In this drama, a truck driver begins wooing a young woman who still lives with her father who constantly brags how he, not the town mayor, was responsible for catching a regiment of Germans during WW I. Unfortunately, no one in town takes him seriously. Later the daughter meets a German immigrant who confirms her father's claim. She then convinces her boy friend to use this information to blackmail the mayor into giving him a new truck and some extra amenities lest he tell the truth.
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If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
Ambitious young truck driver Sam Starr(Donald M. Barry) is in love with Molly Betts (Jean Parker), who shares with her father a resentment against John Scott Ryder (Ralph Morgan),the town's Mayor. In WW I, Ryder took credit for an act of heroism performed by "Pop" Betts (George Cleveland)and all of Ryder's success since then has been the direct result of the hero-worship of the town's citizens---adulation which should have been extended to Betts.Shortly before his marriage to Molly, Sam takes Molly for a ride in his truck, the truck is sideswiped by another truck, and Sam's truck and its contents are demolished. Molly "imagines" the other truck carried the insignia of Ryder---the first Ryder Truck?---who operates a rival trucking line. Sam demands restitution from Ryder who, at first refuses, until Molly, unknown to Sam, tells Ryder she has uncovered evidence that proves Ryder was really a coward in the war, and not the hero he is thought to be. Ryder then buys Sam a new truck.An oily, crooked politician,Al McGongile (Bradley Page-typecast as usual), also learns of this information and decides to shake-down Ryder for all the traffic can bear, He sets Sam up in a trucking business and blackmails Ryder, unknown to Sam, to turn over most of his most-profitable contracts. The Starrs become very affluent until, on their first wedding anniversary, Sam learns for the first time how unwittingly he has actually built his business upon blackmail and he leaves Molly.He goes to Ryder, reimburses him for the truck and berates him for the lack of courage to confess the truth about his war-time record. He berates him so much that Ryder, after Sam leaves, writes a confession and then shoots himself. Ryder's wife (Jessica Newcombe) finds his body and the note...and destroys the note.And Sam Starr is charged with murdering Ryder, and a mob of angry Republic stand-by rabble-rousers gather around the jail with intent to lynch.
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