Webs of Steel (1925) User Reviews

Decent Railroad Thriller; Stale Story, But Told Well by J. P. McGowan

[mmipyle · 6/10 · 29 November 2020]

"Webs of Steel" (1925) is the terminology given to a complex running line of railroad track in the eponymously named film starring Helen Holmes. Simple and aimed at every age of the audience, this 57 minute long film makes no pretensions at anything except good entertainment. The story's actually stale, but director J. P. McGowan (husband of Holmes) knows how to keep the viewer attending on the goings-on no matter what the story's inherent former tellings might be. Holmes was already 32 when she made this film, and yet she plays someone around 21 or so - and successfully plays the part, may I add... Her ability to do stunts, and very dangerous ones at that, hasn't lessened an iota from the days she was doing those same things in the middle teens in serials, of which she was one of the queens. One in the film, where she is holding on to a railroad trestle while she also has bundled to her both Lassie Lou Ahern and a dog, is quite literally death-defying. Before she died, Ahern made the comment that at age 5 (which she was when she made the film) she probably shouldn't have done the stunt, but she had fun doing it! The story itself is one of romance by a man who has a past, but he is trying to clear himself of the bad parts of that past by somehow proving he was innocent of criminal negligence on another railroad line. The part is played by Bruce Gordon, a stunt player himself and director who was in several dozen Westerns and other films like this one. We only know he was born sometime around the turn of the twentieth century in South Africa, and he was probably younger than Holmes. Fine for the part, though. Also in the show are Spec O'Donnell, Arthur Morrison - as the scheming baddie of the piece - and Andrew Waldron. Waldron is fascinating in that he was 78 when he made this film, and he plays Holmes' father, so he's probably 50 or so character-wise, and he actually pulls it off. The man was born in 1847, and he only lived another seven years after making this film. If one looks at his credits, it becomes clear he was closely associated with J. P. McGowan, as he appeared in several films where McGowan was director or an actor or both. Somewhere in the film supposedly Walter Brennan appears, but I looked for him and never saw him. The railroads - a grand specialty of McGowan who began working on railroads in his native Australia at an early age - are the genuine stars of the show outside of Holmes. If you like a railroad movie with plenty of action and a good guy, a good girl, a baddie, and a couple of other foils for fodder for a quick thriller watch, this one offers all of that. My print is from Alpha, so it's cheap. But the quality of the print is only good at best, never great, and so it's a watch to relax to just before dozing off at midnight.

One of Miss Holmes' best films

[JohnHowardReid · 8/10 · 1 December 2013]

Wow! This movie survives in its cutdown 5-reel 16mm Kodascope version in which all the action scenes are seemingly intact, but the original introductory footage with Bruce Gordon has been jettisoned and heaven knows what else, but you could certainly include the intro footage of the McGregor character who plays an important part in the plot. Nevertheless, you can really agree that it has been "condensed to make the thrills come faster!" And what thrills they are! Real trains, real stunts, real people! The edge-of-the-seat scene in which a car races a train to a level crossing and just beats it by less than a second has been filmed many times, but never so thrillingly as here. That footage and the locomotive chase would have been duplicated on computers these days, but nothing beats the real thing and the helpful information that you can stop a speeding train engine by putting oil on the rails! Keen-eyed viewers will notice that, aside from her straight-into-the-camera collision with the horse-and-cart, Miss Holmes doesn't do her own stunts (the daring lady who jumps from speeding car to speeding train is obviously much slimmer), but who cares? Bruce Gordon is excellent as the hero and you'd think that someone with his ability and his charisma would have enjoyed a top-flight career but it wasn't until "Smooth as Satin" (1925) in which he co-starred with Evelyn Brent that he topped the male billing list. He was all the rage for three or four films and then he slipped back into the second league. Andy Waldron had a good career in movies from 1918 until 1929, while villainous Arthur Morrison stepped out of the limelight in 1930. Despite his 52 movie appearances and the fact that Morrison lived in Los Angeles right up until his death in 1950, I bet nobody bothered to interview him! It would certainly have been great to hear what he had to say about working with the McGowans on this fascinating, action-packed movie! Incidentally, J.P. was a comparatively tall man and was not one of the villains that try to shake down Miss Holmes. (One of them was actually Walter Brennan). No, good old J.P. plays the railroad heavy who throws hero Gordon out of the box car. I bet he wasn't the first director who would have loved to throw his leading man off a speeding train. Notice how J.P. rubs his hands in glee! A most agreeable "inside" joke! Available on a quite good Alpha DVD. The print is very worn at the start but improves a lot.

Early railraod melodrama

[jennyp-2 · 4/10 · 4 April 2003]

A railroad melodrama programmer featuring a gang of train robbers headed by director McGowan. William Scott as the engineer and Helen Holmes as his bride thwarted their evil scheme. Viewed at Cinefest in Syracuse New York in March, 2003.