The First Auto

n 1927, it took only three spoken words and some sound effects to tell The First Auto, an otherwise silent story about the birth of the automobile. Director Roy Del Ruth, one of Warner Brothers' most prolific directors at the time, filled the picture with details about the birth of the horseless carriage. He even cast legendary racecar driver Barney Oldfield in a small role. But the film was far from a documentary, as writer/producer Darryl F. Zanuck built the story around the conflict between a father who raises and races horses and a son involved in the fast-rising automobile industry. Del Ruth was a mainstay at every studio he worked for (including MGM and 20th Century-Fox), but he's probably best known for his work at Warner Bros., where he labored from the mid-'20s until 1934. He was a major influence on the studio's gritty fast-paced style before the arrival of Production Code enforcement in 1934. Among his most notable films there were the first screen version of The Maltese Falcon (aka Dangerous Female, 1931), which featured blatant depictions of all the sexuality John Huston was only allowed to hint at in his classic 1941 version; the breakneck newspaper comedy Blessed Event (1932); and three films that helped establish James Cagney's tough-guy image, Taxi! (1932), Blonde Crazy (1931) and Lady Killer (1933). On The First Auto, he worked with a combination of established players, future stars and one tragic might-have-been. Russell Simpson had already made well over 60 films by the time he took on the role of the father clinging to his old-fashioned ways. He would go on to become a member of the John Ford stock company, playing Pa Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and taking on small roles in Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946), Wagon Master (1950) and The Horse Soldiers (1959). Rose, the girl Simpson's son leaves behind as he rises through the auto industry, was played by Patsy Ruth Miller, already a major silent star, most notably as Esmeralda in Lon Chaney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923). She would retire from acting in 1932. Two years before playing a small role as the village blacksmith in The First Auto, Gibson Gowland had scored his greatest screen triumph, as the doomed dentist McTeague in Erich von Stroheim's legendary Greed (1925). By contrast, William Demarest, cast as the "Village Cut-Up," was still more than a decade away from his greatest screen roles, in such classic Preston Sturges comedies as The Lady Eve (1941), Sullivan's Travels (1942) and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944). In the '60s, he would win a new generation of fans as Uncle Charlie on the family sitcom My Three Sons. The film's one tragic question mark was Charles Emmett Mack, starring as Simpson's up-and-coming son, who leaves behind the family business and his childhood sweetheart for success in the auto industry. Mack had been making films since 1921, and The First Auto, made when he was only 27, was one of his best roles. What might have followed is anyone's guess, as he only made two more pictures before his death in a car accident on the way to the studio, an ironic end considering his role in The First Auto. Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck Director: Roy Del Ruth Screenplay: Anthony Coldeway, Darryl F. Zanuck (story), Jack Jarmuth (titles) Cinematography: David Abel Art Direction: Lewis Geib, Esdras Hartley Score: Herman S. Heller Principal Cast: Russell Simpson (Hank Armstrong), Charles Emmett Mack (Bob Armstrong), Patsy Ruth Miller (Rose Robbins), Barney Oldfield (The Old Driver), Gibson Gowland (The Blacksmith), William Demarest (The Village Cut-up). BW-78m. by Frank Miller