MR RECKLESS

US, 1948, 66 minutes, Black and white.
William Eythe, Barbara Britton, Lloyd Corrigan, Walter Catlett, Nestor Paiva, Mina Gombell.
Directed by Frank Mc Donald.

Mr. Reckless is a small-budget supporting feature from the late 1940s. The main focus of interest is in its picture of the search for oil, oil-drilling, the derricks, the workers outside Los Angeles at the time. There are some touches of a semi-documentary in the presentation of the oil world.

The plot is very basic. William Eythe portrays the hero, something of a daredevil, who likes to travel around working on oil fields. He has left behind the woman who loves him. Suddenly, he reappears with a friend and they want to work outside Los Angeles. The fact that he is a daredevil is shown initially in his reckless driving through the city of Los Angeles. He crashes into the Therestaurant of his good friend, Gino, but discovers that Gino is engaged to his girl.

The film moves between work on the oil fields and life in the town. Gino has something of a temper and has to be restrained, the anger coming out in his fight with the hero for the sake of the girl. In the meantime, she is rather ambiguous, agreeing to marry Gino, almost signing the wedding documents, but hesitating, and finally going off with our hero, happy to travel around the world with him.

There is also a villain who sabotages the work, injuring the hero who finds himself being looked after and the same time as Gino who has also being injured.

There is also some comedy in the film with Walter Catlett, always eccentric in his performances, as the husband of the practical landlady, Mina Gombell. There’s also some comedy with the bride’s father, played by Lloyd Corrigan. However, he falls foul of the villain and is locked into an oil container and rescued only in the nick of time.
All this adds up to familiar Hollywood material, packed into a running time of just over an hour, and of interest mainly for historical reasons.