The Daredevil Drivers (1938)

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This movie exists in two versions. The 2/10 version is the one that usually popped up on TV. If you had a hankering to waste sixty minutes listening to a bunch of charmless people talk and talk and talk and talk in totally unattractive surroundings, then this is the ideal version for you! B. Reeves Eason directed this gab-fest with the sure hand of a somnambulist. It's really dead-dreary from go to whoa! The only point of interest is the chance to catch a few glimpses of Joan Blondell's delightful sister, Gloria Blondell, who plays Lucy. (I always had the impression that Gloria was the older sister, but I could be wrong).However, just to complicate matters, there is another version of this movie doing the rounds. This was presumably the original release cut, and it opens most promisingly with a melange of really spectacular racing car crashes, and then it moves into a really exciting edge-of-the-seat sequence with a runaway bus. And when these thrills have put an audience into the right mood, on comes the dull Breezy Eason footage which manages to sparkle here and there thanks to Gloria Blondell.

Top action specialist B. Reeves Eason directed this short but fast-paced Warners quickie about a hotshot dirt-track driver who gets suspended for dirty tricks on the track and gets mixed up with the pretty owner of a bus line who's being driven out of business by the unscrupulous owner of a rival bus line. Star Dick Purcell is one in a long line of motor-mouthed, wisecracking, fast-talking Warners leads--think Pat O'Brien and James Cagney, among others--who, although he never broke out of the "B" category, could be counted on to make films like this interesting (the same can't be said about his sidekick, Charles Foy, who gets more annoying and irritating every time he opens his mouth). The racetrack footage is really exciting, and Gloria Blondell, in her film debut as a cashier who falls for Foy, is sexy and adorable and seems to be having a whale of a good time. This is a fun picture, as long as you take it for what it is, and worth checking out.

This Warner's First National programmer is only worth watching when Dick Purcell is behind the wheel of a speeding vehicle. Produced by Charles Foy and co-starring his comic-foil younger brother, Charles, The Daredevil Drivers is a typical bad guys (in the form of a competing underhanded bus company) vs. good guys (underdog bus company ran by Beverly Roberts) and a wayward dirt track racer (Purcell) that gets in the middle of it all. I watched it mainly to see William ("Paul Drake") Hopper in a 20-second cameo (hey, he got screen credit!) as a disgruntled bus driver and to check out hottie Gloria Blondell's first stab at acting on film. What I came away with is how much better this could have been with a different cast. Neither Purcell (who could double for Dick Foran) or Beverly Roberts (imagine a bland Gloria Stuart) makes an impression and Charles Foy could be replaced by anyone from Shemp Howard to Frank McHugh to Allen Jenkins. Strictly a programmer, it's interesting really only for shots of spectacular dirt track racing that appear early on---the inserted stock footage looks fatal--- and the cars (the supposedly broke Purcell tools around town in a semi-customized Packard roadster). I'm still trying to figure out what Gloria Blondell saw in Charles Foy. There's nothing much here folks!