Too Hot to Touch (1938)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Too hot to touch |
| Original title | Too hot to handle |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1938 |
| length | 105 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Jack Conway |
| script |
John Lee Mahin Laurence Stallings |
| production | Lawrence Weingarten |
| music | Franz Waxman |
| camera | Harold Rosson |
| cut | Frank Sullivan |
| occupation | |
| |
A 1938 American comedy film by Jack Conway is too hot to touch. The screenplay, on which Buster Keaton also worked, is based on a story by Len Hammond. The premiere took place on September 16, 1938. In Germany the film was released in cinemas in the same year. A world premiere after the war only took place on September 1, 1980 on German television. Here the film was also broadcast under the title "Love That Falls From Heaven".
action
Newsreel producers McArthur and Todd are tough rivals. McArthur sends Chris Hunter, an unscrupulous reporter, to Shanghai to cover the Sino-Japanese war . Todd sent his best man, Bill Dennis, there. Hunter tries to outdo his rival by cinematically manipulating a Japanese bombing raid on Shanghai with the help of model airplanes. Dennis gets on the track of the fraud and wants to take revenge on his part with a trick. An alleged aid flight is said to arrive in Shanghai. Hunter hides in an ambulance, but the plane collides with the ambulance on landing. Hunter can save the pilot Alma Harding from the plane.
Dennis, with the help of Chinese soldiers, is able to get the film from Hunter's assistant Joselito, while Hunter pretends to Alma that he burned the film and was fired for it by his boss. He learns from her that she wants to look for her brother Harry, who has disappeared in the Amazon jungle. She helps him get to New York so he can explain everything to McArthur. He takes Alma under contract and finances her search expedition.
Because his rival Todd owns the Shanghai film, McArthur has to find something new for his newsreel. He lets Alma and Hunter fly to a shipwreck. Hunter succeeds in filming the exploding ship. Dennis then blackmailed him to name him as an additional cameraman. Hunter, in turn, blackmails McArthur into collaboration. At a banquet, Todd shows the Shanghai movie in which Alma explains that the whole flight is a hoax. Alma is upset when Hunter said in the film that he was trying to take advantage of her.
Hunter and Dennis pawn their cameras. They send Joselito to Alma with a check who pretends to be South American. You watch Alma take off. Joselito is sent to McArthur by Hunter with a compass. When Dennis finds out that Hunter has his camera back, he disguises himself as the missing person's wife and learns where Alma has flown to. Ben meets Alma and both meet Hunter and Joselito. When a native gives Alma Harry's watch, Dennis realizes that the compass was a ploy to mislead him. Alma and Dennis fly off, while Hunter and Joselito have to take a canoe with the native. The native flees, but is wounded by Joselito.
When Hunter and Joselito reach the native village, Hunter shows them dancers with a projector. The natives consider Hunter a white god, he can free Harry. Joselito, however, is captured while Hunter treats Harry's malaria. Hunter and Joselito dress up as medicine men when Alma and Bill appear near the village and film them. Alma takes care of Harry, Hunter carries Dennis' camera. When the wounded native shows up in the village, Hunter's god status is gone. He and Joselito flee in the direction of the plane, but Dennis shoots them because he thinks they are attacking natives. In New York, Todd shows Dennis a photo, and Alma recognizes Hunter in the medicine man. Soon after, she meets him while he is filming a shooting competition.
background
The film should not be confused with the British crime thriller of the same name that Terence Young directed in 1960 with Jayne Mansfield , Karlheinz Böhm and Christopher Lee .
Buster Keaton's work on the script was not mentioned in the credits. The idea with the fake bomb attack went back to him. To live up to his role, Clark Gable worked with a newsreel crew for two days. At the time of filming, Clark Gable and Myrna Loy were at the peak of their careers. Gable was the "King of Hollywood", Loy the "Queen". They made seven films together.
Al Shean, a born German, is an uncle of the Marx Brothers . Through him, a well-known actor in the vaudeville theater , the five brothers got into show business.
Cedric Gibbons was responsible for setting the film , with support from Edwin B. Willis. Douglas Shearer was responsible for the sound and A. Arnold Gillespie for the special effects .
Reviews
The lexicon of the international film about the film: "Comedy rapidly staged to the point of breathlessness, which is surprisingly snappy and unforgiving." The magazine Cinema drew the following conclusion about this "crazy triangular story": "Fast-paced comedy from Hollywood's best days." Variety praised the “breathless tension, sizzling dialogues, glamorous presentations and the inevitable romance”.
Web links
- Too hot to touch in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. imdb.com
- ↑ Too hot to touch. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ cf. cinema.de
- ↑ cf. variety.com ( Memento from September 18, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )