Fast Company ** (1953, Howard Keel, Polly Bergen, Nina Foch, Marjorie Main) – Classic Movie Review 12,623

MGM’s American black and white 1953 comedy film Fast Company stars Howard Keel, Polly Bergen, Nina Foch, and Marjorie Main. Well meaning and pleasant, but too mild and modest, it flopped at the box office. 

Director John Sturges’s 1953 MGM American black and white romantic comedy film Fast Company stars Howard Keel, Polly Bergen, Nina Foch, and Marjorie Main. Well meaning and pleasant enough, but way too mild and modest for its own good, it flopped at the box office.

Carol Maldon (Bergen) is bequeathed her recently deceased father’s stable, and she leaves New York to run it, inheriting a young dancing horse called Gay Fleet, being looked after by trainer and jockey Rick Grayton (Keel) who wants to keep it for himself and is willing to resort to underhand tricks, but falls for her and does the right thing when villains come along to rook her.

Rick’s plan to lose races to make the horse seem inferior to buy it cheaply from Carol is discovered by rival stable owner Mercedes (Nina Foch), who in love with Rick and tells all to Carol.

The fair cast, a decent production and fast-paced direction give a sporting chance to this feather-weight MGM horse-racing comedy with a feeble development of a fairly poor central idea. Keel at the peak of his career deserved better than this time-passing filler. And it is an on odd project for Westerns specialist Sturges.

The screenplay by William Roberts and Don Mankiewicz (adaptation) derives from Eustace Cockrell’s story.

Fillers like this were not a good route for MGM to go. It cost $584,000, earned $523,000 globally, and lost  $275,000.

The cast are Howard Keel as Rick Grayton, Polly Bergen as Carol Maldon, Nina Foch as Mercedes Bellway, Carol Nugent as Jigger Parkson, Marjorie Main as Ma Parkson, Horace McMahon as Two Pair Buford, Iron Eyes Cody as Ben Iron Mountain, Joaquin Garay as Manuel Morales, Robert Burton as David Sandring, Sig Arno, Paul Brinegar, Benny Burt, Jonathan Cott, Pat Goldin, Jess Kirkpatrick, Jack Kruschen, Perry Sheehan, and Lou Smith.

Release date: May 12, 1953.

Running time: 67 minutes.

MGM had already used the title for its 1938 thriller Fast Company, which they retitled Rare Book Murder for TV to avoid confusion.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,623

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