Boulder Dam

Boulder Dam (1936)

** (out of 4)

Predictable "B" movie from Warner has Detroit mechanic Rusty Noonan (Ross Alexander) accidentally killing his boss after being fired so he heads off to Colorado to start over. Once there he begins working as a construction guy at Boulder Dam while falling in love with a woman (Patricia Ellis) who befriended him but soon a man (Lyle Talbot) who knew him in Detroit threatens everything. BOULDER DAM is pretty much a by-the-numbers melodrama that doesn't have too much going for it. If you're a film buff you enjoys watching ever rare film that turns up on Turner Classic Movies then I'm sure you'll get some mild entertainment out of this thing but just about everyone else should stay clear. There are many problems with the film and the majority of them are in the screenplay. For starters, the opening few minutes features Rusty coming off as such a jerk that you really have to wait quite a while before you ever warm up to him. Another problem is that if you've ever seen a movie before then you really shouldn't have any problems figuring out what's going to happen long before it ever actual happens. This includes a few twists along the way and of course it never really makes sense why this woman would fall for this guy. And don't even get me started on the ending. Alexander isn't too bad in the lead as he has no trouble playing the jerk but he also doesn't have any issues when the character starts to change. Talbot delivers the fun performance you'd expect to see from him. Ellis actually steals the film with some good comic timing and the way she fights back at Alexander was quite funny. There's a minor action scenes at the very end of the picture, which is okay but all in all only film buffs are going to want to check this one out.