California Straight Ahead! (1937) watch online HD

California Straight Ahead finds John Wayne as a school bus driver turned truck driver. The film was one of a series of six films that John Wayne made for Universal Pictures that was an attempt to broaden his acting horizons. Not one of these films that he did for Universal was a western.

Though this one does have some western like elements. The final climax has Wayne leading a wagon train like caravan of big rigs trying to beat the railroad to the Pacific Coast before a longshoreman's strike commences is definitely western like in its presentation for the screen.

California Straight Ahead also bears no small resemblance to the working stiff pictures that were more popular at Warner Brothers. Wayne's in a part that Pat O'Brien normally would have played. If the film had been done at MGM, Spencer Tracy would have been cast.

The Duke does not do badly as the happy go lucky Biff Smith who's a lazy fellow with little ambition, content to be a school bus driver. He's got a thing for Louise Latimer, but his lack of ambition distresses her mother, Grace Goodall, to no end. He actually gets himself canned from that job when he helps Latimer's brother, Emerson Treacy, get his cargo to Chicago after villain LeRoy Mason disables Treacy's truck. Wayne and Treacy form a partnership that later includes Harry Allen.

Mason was no stranger to John Wayne films, he appeared in several of Wayne's films as a western villain right up to and including some Three Mesquiteers series. Allen has a nice part, he plays cockney- accented James McCorkle, though there's no explanation as to how he landed from Piccadilly in the American mid-west.

California Straight Ahead, despite some big holes in the plot, is not a bad film for John Wayne. Considering some of the hard driving parts he mostly played, those early scenes in this film were something I had never witnessed from him before, even though he does eventually grow into the usual Duke character. That opening with him driving the school bus and the kids singing almost looks like the setting of a number from a Bing Crosby film.

The film's not great, but it's an interesting part for the Duke.

Competition between railroads and trucking companies seems to have been a popular topic. Usually, the truckers were the bad guys who resorted to dirty tricks to put the railroads out of business. Paradise Express, made the same year as this movie, featured Harry Davenport as the owner of a beleaguered short line railroad. In the early 1950s, Ealing Studios made the Titfield Thunderbolt along the same lines. In California Straight Ahead, for variety's sake, the truckers are the good guys and the railroad the villain. The plot is typical: an airplane parts manufacturer has a shipment that has to get from the plant in the Midwest to San Francisco before an anticipated dock workers' strike shuts down the port. The manufacturer won't get paid if the goods aren't shipped. The factory apparently has plenty of inventory because they let the railroad and John Wayne's trucks both have a complete load to transport, but only the carrier that gets to the port first before the strike will be paid. And away they go. The trucks, in addition to the usual mechanical problems, also have problems inflicted by railroad goons. The details are hazy in my mind since I saw this movie once over 40 years ago. You can probably create your own scenario in your head and not be far off. The ending was a jaw dropper. I don't remember its exact real name but, as everybody stood on shore watching the freighter full of airplane parts sail west, we saw its name on the stern: Shigetsu Maru Yokohama.

"California Straight Ahead" is an exciting little saga about the early trucking industry in the United States. John Wayne plays an ambitious public bus driver who turns to hauling loads for loot in "Gangs of Chicago" director Arthur Lubin's charismatic potboiler. Clocking in at 67-trim minutes, "California Straight Ahead" shows Wayne at his early best as an indomitable hero. This is one of those old fashioned, inspirational, empire building tales where two small fry challenge a bigger freighting firm. Biff Smith (John Wayne of "Chism") teams up with his pal Charlie Porter (Emerson Treacy of "The Sky Raiders") to start their own two-bit trucking outfit. One day, Biff makes a proposition to haul a load of Nitroglycerin. Later, he gets into a free-for-all, knock-down drag out brawl in Chicago and then cools his heels in jail. He calls Charlie and tells him to cancel the job. He asks that the boss delay the shipment, but the boss is adamant about getting the nitroglycerin shipped. Reluctantly, Charlie takes it. Of course, Biff doesn't know anything about this unfortunate turn of events. Padula Trucking drivers switch a road closed sign on Charlie, and he gets stuck in the mud. Biff gets back to town, checks in at Mary's café, and discovers the news that Charlie is hauling the explosives. Just before Biff can find Charlie, he sees a bright explosion on the horizon. Charlie is dead, and Mary (Louise Latimer) hates him. She hates him because he lied to him. Biff and a British fish hauler 'Fish' McCorkle (Harry Allen of "Buckskin Empire") join forces and haul. One day Biff and McCorkle are loading their vehicle when a Corrigan Trucking Company vehicle bangs up their truck. Biff goes to collect the damages and meets old man Corrigan (Robert McWade) and they hit it off together. Eventually, Biff rises in the company as a foreman. Biff is all about being gung-ho. The contentious Corrigan isn't the easiest of bosses. Meantime, Biff commandeers the entire Corrigan Trucking Fleet to deliver a million dollar contract, but he faces stiff, neck-to-neck, competition. Biff keeps his caravan of trucks moving through harsh weather. He even uses a tanker truck to keep his vehicles constantly on the move. Rival trucker Padula (LeRoy Mason) utters a deathbed confession to killing Charlie to Mary while they are in route to the hospital. Arthur Lubin never wears out his welcome. There is a recurring gag about the Corrigan President requesting an aspirin. John Wayne fans will be pleased with this entertaining epic.

Having made his screen debut at the age of 19, John Wayne's career was developed by acting in screen adaptations of western novels to embody the prototype cowboy and all-American man. This film was interesting to watch, not because it was an interesting film, but because John Wayne was in it.