jacobs-greenwood Directed by Edward Sedgwick, based on Sir Malcolm Campbell's novel "Salute to the Gods", screenplay by Milton Merlin and Byron Morgan, this film features the ever annoying Dennis O'Keefe in the title role, first name Jerry, as an obnoxious country bumpkin that becomes a race car driver. The underrated Nat Pendleton is the highlight of the film, playing (as usual?) the dumb sidekick of the lead character.Jerry O'Connor (O'Keefe) drives a tractor at breakneck speed while his mechanic friend Buddy (Pendleton) whistles to make sure he turns left before he goes off an embankment. Both are enamored with race car driving: Jerry so much that he makes his friend sit through a "B" picture (hopefully not this one) again so he can see the newsreels about racing that precede it.One day while the two are looking at a racing magazine, a driver crashes his mini race-car into a nearby fence. Seizing upon the opportunity, Jerry gets money from Buddy to give the driver $75 for his wreck. With the mini-car repaired, Jerry literally runs into a young woman (Cecilia Parker) in her automobile while he's trying to demonstrate it to a circus manager. After the accident, he attempts to back her car down a hillside, but it rolls over. She then tricks him into showing her his mini-car such that she can drive it away from the overbearing bore.Later, when Jerry gets his mini-car back, he sees the young woman again. He follows her to a dirt race track where, showing off for her, he impresses Mr. Eberhart (Addison Richards) by making high speed turns around the loop. Soon thereafter, he wins his very first race, impressing Pinky Delano (Harry Carey), whose daughter Jane is the young woman Jerry has been pursuing. Delano hires Jerry and Buddy and introduces them to his other drivers, crew, and team physician 'Doc' Heath (Charley Grapewin).Delano's Rockets seems to be jinxed though: their lead driver "Frenchy" died in a crash that Jerry and Buddy had seen in a newsreel. Subsequently, as part of the team now, the two witness "Rocks" (Alan Curtis), Hogan (Tom Neal), and "Lefty" (Tom Collins) all die in fiery crashes, when they failed to make a turn at high speed, during consecutive races. Though Buddy somehow comes under suspicion from the other mechanic Mac (Frank Orth), it's he that figures out "somebody must be doing something" other than sabotaging the race-cars.From there, the story is pure hokum not the least of which is a sudden change of heart by Jane about Jerry ... though this may pale in comparison to a couple of ridiculous things which happen during the climactic race.

tcab I am 76 years old. A few days ago something caused me to dredge from the past a faint memory of a race car movie I saw when I was 8 years old. I remembered the name, "Burn 'em Up O'Connor." The phrase had stuck with me for 70 years. All I remember about the movie was that the hero was trying to win a race while partially blinded, as I recall, by some kind of white powder in his eyes, the result of an effort of some nefarious bad guy to kill him. I was amazed to type in that title in Google and actually get hits, after all these years! As an 8 year old I was very impressed with the movie. My opinion would probably differ if I saw it today.

David (Handlinghandel) The movie is saved and the annoying hero is saved. Pendleton is cast improbably as a hayseed. O'Keefe is his pal, who gets involved in racing. He falls for the boss's genuinely obnoxious daughter. And there is crime racing through the track: One after another of the drivers for Harry Carey, O'Keefe's boss, smashes up near the end of a race. They all died. Now, are there investigations? It doesn't seem so. Pendleton undertakes one on his own. He finds out that the kindly doctor is causing the accidents.So there is that little touch and the drivers are nicely played. But it's hard to get past the smart-alecky character O'Keefe is playing and the disagreeable one of his girl.

Arthur Hausner Do you think any race car driver can negotiate a track blindfolded while going over a hundred miles per hour, even with someone giving a whistle at one of the tricky turns? That's one of the idiocies of this film, which asks us to suspend disbelief once too often. I have always liked Dennis O'Keefe, but he comes across here as a pest and nuisance as he joins a racing car group headed by Harry Carey, Sr., mostly because of Carey's daughter, Cecilia Parker, to whom he is attracted. Another problem with the film is that O'Keefe and Parker have zero chemistry together. I don't think Parker smiled even once; she seemed not to be enjoying even being in the film. I enjoyed Nat Pendleton's comic antics, and some of the acting of the drivers Tom Neal and Tom Collins. But overall, it's not much of a racing drama or a murder mystery.