Burn 'Em Up O'Connor

Dennis O'Keefe is a race-car-obsessed farm boy. After he gets fired, he and fellow hayseed Nat Pendleton get jobs with Harry Carey's racing car outfit. While Pendleton becomes a mechanic, O'Keefe becomes a driver when a series of almost identical accidents kill Carey's other drivers. Pendleton takes it into his head that they aren't accidents, but murders. But how?

While O'Keefe s the lead in this MGM programmer and gets to pitch woo at Cecilia Parker, it's really Pendleton who's the hero of the story -- yes, I know, but to me, Sam is the real hero of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. It's an okay story, the sort of thing a Poverty Row producer might have done, but the MGM polish is oddly apparent in the racing sequences, when the shots are clearly process photography. With Addison Richards, Charley Grapewin, Tom Neal, Si Jenks, and Clayton Moore.