To appreciate these Byron Morgan/Wallace Reid films, it is quite important to see them as a series. This film directed by Sam Wood is the sequel to the previous year's The Roaring Road, directed by James Cruze, both films being based on a series of short stories written by Morgan fro the Saturday Evening Post (1918-1919) and featuring a character called "Toodles" Walden played by Wallace Reid.
The two films together form something in the nature of a "situation comedy" series, forerunner of such series as Blondie and Topper that would become such a popular genre in the thirties. In The Roaring Road Toodles is the employee of the head of Darco Cars, the chain-cigar-smoking J. D. Ward, known as "the bear" and played by Theodore Roberts and courting his daughter ("the cub") played by Ann Little. In the second film we see all the same characters. Toodles and Dorothy (the name of course of Reid's real-life wife although again played by Little) are now married and Theodore Roberts is now father-in-law and still the boss. Toodles and Dorothy have a baby (played by Reid's own baby son Wally). Many other characters reappear - the mechanic Tom Hardy (played by Guy Oliver) and the driver Griggs, played by an uncredited James Gordon. Frank Wheeler (played by Clarence Geldart) also reappears briefly in the second film. The only newcomer is the ever-splendid Tully Marshall as the villainous rival (wearing dark glasses in the sinister manner pioneered by Wallace Beery in Tourneur's 1917 film Victory).
Although this particular series did not go further, there was a second "road" series directed by Sam Wood and again written by Byron Morgan about a trucker named Dusty Rhoades, which would continue for the few years that remained to the luckless Wallace Reid.
Reid's drug addiction was an open secret in Hollywood itself and the arguments over his speed-addiction that resonate through this second film must have had a rather special significance for some at least of those who watched it.
The racing is particularly interesting too because it is not just track-racing. The climax of both films are night-time races run on the road between Los Angeles and San Francisco, where the object is in part to break the record for the journey. This was an entirely real phenomenon. For those who may be interested the record set in 1916 was nine hours 38 minutes and this record was broken in 1920 by the tour-passenger "Peerless" which did the journey in nine hours twenty minutes.
The recreation of this run (it was not actually a "race" as such) involved of course night filming is particularly well done in the first film while this second film mainly concentrates on the very end of the run which takes place in the early morning. There is though the added pleasure that J.D. himself has decided to take the wheel of one of the competing cars.
Here however is a description of the actual 1920 run by the Peerless from the Los Angeles Herald:
"Although the skies were clear, the night was a cold one and dense banks of fog hung over the Ridge Route obscuring the road so that it was impossible to see but a few feet ahead even though the Peeriesa was equippcd with powerful lights. Although benumbed with cold and fatigued by the dash through the night,the pilot and the three passengers tackled the tortuous Ridge highway as if the record-breaking run had but just started. It was a game test for the men and the car. In spite of cold and fog the 126 miles between Bakersfield and Los Angeles was accomplished In 2 hours and 44 minutes. The total mileage was 423.2 miles."
What is more the association of the run with the promotional activities of the motor business is, as one might expect, also entirely true to life:
"The Peerless that made the record breaking trip without the least mishap or the slightest mechanical trouble has been placed on the salesroom floor of Smith Brothers, where it is attracting the attention that is its due"