Source: Warner Bros: DVD, 2009.
Year: 1929
Director: Harry Beaumont
Action Stars:
Genre: Racing Film
Country: United States
Story Duration: 01:14:46
Act Duration:
1st Act: 00:17:38
2nd Act: 00:24:32
3rd Act: 00:13:16
4th Act: 00:19:18
Plot Turns:
1st: Whipple’s love interest arrives
2nd: Patricia and Whipple parachute to safety
3rd: Whipple gets Pole position
ASD Ratio: 57%
AAD Ratios:
1st Act: 44%
2nd Act: 49%
3rd Act: 60%
4th Act: 78%
Action Structure: 1324
Action Scenarios:
Capture
Fall
Fight
Pursuit
Speed
Transfer
Total Action Moments: 22
Notable Action Sequence: Decoration Day Race
Duration: 00:14:56
Act: 4th
Action Scenarios:
Speed
Description: As an early automotive racing film, it is no surprise that the central action scenario in Speedway (1929) is speed. This holds true as well for the film’s climactic set piece, the Decoration Day Race, that takes up most of the final act. This sequence is significant for the ways that it depicts speed and risk but also successfully manages to weave a dramatic story through the race.
In terms of plot, the film focuses upon Bill Whipple, a carefree mechanic who is beguiled into working for Lee Renny, an underhanded racing car driver, and abandons his caring foster father Jim MacDonald, Renny’s competitor. Whipple successfully tunes up Renny’s vehicle and secures pole position, demonstrating his mechanical and driving expertise. On race day, Whipple is double-crossed by Renny who takes over as driver. Whipple is escorted off the track and tearfully watches from the sidelines Renny lead the race, and is remorseful for deserting Jim. Patricia Bonner, Whipple’s love interest, manages to convince Jim to let Whipple race for him. Whipple is called over the tannoy to report to Jim’s pit stop, and joyously changes into racing attire and replaces Dugan, Jim’s mechanic as driver. Suspense is built as Whipple overcomes a four-lap gap behind Renny, and eventually overtakes him. Pretending to have a splinter in his eye, Whipple pulls into the pit stop and instructs Jim to drive in the final laps of the race. Jim agrees despite his heart condition, and speeds past Renny to take the checkered flag. In the process, Whipple matures from youthful carefree self-centeredness to an adult who sacrifices his own success for the sake of another.
Built around this narrative armature is the presentation of the race itself and the depiction of speed. Speed is conveyed in the sequence in multiple ways. Although the film does not feature audible dialogue, it used an early sound-on-film system that was able to convey sounds of the racing cars, a rudimentary way of projecting speed. In addition, the sequence alternates between exterior shots of the vehicles, much of it captured from the 1929 edition of the Indianapolis 500 [Figure 1] and closer views of characters in cars, either by shooting from a moving camera vehicle [Figure 2], augmenting the impression of speed, and through process shots [Figure 3]. When Whipple laps Renny and Jim overtakes him on the last lap, speed is presented comparatively as one racing car moving faster than another.
Also inherent to speed are the risks traveling at such high velocity. In the sequence risk is conveyed through automotive crashes. Some of these are presented off-screen. At one point a wheel is shown rolling away that cues the viewer to imagine the accident. More often crashes are taken from documentary footage of the race that underscore the dangers of motorsports [Figure 4]. Story and the speed scenario are therefore combined in a way that presents the moral and physical hazards of auto-racing.