Overlooked Classics: Heat Lightning (1934)

Aline MacMahon is a name that is unfortunately not as familiar with old movie buffs as much as it should be. As a film actress she spent much of her career playing supporting roles in movies staring bigger name actresses. Heat Lighting is a movie that proves that she could handle a leading role just as well as any big name actress could. This is not to say the movie is all her. Having a talented and versatile director like Mervyn LeRoy and an amazing supporting cast included Ann Dorvack, Edgar Kennedy, Preston Foster, Glenda Ferrell, Lyle Talbot and Frank McHugh certainly do not hurt. Still MacMahon's performance here is an incredible one and she commands the screen completely. Here she plays a woman who has shut herself off from the world and her emotions. People view her as a hard-bitten tough woman, but underneath her rough exterior she is just as vulnerable as anyone else. This is not an easy part to play and MacMahon plays it perfectly with a subtle ease. Even in her toughest scenes, we can always see the humanity and vulnerability in her and this is what makes her character more than just a two dimensional emotionless stick in the mud. Instead what we see here is a character that is just as real to us as ourselves.

Olga (Aline MacMahon) is a hard-bitten and seemingly emotionless owner of a gas station out in the middle of a desert. She works here in isolation with her sister, Myra (Ann Dvorak). Myra does not understand her sister's reason for isolating herself form the world and instead wants to go out. When Myra falls for a man named Steve Laird (Theodore Newton), who is no good, Olga takes it upon herself to protect her younger sister. Why Olga feels this way is shown when her old boyfriend a criminal on the lam named George (Preston Foster) shows up at the gas station.

As well as the performance of the star another thing that makes this movie so good, is the atmosphere. The filling station is an environment so unlike the big city where so many of this hard edged Warner Brother's movies of the 1930's take place that it gives the movie its own unique an memorable feeling (it is true that later The Petrified Forest would take place in a similar setting, but I would still argue, Heat Lighting has a feeling all its own). It is also helped by great location shooting at Vacaville, California. This atmosphere is so vid and real that it is hard not to get swept up in it. The story of this move is simple and uses that simplicity to its best advantage. The story feels rather small as for the majority of the movie not much really happens. Instead for most of its length this is a leisurely paced study of the characters and the environment. However this all leads to a shocking and powerful ending that is perfect.

This movie was released not long before the production code would take over Hollywood. This movie would be one of the first to banned by the Legion of Decency. This movie was released in April of 1934 and the first list of banned films would be on May 14th of the same year. This movie would appear on that list.

-Michael J. Ruhland