A rather tame bus

I have a soft spot in my heart for B movies and tend to record a lot of them when they show up on TCM. One that had a synopsis that sounded vaguely familiar, probably because B movies don't have the most original plots, was Wildcat Bus. Having watched it, I realized I hadn't seen it before, so with that it's time to write up this review.

Charles Lang plays Jerry Waters. As the movie opens, he's being evicted from his swanky apartment because he's a wastrel playboy who won't get a job. (It's revealed later in the story his father died tragically and Jerry has some sort of survivor's guilt.) His sidekick and chauffeur Pete (Paul Guilfoyle) suggests he get a job, and the two look for various jobs until winding up at the Federated Bus Line. Jerry kind of ticks off mechanic Ted Dawson, only later learning Ted is both a woman (Fay Wray) and the daughter of the owner of the line! Jerry obviously is not bus driver material, but Paul is.

Jerry still has a car that he can drive for two more weeks until it's going to be repossessed for missing payments, so Jerry responds to a classified ad about the wildcat limousine services. Now, the fact that this is on the second floor walk-up apartment should be a tell that this isn't quite a legitimate business. The guy who runs is certainly seems dishonest, and his insistence that the drivers live in the apartment building also ought to set off alarm bells.

And, as it turns out, the business really is a front. The bus line is in tough straits because the buses keep breaking down and a shyster lawyer is suing them over accidents. Mr. Dawson some time back sent his business partner to prison for embezzlement, and the jailed guy's wife, Ma Talbot (Leona Roberts), is trying to get revengs on the bus line! This involves sending out cars to cut the buses off and cause accidents; put passengers on the buses to tout for the wildcat limousines; and if none of that works have a mole in the bus company as one of the mechanics who can sabotage the buses.

So to try to figure out what's going on, Ted decides she's going to employ the services of one of these wildcat chauffeurs, who are really closer to the sort of ride-sharing/carpool thing one might have done in college when a bunch of people needed to go to the same city to get home at the end of term, except that these are fully adult people. In any case, the car Ted gets in just happens to be driven by Jerry, who also begins to start doing some investigating of his own since he's trying to put the moves on Ted.

Wildcat Bus is nothing more than a B movie, but it works well enough for the sort of thing that would have been a second-bill for people in the years before World War II and then television who didn't have any other outlets to see this sort of stuff. It's slightly odd in tone because it feels like the movie is trying to put a bunch of stuff in: part gritty drama about a crime ring; part romance; and even some attempt at comedy. As long as you're not expecting anything more than a B movie, I think you'll enjoy Wildcat Bus as a sort of time capsule.