The Big Kick
About The Big Kick
Revenue men chase bootleggers who move liquor inside mannequins seated in a car. The trail runs through Harry's filling station, where his girlfriend points the officers after the car. A gunfight breaks out in front of the station. Harry hauls the dummies inside. When a head falls off, he sees that the liquid pouring out is liquor, not water. The officers arrest the bootleggers, and the detectives offer his girlfriend a reward.
Cast & crew
More about The Big Kick
Warren Doane directed. H. M. Walker wrote the titles. George Stevens was the cinematographer. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released it in the United States on 29 March 1930, and it opened in Great Britain on 16 April 1930. Edgar Kennedy and Bob O'Connor play detectives.
Themes
Background
Released in March 1930, during national Prohibition, as a short comedy about treasury agents and a bootleg car.
Making
Hal Roach's unit set the Prohibition chase at a gas station and used seated mannequins as the hiding place for the bottles.
Look
George Stevens photographed the gas-station chase and the gunfight in front of the pumps.
Music
Sound effects and music are cut to the chase and the station gags.
Preservation
A copy circulates under the Wikimedia Commons file titled The Big Kick (1929).
Notes
- Judith Barrett plays Harry's girlfriend; some accounts of the print call her Nancy Dover.
- Jack Hill and Baldwin Cooke appear as armed men in civilian clothes who warn Harry about the gang.
- A Spanish-language version is listed under the title La estación de gasolina.
- During the shooting, bullets puncture a bus and Harry dances in the spray before he learns the dummies are full of liquor.
Scenes
- Harry carries the seated mannequins into the station office during the shooting.
- A dummy's head comes off and liquor, not water, pours out.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons
