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Toodles (Wallace Reid) is a car salesman for the Darco-company, but he
would so like to be their top racedriver. However, J.D. Ward (Theodore
Roberts), egomaniac boss of Darco isn't one to give an amateur a chance,
even though everyone (including himself) is convinced Toodles has the
talent to become a champ. Eventually, J.D. and Toodles get in such a
heated discussion over everything that Toodles quits his job - just before
learning that all three Darco cars for the prestigious four hundred-mile
Santa Monica road race have been smashed in shipping. Without J.D.'s
knowledge, Toodles buys all three wrecks, has his mechanic Tom Darby (Guy
Oliver) build one working car out of the three hopeless cases, and wins
the race for Darco - and only once he has one does J.D. give him a job as
a carracer. There is one thing that Toodles desires more than any racing
car in the whole wide world, and that's Dorothy (Ann Little), but
unfortunately Dorothy is J.D.'s daughter, and J.D. doesn't want her to
marry anyone in the next 5 years - even though Dorothy is madly in
love with Toodles now, and she might even be ready to elope. J.D.
is almost willing to give into the inevitable, but then he learns that
road-racing will be outlawed on overland streets in a week or so, and his
competitor holds the record of racing from LA to San Francisco ... so he
forces his daughter to go with him to San Francisco on the night train and
persuades Brady to get/build Toodles the fastest car on the lot and let
him know about their departure 10 minutes after the train has left, only
to trick him to make the way in record time. Unfortunately though, Toodles
has been booked for speeding (ironically), so Darby has to break him out
first and ... Well, almost needless to say Toodles breaks the record,
gets the girl, and all of a sudden, J.D. has no objections against the
unity no more ... Storywise, this film must have felt clichéed
even in 1919, when both film and car racing were still in their (relative)
infancy, and from today's point of view, there really isn't a plottwist
you couldn't predict, that hasn't been used umpteen times both before and
since - but on the other hand, you see some wonderful vintage cars in some
wonderful vintage racing action, and that, quite simply put, is a real
treat, no less. In other words, if you are into carracing and vintage
cars in the slightest, this is a must-see, despite the rather
over-familiar plot!
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find The Roaring Road at adultvideouniverse.com
