Born Reckless
Cast & Crew
Malcolm St. Clair
Rochelle Hudson
Brian Donlevy
Barton Maclane
Robert Kent
Harry Carey
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Although he wins the $25,000 first prize purse at an auto race, renowned daredevil Bob "Hurry" Kane soon spends the money carousing and buying furs and clothes for two girl friends. Arriving in a new town with other hoboes on a train, Bob visits his old friend, Lee Martin, whose father, Dad Martin, runs an independent cab company. When he learns that a racketeer, Jim Barnes, is having independent cabs wrecked to force the companies to join a protective association, which they must pay five dollars a week per cab, Bob accepts Lee's offer to drive a cab and soon makes his presence painfully known to cab drivers working for Barnes by wrecking many of their cabs. Barnes sends two hoods to kill Bob, but after they enter his cab, he crashes into a mailbox, knocking them out. He then dumps them at Barnes's garage. Impressed with Bob, Barnes offers him a job at $200 a week driving his new collision-proof cab made of armored steel and unbreakable glass. After Bob tests it by driving the cab into many of Barnes's other cabs, he declines the job saying that it is too dangerous. Sybil Roberts, Barnes's alluring companion, who has succeeded in keeping sex out of their relationship, meets Bob, who earlier flirted with her, to get him to work for Barnes. They both witness the armored cab run into another cab driver's vehicle crushing him to death. Before the district attorney's investigation, Sybil offers Bob $1,000 to get out of town, and during the hearing, he refuses to testify against Barnes. Outraged, Dad socks Bob. After Bob asks to work for Barnes, he discovers that Sybil has Barnes's apartment bugged and that she is recording his conversations. Barnes hires Bob, who suggests that Dad may now make a deal if Barnes meets him personally. Dad, who socked Bob as part of a ruse, notifies the district attorney, who sends men to entrap Barnes. While Barnes goes to the Martin garage, Sybil rifles his safe. When Bob interrupts her, she explains that she became involved with Barnes to get evidence, which she now has, to prove that Barnes framed her brother. Barnes sees the district attorney's men at the Martin garage and returns in time to surprise Bob and Sybil. After Barnes orders one of his men to turn a gasoline truck loose at the top of a hill headed for the Martin garage, Bob jumps Barnes, whose gun goes off and shoots Sybil in the side. Not knowing that Sybil is badly hurt, Bob leaves her to watch Barnes while he heads off the truck. When she faints, Barnes grabs her gun, but he is shot by police, who had been alerted by Bob. Just before the gas truck hits the garage, Bob knocks it away with the armored cab. Later, in a hospital garden, Bob, recovering from the crash, tells the Martins that he plans to marry Sybil, who is also recovering there, but when he sees a man embrace her, he recklessly speeds to her in his motorized wheelchair, disturbing the other patients, only to find out that the man is Sybil's brother.
Director
Malcolm St. Clair
Cast
Rochelle Hudson
Brian Donlevy
Barton Maclane
Robert Kent
Harry Carey
Pauline Moore
Chick Chandler
William Pawley
Francis Mcdonald
George Wolcott
Joseph Crehan
Charles Lane
Eddie Dunn
Lon Chaney Jr.
Charles Sullivan
Jimmie Dundee
Sam Mcdaniel
Chick Collins
Oscar G. Hendrian
Jack Stoney
Billy Wayne
Ivan Miller
Frank Marlowe
Stanley Andrews
Syd Saylor
Douglas Wood
Tom Ricketts
Henry Otho
Emmett Vogan
Gloria Roy
Joyce Compton
Richard Terry
Crew
Jack Andrews
Emily Baldwin
Bob Bertrand
John Blanke
S. C. Chapman
Daniel B. Clark
Lige Conley
Edwin H. Curtis
Tom Dudley
Ed. Ebele
Robert Ellis
Milton H. Feld
Curtis Fetters
Charles Fremdling
Alfred Golden
Chester Gore
R. E. Goux
Don Greenwood
Harold Hammack
John Hassett
Frank Henry
Herschel
Samuel Kaylin
Fred Kelly
Charles Kohl
Le Vaughn Larson
Harry M. Leonard
Helen Logan
Bud Mautino
Frank Mcdonald
Edwin Olmstead
Al Orenbach
John Patrick
H. Rommey
Al Root
Samuel Schneider
Verne Simmons
Rose Steinberg
Alex Troffey
Anthony Ugrin
Sol M. Wurtzel
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The unpublished story by Jack Andrews was entitled "Armored Taxi," which was the film's working title. According to publicity for the film, Brian Donlevy nearly lost two fingers of his left hand when, in a scene, he threw a bottle at Jimmie Dundee, who was a former welterweight boxer, and it exploded. The script was then rewritten to include the fact that Donlevy's hand had to be bandaged. This film bears no resemblance to two other films with the same title: the 1930 Fox film directed by John Ford or the 1959 Warner Bros. film starring Mamie Van Doren.
