Chester Morris is considered a top man with a wrecking ball; he's also got a reputation as a jinx, due to a couple of job site accidents. Doggedly cheerful, he rescues down-and-out stranger Jean Parker as she's thrown out of a bar for stealing. She tells him her only option left is the river; he follows her down to the bridge, chatting the whole way about never giving up, making one more try, and so forth. Finally he pauses and leans against a bridge rail, continuing to comment on her joke about the river as she walks away. "I knew it was just a gag," he says, "I just wondered how it was gonna pay off." --Splash.
Needless to say, he jumps in and saves her—a change in his luck! Soon, job foreman Richard Arlen appears on the scene and also takes an interest in Parker
.and their love triangle story runs alongside the larger plot of this ambitious B movie about the men—and women—who clear away old buildings to make way for the new, encountering danger and conflict at every step.
Morris's energy carries the show along; he talks faster, climbs more recklessly, loves his friends more devotedly than anyone else on the screen. Richard Arlen is steady and solid, the sensible character who shares mutual respect with Morris despite their different styles. Arlen really doesn't have much to do in the picture
.or is he just overshadowed by Chester making all the noise? Parker, as the girl loved by both, is charming and lively enough.
Joe Sawyer is quite good as a one-time major league pitcher who just needs to save up a little more money to get the elbow operation which will allow him to make his comeback. (From their ball-tossing scenes, it appears that Morris may have played some ball at one time, Sawyer not so much.) Esther Dale is quite wonderful as the wrecking company owner—trying to hang on to her late husband's business, she is referee, guide and mother as much as employer.
The climactic scene is genuinely exciting—the tension builds, the acting is good, a rousing music score helps overcome the rather hapless (even for 1942) demolition site special effects.
An enthusiastic piece of work that aims high and mostly succeeds.
