HEAT LIGHTNING

 

HEAT LIGHTNING, from 1934, is another of those great early 30s Warner Bros. pictures that, despite its short running time, has far more entertainment value than most two hour-plus blockbusters made today. 

Aline MacMahon plays Olga, a no-nonsense woman who runs a gas station/lunch counter/auto camp somewhere in the American Southwest with her younger sister Myra (Ann Dvorak). Olga, who has been hurt and disappointed in the past, accepts this lonely, stifling existence, but Myra does not. Olga wants to protect her sister from bad men--and in one of those old movie coincidences, the bad man who hurt Olga shows up at the gas station. His name is George (Preston Foster) and he's on the run from a bank robbery, along with his jittery partner (Lyle Talbot). Olga doesn't know what George has done, but she doesn't trust him--while at the same time she starts to realize she still has feelings for him. The climax reveals that Olga was right about men all along. 

There's much more to HEAT LIGHTNING than the simple plot. There's the gas station itself, an actual outdoor location, which contributes to the remote, arid atmosphere. (You can almost feel the heat the characters are dealing with in the story while watching it.) Despite Olga's business being so out-of-the-way, a number of quirky folks happen to show up, including a middle-aged couple with car trouble (Jane Darwell and Edgar Kennedy), and two divorcees traveling from Reno with a chauffeur (Glenda Farrell, Ruth Donnelly, and Frank McHugh). Farrell and Donnelly are given most of the film's snappy dialogue and comedic moments. 

Aline MacMahon was an exemplary supporting player in several Warner Bros. features of the 1930s, but here she gets to shine in the lead role. It's not a glamorous part (Olga spends most of the film wearing overalls, a bandanna around her hair, and no makeup) but MacMahon is totally believable in it. Olga might seem harsh and cynical at times, but she really does care about her sister, and she's more than able to take care of herself, as George finds out at the end of the story. MacMahon in HEAT LIGHTNING provides more evidence to my theory that American film actresses had better roles to play in the 1930s than they do now. 

Ann Dvorak doesn't get a lot of screen time as kid sister Myra, but she's still able to get the viewer's attention with her off-kilter personality. Preston Foster surprised me as George--from what I've seen of the actor I didn't think he could play a tough, cocky gangster type, but he did it quite well. As in most Warners films of this period, the supporting cast almost steals the show, especially Glenda Farrell and Ruth Donnelly as the high-living divorced dames. (The studio should have made a film on the further adventures of the duo's characters.) 

HEAT LIGHTNING was directed by the ubiquitous Mervyn LeRoy, and he and cinematographer Sid Hickox make effective use of the outdoor gas station location. There's one shot in particular that caught my attention--Aline MacMahon is in a pit, working underneath a car, while arguing with Ann Dvorak. As Dvorak angrily strides back to the station, we see her walking away from MacMahon's almost ground-level perspective. It may not seem like much in description, but considering how quick the shooting schedule probably was, it shows that LeRoy was trying to give this film something extra. 

I've seen several Warner Bros. Pre-code films, and they have now become one of my favorite categories of cinema. They may only be around an hour long, but they are filled with plenty of story lines and enjoyable performers. These movies had a rhythm and a pace to them, and for the most part they are highly entertaining. HEAT LIGHTNING is a prime example.