Earthworm Tractors

Earthworm Tractors is a 1936 American comedy film directed by Ray Enright[1] and starring Joe E. Brown, June Travis and Guy Kibbee. The film is also known as A Natural Born Salesman in the United Kingdom.

Earthworm Tractors
Film still with June Travis and Joe E. Brown
Directed byRay Enright
Written byHugh Cummings (writer)
Richard Macaulay (writer)
Paul Gerard Smith (writer)
Joe Traub (writer)
William Hazlett Upson (stories)
Produced bySamuel Bischoff (producer)
Hal B. Wallis (executive producer)
StarringJoe E. Brown
June Travis
Guy Kibbee
CinematographyArthur L. Todd
Edited byDoug Gould
Music byLeo F. Forbstein
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • July 24, 1936 (1936-07-24)
Running time
69 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The film is based on characters created by William Hazlett Upson in a series of stories that appeared in The Saturday Evening Post. The series featured Alexander Botts, an eternally optimistic self-proclaimed "natural-born salesman", and the Earthworm Tractor Company, and was inspired in part by Upson's actual work experience with the Caterpillar Tractor Company.

Plot summary

In this slapstick romantic comedy, the bumbling, but perpetually optimistic "natural-born salesman" Alexander Botts is egged on by his sweetheart Sally to do great things, so he writes a letter to the Earthworm Tractor Company, and is hired as a salesman despite the fact that he knows nothing about tractors. He gets fired more than once for all the destruction he causes, but is rehired by getting orders. After Sally abandons him as a failure and marries another man, he falls in love with Mabel, daughter of the cranky and partially deaf Sam, the owner of a lumberyard who believes he does not need tractors to clear paths for his lumbermen. Botts continues to enrage Sam via various antics such as moving Sam's house with Sam in it without telling him in advance and in the process destroying most of Sam's furniture. Eventually, he proves a super salesman by selling many tractors to Sam after he cures him of his deafness, and wins Mabel's love.[2]

Cast

The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell copies of the film. Many of the versions of this film available are badly edited and of extremely poor quality, having been duped from second- or third-generation copies.

Soundtrack

References
  1. Variety film review; July 29, 1936, page 14.
  2. Harrison's Reports film review; July 25, 1936, page 119.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Earthworm Tractors.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.