Despite the picture seeming kind've a bit bland, it did have that 'On The Waterfront' vibe of dealing with the nasty type of things that happen on the job site. The movie had a few moments that grabbed me, and overall I liked that Francis Kay's character Lynn Palmer was a true 'do gooder' while her romantic partner Mack Hale, only saw the 'no gooders' of society as lost causes that Lynn put all her wasted energy into helping.
I was shocked in the middle of the movie when Mack asks Lynn what she was doing that night and she answered by saying she was maybe going to The Mallard, a bar that I frequent when I'm at my home in the Bay Area. The Mallard, located in Albany, Ca was a duck hunting lodge from the olden days but if you drive there now you'd never guess the entire are used to me marsh lands as it is now in the middle of a densely populated area on the main street San Pablo.
The movie takes place during the construction of The Golden Gate Bridge, and was shot during the construction of the bridge. The movie deals with a group of thugs that try to get the main contractor on the bridge to pay extortion money to them or else they will start trouble by risking the lives of the workers. Without giving too much away, the thugs do eventually cause a death of a construction worker on the bridge.
Ironically, in real life, the contractors who built The Golden Gate Bridge were the first bridge builders who used nets under the bridge to keep workers from falling to their deaths. They had almost made the entire bridge without one fatality, but on the last day of construction a group of about 18 or so workers had a fall. If just one or two, or maybe five or ten would have fell, the net would have held, but because so many men fell at the same time the net broke and more men died on that day then on comparable bridges that had no nets.
Interested in knowing more about the authors, I researched Fran Wead of whom is credited with the story. The screenplay however was written by Delmer Daves. Born in San Francisco, Daves has an old man in the beginning of the film coming in on a boat from Seattle who says,
"I was born in this city, I'll probably die here."
The Mallard Bar started to make more sense when I saw the screenwriter was a San Francisco native. I doubt a screenwriter from anywhere else would really know this bar. I also came to find out through a fan site for Kay Francis, that Daves was in fact Kay's boyfriend at the time of the making of this film and wrote it while he was with her. Probably went something like this:
Delmer: I have a wonderful idea for a movie darling, it's this short story by a naval aviator turned screenwriter, Frank Wead.
Francis: What's it about dear?
Delmer: Well, it's about a bridge contractor's fight with some mob characters, and it's got a beautiful dame in it, of course..and who better to play the part, but you!
Francis: Well that's a swell idea. Especially with the Golden Gate being built right now. It will be all the rage on the town. Come on love, let's go celebrate at The Mallard.
Well, despite the personal subjective interest this has to Bay Area-ites and Cinemaphiles around the world, I also read a review from the time of the Francis' role in the film:
"Miss Francis gives a smooth and sensitive performance but she is wasted in an uninteresting role as a girl who takes her job too seriously." Variety
Despite the mixed reviews, I enjoyed the film not just on a sentimental reason, but I did like the brutal honesty of the 30's, the violence of the film felt real in that it was built around what felt like real life scenarios that happen all the time with unions, mobs, and honest men like Mack. In the end we see Mack after all is a 'do gooder' also, always giving honest joe's jobs. He's known for being harsh, and being a brawler of a boss. We find out though that he is a fair and just man and just like he said in the beginning, he is the first to say when he is wrong. Mack is the classic static character, who is the same guy in the end that he was in the beginning, the man you can't change. He starts off a guy who lives and dies by his word, and that's who he stays. Firing drunk workers who put others lives in harms way, made Mack unpopular with a lot of the workers. Doing all this not because he's cold and doesn't care, but because he does care.
p.s. I still don't why the movie is called Stranded.
Kris Kardash / filmmaker
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