Speed(1936).

Speed(1936). Action film with James Stewart and Wendy Barrie. The film begins at Emery Motors, where the companies publicist Jane Mitchell, takes a tour of the factory with the plant's engineer Frank Lawson and test driver Terry Martin. There Jane learns that Terry is trying to build a better/bigger/faster carburetor with Clarence Maxmillian Haggerty, also known as "Gadget,".

Both and Frank and Terry invites Jane to the company dance, but she refuses at first saying that she has to work.. Frank tells her that he told Josephine that he couldn't go to the dance with her because he was taking Jane, she then agrees to go with him. At the dance, Terry is upset that Jane did not go to the dance with him.

Because of their hard feelings Frank and Terry find it very hard to work together. After the trials, Terry does not think the carburetor is ready, but Frank insists that everything is all right and Terry drives in the race.

Something goes wrong and Gadget is critically injured and Terry hospitalized with a concussion. Terry blames Jane, who now realizes that she is in love with him. He accuses her of only caring about the money and wants nothing to do with her.

Soon Terry, is well and ready to back to work, but no one wants to finance his project. Jane then secretly asks her uncle the companies owner to back Terry's project and he agrees. Later, at Medoc dry lake, everyone watches as Terry runs the first half of the course.

The rules of the contest say that he must finish within thirty minutes, which no one has done before. Frank and the others rush to the car and find Terry has almost been asphyxiated and Frank races him to the hospital. Will Frank's quick action save Terry's life?



Fun Fact:

Archive footage of an actual Indianapolis 500 race is included in the movie.

What is fun about this film is that it made before Jimmy Stewart became a star and he plays a character you would never expect from him.

Wendy Barrie (18 April 1912 – 2 February 1978). While still in her teens, she began pursuing a career as an actress, helped by her red-gold hair and blue eyes. Adopting the stage name Wendy Barrie (in honour of Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie, who was said to have invented the name "Wendy"), she began her acting life in English theatre then in 1932 made her screen debut in the film Threads, which was based upon a play.

Barrie went on to make a number of motion pictures for London Films under the Korda brothers, Alexander and Zoltan, the best-known of which is 1933's The Private Life of Henry VIII which starred Charles Laughton, Robert Donat, Merle Oberon, and Elsa Lanchester. Barrie portrayed Jane Seymour.

In 1934, she performed in the film, Freedom of the Seas and was contracted by Fox Film Corporation for a film directed by Scott Darling that was made in Britain. The following year, she moved to the United States and made her first Hollywood film for Fox opposite Spencer Tracy in the romantic comedy, It's a Small World, followed by Under Your Spell. Loaned to MGM, Barrie starred opposite James Stewart in the 1936 film Speed. In 1939 she starred with Richard Greene and Basil Rathbone in the 20th Century Fox version of, The Hound of the Baskervilles and with Lucille Ball in, Five Came Back. During the early 1940s, Barrie made several of The Saint and The Falcon mystery films with George Sanders. She made her final motion picture in 1943.