I must confess, I absolutely love watching early 1930s pre-code films on Turner Classic Movies. "Heat Lightning," 1934, is one of my favorites. These films could be rated PG or even G today but it's the adult dramas and themes in the films that panicked the short pants of the old-maid prudes of the Hays Commission way back then. And Heat Lightning was Aline MacMahon's first starring role. MacMahon was a great actress; heck, she'd be a big star in this era.
I am going to post a couple of 1934 reviews below. I know they are tough to read. I will then offer a brief review from me and add a couple more newspaper clips to go with the one above. Plan9Crunch thanks David Grudt of Long Beach, Calif., for digging through Newspaper Archives to find these old press gems.
OK, McMahon and co-star Ann Dvorak are Olga and Myra, sisters running a gas station on the old road through the hottest part of California (I always think near Baker, Calif.) but town is unnamed. At their station 110 degrees is a cool day. Olga is the protective older sister whose lived a lot. She won't let younger Myra go to a dance because she thinks young sister's boyfriend Steve is a bad guy.
A whole host of wonderful vintage stars are in the film. Jane Darwell and Edgar Kennedy are wonderfully comic as an old couple who stop by the station for a car repair. (Olga is also a mechanic.)
Two rich divorcees (Glenda Farrell and Ruth Donnelly) breeze in to spend the night in rooms the station lets. They're with a world-weary chauffer (Frank McHugh). An impoverished Mexican family stays the night in their vehicle and sings at night. An old man called "Popsy" is traveling with two "cutie-pies" he picked up. The sheriff occasionally shows up.
Tension mounts when two men, George (Preston Foster) and Jeff (Lyle Talbot) stop for the night. It turns out George is a former boyfriend of Olga's (from her old days). The pair are actually robbers who have killed a man in Salt Lake City. They're heading for the border but George, despite a nervous Jeff, is determined to first steal the jewels the rich divorcees have placed in the station's safe.
I won't say any more about the plot's resolution, but I'll list the pre-code elements, and why the silly Catholic Legion of decency panned the film.
-- In one scene, one of the "cutie pies" (Muriel Evans) tells her friend, "Say, it's your turn to sit up front with that old thigh-pincher."
-- Divorcee played by Glenda Farrell is forced to take a bath outside. Her chauffer (Frank McHugh), a married man, keeps guard and later they are a couple.
-- Despite her reservations and distrust of George, Olga spends the night with him. George is seen leaving her room early in the morning.
-- Although it's only barely implied, younger sister Myra, who sneaks out to the dance with boyfriend Steve, is treated coldly by him when he returns her home; this despite her obvious affection. Her sobbing afterwards with Olga hints that she was seduced.
-- The resolution, not to be told here, has violence and a nontraditional opinion on crime punishment.
This is a melodrama with stereotypes, but it has that Warner Bros/First National heart, with all the great actors of that era. Preston Foster and Aline MacMahon generate attraction despite the latter's wish not to feel it.
This film pops up on TCM a few times a year. Enjoy a couple more clips below.
-- Doug Gibson
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