career really hits the skids.

Automobile racing buffs will like Indianapolis Speedway and the vintage cars, but the film will never make the top ten list for O'Brien, Sheridan, or Payne.

Indy champ Joe Greer (Pat O'Brien) gives everything to put younger brother Eddie (John Payne) through College. Eddie only wants to join racing and falls for Frankie Merrick (Ann Sheridan).

I like the old cars and the racing when there is footage. The story gets a bit melodramatic. The racing are pretty good for its era. It has the standard rear projection scenes interspersed with real footage. I really like the old cars but it's not always the most exciting. The final race goes on a bit too long and the movie does need a couple of races in the middle to spice up the slower section.

The movie that this was based on, THE CROWD ROARS, starred Jimmy Cagney and was simply a better film in every way. Thanks to a very astute reviewer (Arthur Hauser), the footage of the races is identical in the second movie and many other scenes were just lifted from the original. So, apart from the remake not being original, why else did I dislike this film? I think the biggest reason was Pat O'Brien's character. While he was a controlling jerk in the original, in this case he also seems very shrill and totally unlikable. So here we have a retread movie with an unlikable star--what is left? Well, not much. All you really have is a time-passer. Period.

It's really a shame. The actors in the movie were better than the material and the complete rip-off of the footage from the original makes this a cynical attempt by Warner Brothers to expend little money or effort to squeeze a few more bucks out of an ancient story.