Car of Dreams
Picture:
C Sound: C Extras: D Film: B-
As an
attempt to keep up with Hollywood, British Gaumont made Car Of Dreams back in 1935 as a way to
offer a sort of Musical. The film is not
totally filled with songs, but has some moments, coming out the same year of
Mark Sandrich’s Top Hat with Fred
Astaire & Ginger Rogers. We do not
get any dancing, but there is a certain fascination with technology beyond the
title dream vehicle that seems to take its cue at times from the 1930 Fox Sci-Fi/Musical
Just Imagine directed by David
Butler. A “Mr. Butler” is even mentioned
at the beginning of the film.
A young
man (John Mills) is rich and literally gives a Rolls-Royce away to Vera (Grete
Mosheim), a woman who he is falling for.
She does not suspect he has done this, as it is given as if she won a
contest (how naïve can you get?), but it is an amusing and entertaining early
British Soundie that is often charming and well cast. This was based on a play (by Laszlo Vadnay
& Miklos Vitez), though I wonder if they brought a real car on stage. Producer Michael Balcon had three writers
(Richard Benson, Stafford Dickens & Austin Melford) and two directors
(Graham Cutts & Melford) to make certain this worked out well. The result holds up nicely after 70 years.
The full
frame image is a bit softer than expected, with a print that has its problems,
but is in decent shape. M. Greenbaum is
credited as the cinematographer but is not a British Society of Cinematographer
member. The work is still good. The
Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono seems to be from a later generation source and is also
average, though some more work or the location of a better sound master could
fix that. There are no extras. It may feel like some things you have seen
before, but this is when this kind of thing was still fresh, so enjoy Car Of Dreams.
- Nicholas Sheffo
