Danger on Wheels (1940) User Reviews

Poor Second Feature

[boblipton · 4/10 · 20 February 2018]

Richard Arlen is a stunt driver. When Vinton Hayworth walks out, Arlen is promoted to race driver, and there's a fatality. He's found not responsible, but he's considered a rotter by Peggy Moran, whose ailing father has developed a new motor in collaboration with Andy Devine. Miss Moran doesn't like Arlen, so how are they going to prove the motor and get these two kids together?

It's a super-quick Universal B, distinguished only by some cut-in race-track photography. Andy Devine performs some decent clowning, but Miss Moran's line reading is erratic and Arlen is unengaged near the end of his starring days, ready to head off to Poverty Row in this programmer that has Second Feature written all over it.

Routine racing programmer

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 8 May 2020]

Richard Arlen and Andy Devine play a racing car driver and his mechanic. Arlen is a cocky sonavagun who is a daredevil and the track and really earns the nickname of Lucky.

The film breezes by with the speed of one of its subjects. After being held responsible and cleared of the matter of the death f another driver, Arlen makes his own tests of the car with a special motor in it that killed the other driver. At the same time winning Peggy Moran.

The racing sequences are nice and make up for the holes in plot and characterization.

Pretty crappy...even for a B.

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 28 August 2016]

crappy rear projection lucky is obnoxious

"Danger on Wheels" is a cheap B-movie, and Richard Arlen made a ton of them. However, the film is different in that although it clearly stinks, it was made by one of the larger studios. While Universal, at that time, was not nearly as big or successful as studios like MGM, Warner or Twentieth Century-Fox, it was big enough that it should have been making better films than THIS. In quality and especially writing, this film looks like sometime from tiny PRC or one of the other so-called 'Poverty Row' studios!

Arlen plays a stunt driver named 'Lucky', though I think a better nickname would have been 'Fat-head', as his character is extremely conceited. Not surprisingly, his attitude is very off-putting and the unfortunate girl he's set his sights on wisely isn't taken in by his brash attitude. Is this because she's intelligent. No...she's clearly an idiot as you'll see through the course of the film-- especially when Lucky and his friend (Andy Devine) try to help her and her father from losing their car company...and she behaves very strange and incredibly hostile. In addition to the film rarely making sense, the leading man being a jerk and the girl being empty- headed, the film uses crappy rear projection and a lot of clichés to bring you 61 minutes of barely passable entertainment. If you care to see it (and for the life of me I don't know why), you can copy it for free from archive.org--a website dedicated to public domain films. And, considering what I just saw, I can clearly understand why Universal didn't bother renewing their copyright on this one!

Fortunately only an hour, otherwise I'd be pretty upset by the time I wasted.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 30 January 2018]

It's another Z grade action flick starring the team of Richard Arlen and Andy Devine, this time focusing on the drag racing industry, and pretty much only of interest to those who are interested in that sport. Arlen is, once again, a rather reckless driver, and one whose actions often threaten to harm others. Arlen insults race car magnate Herbert Corthell in the presence of his daughter Peggy Moran, causing a frosty beginning to what is obviously going to turn into love. Devine, of course, is the comic relief, engaged to his nagging landlady, Mary Treen. Considering that she's half his size, you'd hope he'd put her down a peg or two, but that's never the case in these movies. Getting may roar on occasion, but ultimately he's just another version of the cowardly lion. Racing scenes are action packed, but overall, the film is trite and second rate.

Has a fair degree of excitement!

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 21 August 2017]

Richard Arlen (Larry Taylor), Andy Devine ("Guppy" Wexell), Peggy Moran (Pat O'Shea), Sandra King (June Allen),Herbert Corthell (Pop O'Shea), Landers Stevens (Lloyd B. Allen), John Holmes (Danny Winkler), Jack Arnold (Bruce Crowley), Jack Rice (Parker), Mary Treen (Esme), Eddie Chandler (police officer), Frank Santley (official), Eddie Fetherston (Pete), Harry Strang, Jimmie Lucas (mechanics), Joe King (race commissioner), James Morton (police sergeant), Frank Mitchell (truck driver), Tony Paton (race driver), Jack Gardner (Joe), Arthur Roberts (official), Harold Daniels (male secretary).

Director: CHRISTY CABANNE. Screenplay: Maurice Tombragel. Story: Ben Pivar. Photography: Woody Bredell. Associate producer: Ben Pivar.

Copyright 31 December 1939 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. No New York opening. U.S. release: 2 February 1940. Australian release: 8 August 1940. 5,510 feet. 61 minutes.

COMMENT: No account of thrills in the cinema would be complete without a tip of the hat to the team of Richard Arlen and Andy Devine, who turned out no less than 14 action-packed programmers from 1939 to 1941: Legion of Lost Flyers, Mutiny on the Blackhawk, Tropic Fury, Black Diamonds, Devil's Pipeline, Hot Steel, The Man from Montreal, Danger on Wheels, The Leather Pushers, Mutiny in the Arctic, A Dangerous Game, Lucky Devils, Men of the Timberland (which I would regard as their best), and Raiders of the Desert.

"Danger on Wheels" is a pretty standard entry. Even though most of the action footage is obvious stock, director and players — assisted by Woody Bredell's superlative camera-work — manage to whip up a fair degree of excitement.