Automobile August: The Roaring Road (1919)

Start your engines! The invention and development of the automobile coincides with the birth and growth of the movie industry. This month we watch movies where cars play a major role.

SAMANTHA GLASSER: One hundred and three years before The Bear became the darling of the Emmys and Golden Globes, Theodore Roberts created a character with the same name in The Roaring Road. He is a successful automobile manufacturer whose hot temper makes him the natural enemy of impulsive employee "Toodles" Walder (Wallace Reid), a driver who wants to marry his daughter (Ann Little). They want to enter their Darco car in a prestigious race to help it sell, but various obstacles get in the way.

RODNEY BOWCOCK: We’re introduced to The Bear through an interesting dissolve of an actual bear into a crotchety looking old person, which while not the first instance of such a dissolve being used in films was probably still something that happened rarely enough that audiences were wowed.

SG: The relationship between The Bear and Toodles is the best part of the film. Their antagonism toward each other builds gradually throughout the movie for a big finish. Roberts plays the part with intense energy.

RB: They do have real chemistry here, which stood in stark contrast to the last film that we watched in our current series where there was little to no chemistry among any of the actors at all. Their partnership and mutual respect is heartwarming and provides one of the hallmarks of the film.

SG: Toodles uses ingenuity to make one working car out of three smashed ones. (I'm not sure how that makes the auto his, unless you consider the Bear has forfeited them to the junk pile.) When I was a kid, our swing set was made of the best parts of two sets my dad found in on the curb and welded together to make a working one. I very much appreciate that make-it-happen attitude and the craftiness that want can create.

RB: I think that this is a trait that we often expect in silent films. It reminds me of Our Gang films where the kids will take a bunch of junk and imaginatively create a really cool piece of equipment. In this case, he’s using cars to make cars, so it’s not exactly on the Our Gang-level, but I agree with you that the ingenuity is pretty neat.

SG: Yes, and I love that about those films. Have you seen any Charley Bowers films? He takes it to a whole other place.

Here, the racing scenes are not terribly exciting. Most of the action is shot from far away and it is difficult to distinguish the drivers from each other. It also seemed they went on and on for an endless amount of laps.

RB: I’m guessing that there may not have been much else that they could’ve done to spice this up due to the limitations of the day. I agree with you though, they aren’t particularly exciting and it’s hard to figure out what’s going on.

SG: The titles are very clever. The title writers are usually uncredited, as is the case here, but the person who crafted these did an excellent job of injecting additional comedy into the film.

The Roaring Road is a lot of fun to watch if you're a fan of the styles of the 20s. Reid is svelte in his three-piece suits, and Little is chic in her many warm layers. Designers of the period made women look feminine with lots of details rather than revealing their bodies which I appreciate immensely. Frankly, Little is somewhat plain by today's standards, but she is beautifully ornamented in elaborate gowns and hairstyles that make her very appealing. Reid is more traditionally attractive, somewhat collegiate and elegant like Ryan Gossling today.

RB: Unfortunately, it’s hard to discuss a Wallace Reid film without discussing the debilitating morphine addiction that would take his life in a few short years, and had a grip on him as this film was made. For those of you who do not know, Reid was injured in a train wreck in California while filming Valley of the Giants (1919). Some reports state that Paramount tried to convince him to take time off to heal (although that has been contested), and instead he chose to be prescribed morphine to deal with the pain. This sent him down a slippery slope of addiction and an ever increasing work schedule (sometimes completing eight films a year). Eventually, at the age of 31, he died of influenza in a sanitarium where he was desperately trying to recover from his addiction, both for himself, his career and his wife and two children. It’s a haunting tale that sometimes even the most casual fans of silent cinema are aware of.

SG: His wife, actress Dorothy Davenport, took up the mantle to rally against drug use. She produced and starred in Human Wreckage in 1923, billed as Mrs. Wallace Reid, and had an interesting career producing and later directing films.

Exhibitors recommended encouraging car owners to park their vehicles outside the theater to promote the movie, which sounds like a dud of an attraction these days, but in 1919 cars were still somewhat of a novelty.

George Bleich at the Empress Theatre in Owensboro, Kentucky said, "Here's one you can wholeheartedly advertise and wear a satisfied feeling."

A.N. Miles of the Eminence Theatre in Eminence, Kentucky said, "It will fully come up to all you say about it. One of Reid's very best."

Motion Picture Magazine's reviewer Hazel Simpson Naylor said, "Every ounce of suspense, interest and thrill is maintained until the very end, while all the comedy possible is extracted from the conflict of the two men's hot tempers."

The film was so successful, a sequel was created with Reid, Roberts and Little reprising their roles and (spoiler alert) Reid's own son and namesake played his son in Excuse My Dust. Reid went on to play in other racing films with clever character names like "Speed" Carr and Dusty Rhoades.

I saw this movie many years ago when a friend let me borrow Unknown Video's DVD release of this and Excuse My Dust. It also ran a few years ago at Capitolfest with a live score. This is a nicely crafted movie with an exciting finale that is worth watching multiple times. Three stars.

RB: This definitely launched a series of Reid racecar films and I’d be intrigued to see more of them if the opportunity arose. It was definitely a box office draw and it’s easy to see why. Three stars.