Robert Armstrong and James Gleason play, respectively, hobos Dude and Dusty, riding the rails until they take a job on the same line they have been sponging rides off of. Dude falls for the railroad timekeeper, Pinkie(Patricia Caron), and Dusty falls for a waitress at the railroad restaurant, the oddly named "The Elk" (Zasu Pitts). When they take the job, two supervisors are discussing that there have been two men, possible employees, that have been stealing from the railroad, and to keep a look out. Now Dusty and Dude had a fight with these exact two guys when they were still hobos, were bound to see them in camp, yet nothing ever comes of it.
There is much filler in this film. There is a prolonged scene of the workers eating in the railroad restaurant that doesn't really have a point, and there is a throwaway scene of the workers sitting around a campfire at night singing off-key that I could have done without. Even the scenes where there is dialogue and action run too slow, but it is not to the point where I was bored.
As for the romances, the one between Dude and Pinkie seems to come out of nowhere. All she does is smile at him and days later they are talking matrimony. But she turns out to be smarter than most girls in these early talkie romances. She says that Dude is one step above a bum, and he needs to change. She says he can start by putting a hundred dollars of each paycheck into savings. He agrees.
As for Dusty and "The Elk", because both Gleason and Pitts were great at verbal comedy, you actually see their relationship grow through conversation.
So everything is looking up until Dude breaks his promise and loses most of his paycheck at gambling one night, but was seen depositing one hundred dollars the next day, and he happened to be the last person seen with "Splinters" who was beaten and robbed that same night of an unknown amount, and is lying in a coma unable to say what happened.
What does happen is everybody blames Dude because of the circumstantial evidence. Even Dusty and Pinkie believe he is guilty. So Dude hops the next train out leaving his job and girl behind, crestfallen that nobody believes him. How will this all work out? Watch and find out.
Questions I had - What exactly IS a railroad timekeeper? If everybody thought Dude beat and robbed Splinters why didn't they detain him rather than just let him leave? If Splinters was not dead why did they not wait until he came to and ask him what happened? Will all of these people not know each others' real names until they have to fill out a marriage certificate? Oh, and one more thing. Some have mentioned that the fight scenes on the train looked silly because of the speed. That is because those scenes had to be done with silent film due to the early sound pedigree with sound dubbed over it, thus the scenes just did not come out at the right speed.
There is much filler in this film. There is a prolonged scene of the workers eating in the railroad restaurant that doesn't really have a point, and there is a throwaway scene of the workers sitting around a campfire at night singing off-key that I could have done without. Even the scenes where there is dialogue and action run too slow, but it is not to the point where I was bored.
As for the romances, the one between Dude and Pinkie seems to come out of nowhere. All she does is smile at him and days later they are talking matrimony. But she turns out to be smarter than most girls in these early talkie romances. She says that Dude is one step above a bum, and he needs to change. She says he can start by putting a hundred dollars of each paycheck into savings. He agrees.
As for Dusty and "The Elk", because both Gleason and Pitts were great at verbal comedy, you actually see their relationship grow through conversation.
So everything is looking up until Dude breaks his promise and loses most of his paycheck at gambling one night, but was seen depositing one hundred dollars the next day, and he happened to be the last person seen with "Splinters" who was beaten and robbed that same night of an unknown amount, and is lying in a coma unable to say what happened.
What does happen is everybody blames Dude because of the circumstantial evidence. Even Dusty and Pinkie believe he is guilty. So Dude hops the next train out leaving his job and girl behind, crestfallen that nobody believes him. How will this all work out? Watch and find out.
Questions I had - What exactly IS a railroad timekeeper? If everybody thought Dude beat and robbed Splinters why didn't they detain him rather than just let him leave? If Splinters was not dead why did they not wait until he came to and ask him what happened? Will all of these people not know each others' real names until they have to fill out a marriage certificate? Oh, and one more thing. Some have mentioned that the fight scenes on the train looked silly because of the speed. That is because those scenes had to be done with silent film due to the early sound pedigree with sound dubbed over it, thus the scenes just did not come out at the right speed.