Truck drivers Steve Hackett and Bill Purvis are fired from their jobs with the West Coast Trucking company for not using second-gear going down steep grades. Davis, the company vice-president, surprisingly asks them to carry a load of merchandise to Arrowhead and offers a $1000 bonus. He tells them it is a load of lettuce. Several miles out of Los Angelese, they are stopped by a mob of lettuce-farm workers on strike. When the first crate is tossed off the truck, it explodes and the two pals learn their merchandise is a cargo of dynamite. The workers let them proceed and they crash into a car driven by Mary Stevens, whom they had met at a restaurant. She and her dog, "Butch" (played by a Credited dog named Stooge), join them and they deliver their cargo, and learn unscrupulous real-estate operators have jammed the locks on the dam in order to ruin the ranchers and farmers and take over their property.
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A couple of truck driver get talked into doing a special haul.This is a pretty good movie. Its a tad bit slow. Some of the comedic timing is off. There are parts where the lighting wasn't the greatest. And I didn't care for the singing truck driver. But the story line moves well with plenty of twist a turns. And its a good story. Joseph Kane,Nathan West, and the rest of the crew did a pretty good job on this film. John Waynes' best friend,a young Ward Bond, of "The Searchers" and Wagon Train" is in this one.Ralph Byrd drives the Studebaker big rig.Ralph Byrd was a permanent A list actor.Doris Weston and Sterlita Peluffo were hot.erldwgstruckermovies.com
Truth be told, "Born To Be Wild" is not a good film, but there are much worse. Starting with the title - it seems to fit a JD flick or a biker flick better than it does in this trucker's movie, as really, who exactly is 'born to be wild?' It certainly isn't the truck driving stars, who aren't that wild at all. Matter of fact, one just wants to sleep, and the other breaks out in song at weird times! What kind of songs? Truck driving songs of course! The plot - our two "wild" drivers are hired to haul a truckload of lettuce (which is really dynamite) for a grand (each? never specified) while bad guys of some sort try to stop them. It all gets revealed in the film's last ten minutes, in a confusing array of nonsense which you are not going to care about.As they are hauling, you'll see it's mostly a dull trip. There is a LOT of talking, and it's all that 1930's real fast "witty" talk that either cracks you up, makes you roll your eyes, up, or both. There is a good quick scene where their truck smashes a car.The pretty girl they pick up is kind of a secret agent, or double agent, or, well, who cares. It's explained later but by then even though the movie is just over an hour, you are too exhausted to care who is who and why.There is some interesting miniature special effects work at the end which is fun to see. The film also has probably the worst and least convincing "fake background scenery scenes as we show the people driving" scenes ever done."Born To Be Wild" isn't wild at all, but may interest you if you are feeling sick on an afternoon where you have NOTHING better to watch on hand for a little while.
Joseph Kane seems to have some kind of golden touch. The low budget films he directs would appear to be very depressing and embarrassing to the cast. Or so you would think. In Kane's films, he seems to be able to get them to see the light side and have fun and this shows. This is what I like about them. the plots are ludicrous and brutally contrived but they are less like film and more about a surprisingly enjoyable house party. That's why his westerns are so fun. There's no Oscar stress, it's the depression, and they're working. Look at Public Cowboy No. 1 or Man From Music Mountain. In Born to be Wild we have a couple of guys driving a truck and having some pretty crazy problems. Ralph Byrd shows way more personality than in those Dick Tracy things. The female lead is a very appealing Doris Weston who had practically no career. The surprise for me was Ward Bond who showed great range and personality as a curmudgeonly truck driver who was capable of being the life of the party with a hilarious rumba. The relaxed wit and chemistry among these three is excellent. The other great thing about this film is the location shooting and the period atmosphere. You can't fully enjoy this film unless you have an interest in 30's history. They show things like a picket line, a hokey land developer, etc. And the film moves along, you never wallow in tedium. As usual in a Kane film, even the bad guys seem to be having fun. The story, well I don't know.
Or perhaps 'Snoozer' would be the right term for an undiscovered masterpiece of bad film making. If you've ever seen THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT, you may know there was a genre of trucking pictures in the late 1930s. Well, this is a SINGING trucking picture. Yes, Ward Bond sings! And no ordinary songs of love and the open range, but songs of the dangers of trucking and truck stops and blowouts. Surprisingly, the score was not considered worthy of being nominated for an Oscar.Then there's the plot, which is about two truckers who are not in the least surprised to be given a $1000 bonus to drive lettuce to market, how they discover it's dynamite and the beautiful woman who doesn't believe them. Given the not inconsiderable talent -- that's Western director Joseph Kane behind the camera -- it's a real achievement for a movie this bad to show up. Take a look if you don't believe it. You'll find yourself humming 'Danger Ahead'.