Humphrey Bogart, Sylvia Sidney, Joan Leslie, Eddie Albert, and Sig Ruman star in "The Wagons Roll at Night," a 1941 film from Bogart, most likely made before Bogart really hit the big time with High Sierra and Maltese Falcon. 1941 was certainly an important year for him.
Bogart plays Nick Coaster, the head of a traveling carnival. When a lion escapes, he ends up in a grocery store where the clerk, Matt (Albert) saves the day and becomes a local hero. Coaster thinks the kid's a natural and talks him into learning the lion tamer trade. He needs him - his usual lion tamer, Hoffman the Great (Ruman) is usually drunk.
One night, Hoffman is too drunk to go on and despite objections from other members of the carnival, Coaster sends the novice Matt into the ring. He does such an excellent job that Nick fires Hoffman. Hoffman retaliates, gets into a huge fight with Matt, and ends up mauled by one of the lions. Matt has to get out of town fast, so Flo (Sidney) suggests they take him to Nick's farm. This is a big no-no because Nick is determined that his sister (Leslie) not mix with carnival people. You can guess the rest.
The young Albert was adorable, extremely likable in his role. Bogart is terrific as Nick, a tough as nails guy who considers all carnival people, including Flo and himself, the scum of the earth. Sidney shows her vulnerability here, as a woman who's been hurt by Nick but still cares for him, even while she's attracted to Matt.
Entertaining and predictable, and I have to make a disclosure here that Eddie Albert holds a special place in my heart. I interviewed him when he was in his 90s and quite frail, and after the article was published, I heard from some Navy veterans who wanted to publish the story of my father in a magazine - they'd known he was in the Navy but had no idea of his heroism. I wrote back and said fine, but Eddie Albert isn't my father, had I written something that made them think so? It turned out that Albert's daughter has the same first name as I do, and they got confused. My father, who died in 2007, got a huge kick out of that email and kept it.
