Good Cop, Not Cop

Ah, Poverty Row. And ah, Amazon Prime. Gotta love system algorithms, right? A bunch more Poverty Row movies have popped up in my Recs, and by “a bunch,” I mean a virtual snow flurry. One of these is 1936’s Step On It, which was filmed as programming for the then-burgeoning TV industry, and according to IMDb, the movie was later retitled Murder On the Road. Why anyone would give a movie like this a title like that is a bit mystifying, because no one gets murdered, at least not deliberately.

Step On It clocks in at just under an hour long, and it opens with a memo to the state troopers to crack down on speeders and the troopers laughing amongst themselves. A disgruntled young woman, Connie Banning (Lois Wilde) calls the police department and demands that the officer who keeps pulling her over for speeding on a certain road to please stop going after her. It happens so often that it must be personal, and her name keeps appearing in the paper. It is not to be borne!

The chief gives some non-committal answers, saying anything but the painfully obvious: “Maybe you should quit driving like a maniac?”

Funny thing, though, Connie decides to go speeding down that one road again on her way home, and naturally, she gets pulled over again. Larry (Richard Talmadge), the state trooper who’s been pulling her over, is unimpressed, and since Connie is a serial offender, he tells her she has to go down to the station.

Connie goes careening off, and Larry follows her, only to find she’s going to great lengths to avoid him. She pulls her clothes off and dives into the pool, and when that doesn’t work she runs up to her bedroom, peels her swimsuit off, and lays naked under her sheets. Larry is undeterred, though. When Connie refuses to let him in he freeclimbs up to her room and brings her down wrapped in her bedsheets.

Dad Frank (Earl Dwyre) is pretty livid that his daughter was arrested in the all-together, but he’s also grateful because he knows his daughter is a spoiled brat and a bad driver. He owns a gasoline company, and wants Larry to help him catch some thieves who are stealing his gasoline. He’s prepared to pay Larry more than he makes as a state trooper.

How Frank arrived at that idea from observing Larry’s prowess as a traffic cop is anyone’s guess, but for some reason the only way Larry can help him is if he’s not a state trooper anymore. Captain Bradshaw (Lafe McKee) agrees to push Larry out of his job by telling him he’s got to work behind a desk for a while. He knows Larry will be so disgusted he’ll quit, and that’s exactly what happens.

Now that Larry’s a free man, he sets about getting his car fixed, and it just so happens that while he’s at the gas station talking to the mechanic, the thieves show up. Larry and the mechanic follow them in Larry’s car and head them off, which Frank is very pleased about. He offers Larry a job and asks him to help him catch the gasoline thieves.

From there on, things get needlessly convoluted. The gasoline thefts are being controlled by a crime ring that hides out at the local asylum, and Larry gets plenty of chances to prove himself. He’s not only adept at enforcing traffic laws, but bareknuckled fighting against groups of mobsters.

Oh my word, this movie is lame. It’s not long on logic in the slightest, it’s badly filmed, and the dialogue creaks like a rusty gate. There’s even one scene when someone drives up to a house, gets out of their car, goes into the house, and is let in by someone. Who is it? We don’t know, because we can’t see anyone’s face. It’s not until the movie cuts to the interior that we find out we’re at the criminals’ hideaway.

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I mean, I know this movie had a microscopic budget, but how much does it cost to have the actors turn their faces towards the camera? The group fight scenes are equally awkward, as they mostly involve random swinging, yet the bad guys still end up scattered comotose around the scene.

The one bright spot is Richard Talmadge, who plays Larry. Talmadge, who was born Ricardo Metezzeti in Germany, started in Hollywood as Douglas Fairbanks’ double and then moved up to stunt work and acting. He was an OK actor but his real strength was in stunts, as he was incredibly athletic. In Step On It he does some truly amazing leaps over furniture and off staircase landings, making it all look so easy.

Too bad it’s not enough to save Step On It. The few reviews it got were a little too kind. The August 26, 1936 issue of Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin called Step On It “A trifle above the average run of Talmadge stunt films, because it doesn’t violate the laws of plausibility so flagrantly…All clean, fast action, a bit of comedy and romance for the none too fastidious.”

Um. Sure.

The Philadelphia Exhibitor said Step On It was “…With better back¬ grounds than recent Talmadge entrants, but plenty action, this should satisfy,” pronouncing the film, “okey.”

Their spelling, not mine.

Not surprisingly, despite Talmadge being a respected stuntman, Step On It faded into obscurity until the advent of television in the late 1940s. Like many of the cheaply-made TV films of the thirties, the movie realized its original purpose, at least temporarily, on the small screen, although the time slots weren’t great  (Tuesday afternoons and Saturday at lunchtime seemed popular).

Come to think of it, Step On It is still finding new life on the small screen, as long as it keeps rising to the top on streaming services, which isn’t a bad place to be.

A new post is coming out on Wednesday. Yep, things are busy right now, but anywhoo, thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you next week…

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Step On It is available on DVD from Amazon and is free to stream for Prime customers. It can also be viewed on YouTube.

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