Walking Back (1928) User Reviews (5)

Dad, Can I Borrow the Car?

[movingpicturegal · 6/10 · 27 February 2007]

Lightly entertaining silent film about "reckless" youth circa 1928. "1928 - and how!", introduces the film as we see a montage of Charleston dancing flappers, flowing cocktails, men boxing, and youth gone wild - we soon meet "Smoke" Thatcher, a young man who is failing three subjects in school due to his lackadaisical attitude and absolutely won't be caught dead without his flask. Smoke's biggest problem is to convince his hard-nosed dad to let him take the car so he can pick up his girl Patsy (Sue Carol) before she runs off with his rival, Pet Masters. Well, convincing dad fails - so our "bright boy" (I didn't make this name up - one of the characters calls him this later in the film) proceeds to "borrow" the neighbor's car, but finds he is too late - fickle Patsy has already gone out dancing with the rival! Next thing you know Smoke gets into a cat and mouse car slamming game against this rival - and proceeds to smash up the neighbor's car. Now what will become of him?!

Well, this film is very light fare - enjoyable and fun, it won't win any prizes, but did keep me entertained for it's hour length. Sue Carol makes an adorable flapper and plays her role to the hilt - cute as a button and full of high-spirited fun, I quite enjoyed her in this. The rest of the cast is fine too - the story is pretty tame, but there is a nicely photographed speeding car finale, giving a first person viewpoint of the car racing through the city streets. The version of this I saw featured a decent-looking print and nicely done organ score featuring such classic tunes as "Ain't We Got Fun", and the "Varsity Drag".

He boozes, steals a car, wrecks it, drives a getaway car.... he's the salt of the earth.

[anches-725-976306 · 6/10 · 17 December 2011]

1928-AND HOW!What a way to open a picture! Then a montage of Charleston dancers and speakeasies with a glimpse of the war which preceded this frivolous age. A sequence with over crowded cars racing until one if them is sent off the road by a blowout caused by an empty booze bottle thrown from the other, the stealing of a farm truck, then a visit to a speakeasy which ends with the humiliation of a cop set the scene for this youth orientated movie. Are the kids godless or graceless, lawless or reckless? the titles ask. Well,if you ask me, the are just the same as young people always have been since time began--just havin'fun. This said, I think it a bit much that Smoke, the hero, after stealing his neighbour's car, wrecking it, then getting involved in a bank robbery in which his dad is shot, not only gets off scott-free, but is also given an 8000 dollar reward! And to cap it all,his dad calls him the salt of the earth!! Nice to see George Stone (Otero in "Little Caesar") as the gangster leaders oppo. With its snappy 20's slang and some stunning driving sequences, this is a great snapshot of life in 1928. I especially liked the point where the father twits the boy with his lack of respect for authority, only to have the maid announce the arrival of the dad's bootlegger! I would like to know what type of car the gangster drove. A very watchable picture, the 1928 equivalent of all those films where the kids prove that they aren't just useless flibbertigibbets.

Potboiler Plot with 'A' Feature Production Values

[richardchatten · 6/10 · 10 October 2018]

An unlikely pooling of the talents of horror film luminaries director Rupert Julian ('The Phantom of the Opera'), designer Anton Grot ('Mystery of the Wax Museum') and cameraman John Mescall ('Bride of Frankenstein). After a remarkable opening sequence starting in outer space before gradually homing in on Earth (like the prologue nearly twenty years later to 'A Matter of Life and Death'), we are then assailed with an unapologetic display of raucous drunken hedonism interspersed with moralising subtitles about modern youth. The behaviour of these kids makes the youngsters in 'Rebel Without a Cause' look like a Sunday school class, even down to a more destructive version of the later film's 'chicken run' using a car 'borrowed' from a neighbour's.

All this antisocial behaviour goes entirely unpunished in a fashion that would never had got past the Hays Office even a couple of years later. The photography of the frequent scenes depicting cars being driven like maniacs is sensational.

One hell of a car fight!!!

[Ichabod_Arbuthnutt · 9/10 · 2 September 2005]

I bought this video not knowing much about the contents, as I did most of my silent films. It is trial and error. Some are rubbish and a waste of time. 'Walking Back' though was different. It started as any other silent movie. Not much plot and the over-the-top acting which makes you feel uncomfortable. Namely the son showing his affection for his mother, way too much kissing. But then the action starts. I won't go into any detail but the highlight of the movie is the car fight. Two brand new, gleaming, sparkling, shiny 1920s cars are wrecked in a vicious 10 minute fight, a kind of Demolition Derby with just two cars (try doing 10 minutes with two Fords!!!). The stars are really getting thrown about like they wouldn't dare do nowadays and even the cameraman falls from his perch!. All comes good in the end though and I'm really glad to have this film in my collection. It's not widely available so you will have to search for it but it will be worth the effort!.

Cosmic Jazz!!! - Small Town Style!!

[kidboots · 10/10 · 6 February 2013]

Sue Carol may have been quite minor league compared to jazz baby extraordinaire Joan Crawford, but "Walking Back" was a far more realistic portrayal of "flaming youth" in the twenties than any of the glossier MGM productions. The dizzying opening minutes start with a wild drag race, each car filled to over flowing with jazz mad flappers, hip flasks always at the ready. One car lands in a ditch but who cares when everyone can dance the charleston by the side of the road and they find a farmer's truck with plenty of hey!! hey!! to take them home!!

Meanwhile at "Smoke" Thatcher's (Richard Walling) house reality is catching up with him. His father has just received a letter from the school principal which isn't glowing in it's praise. Father puts his foot down and forbids "Smoke" the car but "Smoke" then "borrows" the neighbour's car and thats were the trouble starts. There are a few moralizing titles and after father has given "Smoke" a lecture about "walking back"- which is how they used to get around in the old days, father's boot legger calls, pointing out the double standards. But mostly the titles are slangy fun of the time - "I'll bring along my needle - and we'll sow a wild oat"!!

Patsy (Carol), the campus cutie gets tired of waiting so she goes to the dance with Smoke's arch rival, Pet Masters, or as another funny title puts it "that carbon copy of a big moment"!! Tempers flare and Pet challenges Smoke to a demolition derby!! It is stunning and exciting to watch but even though Smoke is the victor he can barely drive the "borrowed" car to a garage where the shady operator declares it is "Im-Possible" to fix. No problems - as a group of bank robbers (George E. Stone among them) are minus a getaway man and Smoke seems to fit the bill. Could this be the first movie to use the term "bright boy" which became almost a fixture in gangster movies of the 30s and 40s. The term was first introduced in Hemingway's short story "The Killers" which was published the year before in 1927.

With the promise of enough money to put everything right he agrees to drive but when his father is shot in the crossfire he then takes the gangsters - and Patsy - on a very real wild ride through the downtown streets, culminating in a crash through a police station window. The movie finishes with father proclaiming the kids of 1928 are the salt of the earth.

Maybe the fact of having young hopefuls instead of established stars in the leads gave the movie authenticity. Richard Walling was pretty good as Smoke and handsome, it is strange that his career stopped in 1929. I would have given him a real future in films based on "Walking Back". Sue Carol was a bouncy flapper and when films started to talk she was promoted as Fox's singing and dancing favourite but, like Walling, all too soon she was gone.

Highly Recommended.