Red Lights Ahead

Red Lights Ahead
Red Lights Ahead
	Roger Imhof in the film
Directed by	Roland D. Reed
Written by	Robert Ellis; Helen Logan
Produced by	George R. Batcheller
Starring	Andy Clyde ; Lucile Gleason ; Roger Imhof
Cinematography	M.A. Andersen
Edited by	Dan Milner
Production; company	Chesterfield Pictures
Distributed by	Chesterfield Pictures
Release date	November 29, 1936;
Running time	70 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Red Lights Ahead is a 1936 American comedy film directed by Roland D. Reed and starring Andy Clyde, Lucile Gleason and Roger Imhof. It was the last film released by the Poverty Row studio Chesterfield Pictures before it became part of Republic Pictures.^[1]

Plot

A family evening situation with quarreling daughters and sons, about using the bathroom before their respective dates and evening programs, opens the movie. Two daughters and two sons. The younger son Willi being 17. Mary having allures of high society and psychic fortunetelling and crystal gazing. Edna changes her date partners a little too often and George dreaming to become speaker in the radio. Pa Wallace a hard working man and Ma looking for her children and managing the money for the family.

Unfortunately Mary meets a Mr. Nordham who pretends to be a scientific and gazes with her in the crystal ball announcing a big fortune coming from the earth (like oil), talking about aura colors to her mother, while Pa Wallace goes to his Whale Harpooners Broderhood Meeting, where the Grand Harpoon Mr. F. Q. Whitney (a sort of Master of Ceremony) wants to sell some very profitable stocks of a Gold Mine.

While Ma Wallace tries to keep her family with their feet on the ground, Pa Wallace and especially Mary are talked into it and when the next meeting with Nordingham and Whitney at Wallace home for a dinner takes place Pa Wallace hands a check about 5000 dollars to Mr. Whitney and Ma Wallace stays with the sorrow, that her home has been mortgaged for the goldmine Stocks.

Meantime Grandpa Hopkins who arrived to Wallace home from Kansas, to stay for good, who had talked on his own account to Whitney and Nordham has to collect his daughters sorrow.

But short after they get a phone call that the mine stocks are already giving the expected gain. Family starts to swim in money, a butler is hired that knows how to "find" everywhere money in the family, a maid pretending to be French tries to blackmail Mary, and some other not so funny things happen around.

Until the day, when Pa Wallace goes to a Whale Meeting and Mr. Whitney and Mr. Nordham are being arrested as crooks. The question then is where did the money come from. And surprisingly to all the source of all that wealth leads finally to cure the family members from their "blindness" and to become helpful to each other.

Cast

Andy Clyde as Grandpa Hopkins
Lucile Gleason as Molly "Ma" Wallace
Roger Imhof as Pa Wallace
Ben Alexander as George Wallace
Ann Doran as Mary Wallace
Frank Coghlan Jr. as Willie Wallace
Paula Stone as Edna Wallace
Addison Randall as Nordingham
Sam Flint as Franklin Q. Whitney
Eleanor Stewart as Celeste - the Maid
Herbert Clifton as Perkins
Matty Kemp as Jerry Carruthers

Soundtrack

External links

Red Lights Ahead at IMDb
Red Lights Ahead is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive

References

^ Weaver, Tom (2010-06-28). It Came from Horrorwood: Interviews with Moviemakers in the SF and Horror Tradition. McFarland. p. 61. ISBN 978-0-7864-8216-0.

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[1] Weaver, Tom (2010-06-28). It Came from Horrorwood: Interviews with Moviemakers in the SF and Horror Tradition. McFarland. p. 61. ISBN 978-0-7864-8216-0.

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