Review of The Daredevil Drivers

This Warner's First National programmer is only worth watching when Dick Purcell is behind the wheel of a speeding vehicle. Produced by Charles Foy and co-starring his comic-foil younger brother, Charles, The Daredevil Drivers is a typical bad guys (in the form of a competing underhanded bus company) vs. good guys (underdog bus company ran by Beverly Roberts) and a wayward dirt track racer (Purcell) that gets in the middle of it all. I watched it mainly to see William ("Paul Drake") Hopper in a 20-second cameo (hey, he got screen credit!) as a disgruntled bus driver and to check out hottie Gloria Blondell's first stab at acting on film. What I came away with is how much better this could have been with a different cast. Neither Purcell (who could double for Dick Foran) or Beverly Roberts (imagine a bland Gloria Stuart) makes an impression and Charles Foy could be replaced by anyone from Shemp Howard to Frank McHugh to Allen Jenkins. Strictly a programmer, it's interesting really only for shots of spectacular dirt track racing that appear early on---the inserted stock footage looks fatal--- and the cars (the supposedly broke Purcell tools around town in a semi-customized Packard roadster). I'm still trying to figure out what Gloria Blondell saw in Charles Foy. There's nothing much here folks!