Spotty 1948 programmer. On the whole, the mix of humor and oil well theatrics fails to achieve much impact. Events simply follow one another without really building. Too bad, for example, that Hugo's slow drowning from being trapped in an oil tank is not played up. The tension in that sort of setup is maximo to say the least. Then too Corrigan's comedic antics as Hugo are too often overdone and don't blend that well. I suspect the overall results were aimed at a mostly youthful audience. Also, it looks like the plot of blue-collar workers vying for the same girl is borrowed from such betters as Flowing Gold (1940) and Manpower (1941). But those were studio produced with much bigger budgets and stars than this indie production. Frankly, I tuned in to catch the sparkly Barbara Britton of TV's Mr. & Mrs. North in movie form. Trouble is her tag-along character Betty is pretty grim-faced throughout. In fact, I hardly recognized her. Anyway, there's a few good oil field scenes, while the few process shots are not obvious. Nonetheless, the 70-minutes amounts to a standard programmer and little more. Maybe for a slow evening, at best.
Review of Mr. Reckless
