Death Drives Through (1935) Review: Fast Cars and Cheap Toys

If you have an hour to spare and a soft spot for roaring 1930s engines, Death Drives Through is a fun little relic. Anyone who loves early British B-movies will find some charm here.

But if you can't stand crackly audio and melodrama that feels like it was written on a napkin, you should probably avoid this one. 🏎️

The plot is as basic as they come. Kit Woods (Robert Douglas) wants to build fast cars and marry Kay Lord (Chili Bouchier).

Her dad says no because, well, dads in 1935 movies always say no. Then you got Garry Ames, the rival racer who looks like he steals milk from kittens.

It’s a standard setup, but the execution has this frantic, cheap energy that I kind of loved. It reminds me of the simple moralities of older silent films, like The Lone Chance, but with way more noise.

The John Huston Connection

The big draw for me was seeing John Huston's name on the writing credits. Yes, that John Huston.

Before he was making masterpieces, he was apparently helping pen quickies about British race cars. You can't really feel his genius here, to be honest.

It feels more like he was just trying to pay his rent, which is fair enough. The dialogue is snappy but completely ridiculous at times.

There is this one scene where a car goes off the track and it is so obviously a toy model. They didn't even try to hide it.

The toy just sort of tumbles into some fake grass, and then cut to a massive explosion. It made me laugh out loud. 💥

A Few Things I Noticed

• The cars look like metal bathtubs with wheels attached. How did anyone survive driving these?
• Chili Bouchier is great as Kay, mostly because she looks incredibly bored by the racing stuff and just wants to wear nice hats.
• The rival, Garry, has this amazing sneer that practically vibrates off the screen.
• The audio on the copy I found was pretty rough, sounding like everyone was talking through a wet blanket.

The actual racing scenes are surprisingly decent, though. They used real footage from Brooklands, I think.

You get a real sense of how incredibly dangerous it was to drive those things back then. No seatbelts, no real helmets, just leather caps and vibes.

It makes the title feel pretty accurate, even if the movie itself is quite harmless. It’s a B-movie through and through, and it’s proud of it.