A Future Star Starting Out

Speed (1936) Offers James Stewart First-Billing For A First Time

Good gracious, James Stewart's first starring part and he owns it. Even a dimmest Metro onlooker could see this was a star not of the future, but right now. He's a car designer who doubles at daredevil testing of fresh-off-line heaps. It looks like he's riding inside an elephant. Cars were big enough then to sustain rollovers without injury; their size plus a seatbelt would reassure me, but hold on, there weren't generally safety straps in '36 (read once where MGM director Clarence Brown had them installed in vehicles he drove --- smart man). There's near-documentary tour of assembly lines where behemoths were built; antiquity buffs would dig this mightily. Speed was off Metro's own B assembly (negative cost: $194K), so it's an economy model, but names and surplusage wasn't needed, this a 70 minutes behind wheels we'd not want to last longer. Stewart reads lines in natural, even off-hand, manner; he'd have been a refresher from chalk walking done by beginning others. At romance, he seemed diffident, but was really a wolf in sheep's clothing, and there I'd submit was a secret of his eventual success. Wasn't there an interview where someone asked Jim about Speed and he couldn't remember making it? Good thing it wasn't me posing questions, as first out of box would have been, What was it like working with the great Ted Healy?