...the answer is NO!! There wasn't much heat lightning going on in this movie either!! Ann Dvorak had been one of the most exciting new talents to emerge in the early thirties but her rebellious attitude with studio heads made sure her talent was kept under a rock and her role as Myra in this film was a part any contract actress could have played. It was just another nail in the coffin of Ann's once promising career. It was up to good old Aline MacMahon to give some vitality to her role as Olga, the older sister, who has managed to keep her passions hidden for many years.This movie appears more like a very watered down version of "The Petrified Forest" without the psychological undertones and the powerhouse performance of Humphrey Bogart. Preston Foster had shown he could give dynamic performances (his Killer Meares in "The Last Mile") but unfortunately not in this movie. Olga and Myra run a road side diner 1,000 miles from anywhere, smart and efficient Olga servicing the cars, Myra yearning to get away. Poor Ann spends most of the movie with her head in her arms. For a service station, stuck in the middle of nowhere, it does a brisk trade, there is a bickering older couple, two would be starlets (lively Muriel Evans is billed as a blonde cutie), two freshly divorced gals on their way back from Reno (Glenda Farrell and Ruth Donnelly) and Jerry (Preston Foster) and his jittery sidekick (Lyle Talbot) on the run from a bank holdup. Jerry knows Olga from years before, he is the man she is trying to forget. When he overhears Mrs. Tifton (Farrell) discussing her jewelry he decides to play on Olga's pent up emotions - and have his friend rob the divorcée, but plans are changed when the women decide to put the jewelry in the safe. Not only does Olga realise she has been played for a fool but Myra comes home from the party that she had been forbidden to go to a bit the worse for wear.For all the "action" (and I use the term loosely) the movie doesn't seem to go anywhere but amazingly Aline MacMahon gets a part she can really sink her teeth into. Her Olga is no nonsense and all business but when her past catches up with her she displays vulnerability and longing in a very real way!!! There was no one like Aline!!!

I enjoyed this film. I posted a Spoiler Alert just in case I say too much. First of all besides the setting I didn't think it was like The Petrified Forest. The Petrified Forest is a better film and story but this little mostly unknown flick is good. Olga (MacMahon) is now running a "next gas 200 miles" kind of a rest-stop/motel in the lonely dreary and hot desert. Unlike Gabriel, where Davis' character who was filled with optimism, Olga had seen that done that. She's somewhat jaded but still has that spark of something positive. Preston Foster and Lyle Talbot are on the lam. It's that "of all the gin joints she walks into mine" kinda thing. Foster and MacMahon were lovers at one time. Foster isn't the nicest fella but when MacMahon sports a dress and some make-up he with all his smarmy charm shows an inkling of interest. However he's so awful that it's best that MacMahon not really pursue this. Enough said. Poor Myra, Olga's younger sister, Dvorak, bored to the gills and wants to have some fun in life. She meets a self-sided loser and is of course saddened even tho' Olga warned her about men. Glenda Farrell, Ruth Donnelly and Frank McHugh show up who are mainly a diversion even though parts are paramount to the plot and I'm not divulging same. A family of Mexicans stop by just for atmosphere in my opinion. What happens near the end is something you'll have to see. Again, the running time of this film is short, good actors, a bit of comic relief and do not expect The Petrified Forest and enjoy.

If you can get over the unlikely pairing of ALINE MacMAHON and PRESTON FOSTER as former lovers and stand the desert heat at a motor court stranded in the middle of nowhere, you may be able to accept some of the melodramatics of HEAT LIGHTNING.Nevertheless, I have to agree with The N.Y. Times when it summed it up as: "Drab melodrama with occasional flashes of forced comedy." The forced comedy is supplied by RUTH DONNELLY and GLENDA FARRELL as two rich dames being chauffeured by FRANK McHUGH, and in an early scene, JANE DARWELL and EDGAR KENNEDY as a bickering married couple who stop by for car repair and a coke. Otherwise, it's pretty dreary stuff, with Foster trying to con McMahon and her sister (ANN DVORAK) out of some money in their safe.The downbeat ending only emphasizes the dreariness of the plot which seems to go nowhere fast.

A fine example of minimalist film-making, this Warners B-pic offers a proto-feminist scenario delivered with some swell precode attitude. Two sisters (one world-weary, the other innocent) run a service-station-cum-caravansary on an isolated desert highway. Every passerby kids them about how dull and lonely this existence must be, but in the space of one night they serve host to a pair of criminals on the run, a couple of gold-diggers on the way back from Reno with their swag (and with a wise-guy chauffeur), plus a large family of Mexicans on the way to a fiesta.The main thrust of the film is melodramatic, as even in their isolation the women cannot avoid mistreatment by treacherous men. However, it's also filled with neat little comic bits and clever wisecracks. Director Mervyn Le Roy creates plenty of atmosphere with few resources, and the cheap-jack desert-palms backdrop (with the Mexican father tenderly serenading his family in the background) sticks in the memory. Le Roy uses an almost slow-motion tracking shot to great effect to show the hallucinatory influence of an ex-lover on the older sister as he intrudes into this sweaty environment. And it's pretty clear that there's a lot of casual sleeping around going on -- a lot of the jokes and situations probably wouldn't have survived the censors if this were a more prominent picture (and definitely not a year later). But the picture never flaunts its raciness -- sex is just part of the fabric of life.Though consistently enjoyable, the movie never builds up enough intensity to be classed with the immortal second features like Detour (though the climax does pack a punch). Surprisingly, the two leads never really click. Aline MacMahon and Ann Dvorak were always marvelously idiosyncratic in supporting roles, but here the former's baroque style seems overdone for the milieu, and the latter doesn't have much opportunity to vent her repressed passion (maybe the censor trimmed that bit). Overall, though, the performances from the many familiar faces are excellent, my particular favorite occurring in the opening scene featuring Edgar Kennedy as the henpecked spouse of Jane Darwell.Definitely worth seeking out for aficionados (but hard to find). Some might compare it to The Petrified Forest, but it gives me a bit of an offbeat Shack Out on 101 vibe, too.