High Tension
Cast & Crew
Allan Dwan
Brian Donlevy
Glenda Farrell
Norman Foster
Helen Wood
Robert Mcwade
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
While his boss, Willard Stone, frantically tries to reach him by phone when a trans-Pacific cable goes out and customers are upset, cable layer Steve Reardon, whose expertise has saved Stone in the past, is at the scene of the problem in an underwater tank at the ocean's bottom near Hawaii. However, instead of working, he is reading an episode in the pulp adventure story, "The Son of Neptune," written by the woman he loves, Edith McNeil, who based the series on him and his tales. Steve successfully repairs the cable and then returns to San Francisco, where Stone accedes to his demand for a $1,000 bonus and two weeks vacation so that he can marry "Mac." After Steve falls asleep in Stone's office following some drinks and arrives four hours late for a date with Mac, she gets angry when he complains that she is taking too long to dress. They argue and Steve, believing that she has been using him only to get inspiration for her stories, walks out. At a beer joint, when Steve, now extremely drunk, has a sympathetic piano player, Eddie Mitchell, play "A Woman Made a Monkey Out of Me," a tough picks a fight with Steve, planning to have his partner steal Steve's money, but Eddie retrieves Steve's wad before Steve is knocked out with a mallet by the bartender. The next day, Steve awakens next to Eddie in his bed with a piece of steak on his eye. Learning that Eddie studied engineering in college, Steve offers to help his new friend to be a real engineer. One year later, Eddie has become a "bang-up" engineer and, together with Steve, returns to San Francisco. After Steve buys a ring for Mac, whom he hasn't seen since their quarrel, he arrives at her apartment to find her with the subject of her new series, "Ladies Love Champions," the heavyweight boxing champion, Terry Madden. Steve's subsequent brawl with Terry is ended when "the Major," a comical, tipsy statue, falls on Terry's head and knocks him out. Steve is arrested for fighting, and Mac bails him out. Steve then says that he will get a job at the home office, they agree to marry if their romance can last for six months. Steve goes to work for Stone's underling, F. Willoughly Tuttle, a bureaucrat who has disdain for Steve and his extravagances, while Eddie takes the position as superintendent of the Honolulu station. In Honolulu, Eddie encounters hostility from chief engineer Noble Harrison, who, according to Eddie's secretary Brenda Burke, thinks he should have gotton Eddie's position. When Harrison cables San Francisco that, against his advice, Eddie plans to correct a shifting coral formation which threatens to wreck their frayed cable by blasting, Steve talks Stone into sending him to Honolulu to help. However, when he tells Mac about it and reveals that he agreed to Stone's demand that he stay on a year, Mac throws a picture at him, and their engagement is broken. In Honolulu, Steve throws Harrison out and flirts with Brenda, of whom the unassertive and shy Eddie, has grown fond. Tired of Eddie's unresponsiveness and obsession with work, Brenda accepts Steve's attentions. After Steve maliciously sends Mac a picture of himself with Brenda in a bathing suit, Mac tries to remove her ring but can't and accepts her maid Hattie's advice that she take the ring to Steve. Meanwhile, Eddie warns Steve not to "make a monkey" out of Brenda, and Steve realizes Eddie's unspoken feelings for her. He then meets Mac and spends the evening before the planned blast with her, thus breaking a date with Brenda. When Steve fails to show up for the 6 a.m. blast, Eddie, whose earlier idolization of Steve irked Brenda, decides to go ahead without him and thus impresses Brenda. After Eddie dives into the coral, it shifts and blocks his air line. Steve, arriving late, dives to rescue Eddie as Brenda and Mac watch together. Later, as Steve tells a tall tale exaggerating his rescue and Brenda and Eddie embrace, a cable arrives from Stone stating that if Steve marries Mac, he'll get a five-year contract and that Mac can have permission to travel and get her stories from him. Overjoyed, Mac acknowledges that she has learned that fish can't live out of water.
Director
Allan Dwan
Cast
Brian Donlevy
Glenda Farrell
Norman Foster
Helen Wood
Robert Mcwade
Theodor Von Eltz
Romaine Callender
Joseph Sawyer
Hattie Mcdaniel
Murray Alper
Beulah Hutton
Margaret Brayton
Dewey Bender
Marvin Stephens
June Gittleson
Sherry Hall
Louis Natheaux
Anita Thompson
Lucille Miller
Virginia Paxton
Ruth Peterson
Christine Gossett
Julie Carter
Dorothy Jones
Sonya Mitchell
Florence Wright
Gloria Roy
Landers Stevens
Wilfred Lucas
Eddie Hearn
John Rogers
Joe Brown
Harry Tenbrook
Ward Bond
Harvey Perry
Sam Benson
Gordon Carveth
Duke Green
James Dundee
John Collins
Bob Rose
Matt Gillman
Charles Dorety
Philo Mccullough
Dale Van Sickel
Eric Alden
Fred Kelsey
Bruce Mitchell
Ernest Wood
Mabel Kialoha
Mia Schiska
Sol Hoopii
Al Kikume
Iris Yamaoka
Dick Elliott
Ben F. Hendricks
Wade Boteler
Russ Clark
Earl Eby
J. Anthony Hughes
Walter Lawrence
Pat O'malley
Pat Hartigan
Ethan Laidlaw
Fred N. Brown
A. H. Bogard
Wayne Rivers
George Chandler
Crew
J. Robert Bren
Lou Breslow
Sidney Clare
Duncan Cramer
Edward Eliscu
Norman Houston
Samuel Kaylin
William Lambert
Harry M. Leonard
George Leverett
Louis Loeffler
Barney Mcgill
John Patrick
Samuel Schneider
Sol M. Wurtzel
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working title of this film was Trouble Makers. J. Robert Bren and Norman Houston's story was entitled "Here Comes Trouble." Twentieth Century-Fox used that title for another film which they released earlier in 1936.
