RED LIGHTS AHEAD (1936) Andy Clyde, Lucile Gleason & Roger Imhof | Comedy, Family | B&W

Red Lights Ahead is a 1936 American film directed by Roland D. Reed. It was the last film released by the Poverty Row studio Chesterfield Pictures before it became part of Republic Pictures.

SYNOPSIS
Pa Wallace, an ardent member of the Whales, is offered a chance to invest $5,000 in a gold mine by the head of the Whales, Grand Harpoon F. Q. Whitney. Mrs. Wallace is opposed but their four children--Willie, George, Edna, and Mary--are all for it: if Pa makes easy money, they can continue to loaf. Grandpa, a kind but meddling old soul, also arrives for a visit. Money begins to roll in but not as fast as the children spend it. The bubble bursts when the police arrest Whitney and his accomplice Nordingham as swindlers involved in a pyramid scheme. Stone-broke and unable to pay the mortgage Pa put on the house, the clan moves back to their small, old home. The children come through and knuckle down to work to help the family recover.

A family evening situation with quarreling daughters and sons, about using the bathroom before their respective dates and evening programs, opens the movie. Two daughters and two sons. The younger son Willi being 17. Mary having allures of high society and psychic fortunetelling and crystal gazing. Edna changes her date partners a little too often and George dreaming to become speaker in the radio. Pa Wallace a hard working man and Ma looking for her children and managing the money for the family.

Unfortunately Mary meets a Mr. Nordham who pretends to be a scientific and gazes with her in the crystal ball announcing a big fortune coming from the earth (like oil), talking about aura colors to her mother, while Pa Wallace goes to his Whale Harpooners Broderhood Meeting, where the Grand Harpoon Mr. F. Q. Whitney (a sort of Master of Ceremony) wants to sell some very profitable stocks of a Gold Mine.

While Ma Wallace tries to keep her family with their feet on the ground, Pa Wallace and especially Mary are talked into it and when the next meeting with Nordingham and Whitney at Wallace home for a dinner takes place Pa Wallace hands a check about 5000 dollars to Mr. Whitney and Ma Wallace stays with the sorrow, that her home has been mortgaged for the goldmine Stocks.

Meantime Grandpa Hopkins who arrived to Wallace home from Kansas, to stay for good, who had talked on his own account to Whitney and Nordham has to collect his daughters sorrow.

But short after they get a phone call that the mine stocks are already giving the expected gain. Family starts to swim in money, a butler is hired that knows how to "find" everywhere money in the family, a maid pretending to be French tries to blackmail Mary, and some other not so funny things happen around.

CAST & CREW
Andy Clyde as Grandpa Hopkins
Lucile Gleason as Molly "Ma" Wallace
Roger Imhof as Pa Wallace
Ben Alexander as George Wallace
Ann Doran as Mary Wallace
Frank Coghlan Jr. as Willie Wallace
Paula Stone as Edna Wallace
Addison Randall as Nordingham
Sam Flint as Franklin Q. Whitney
Eleanor Stewart as Celeste - the Maid
Herbert Clifton as Perkins
Matty Kemp as Jerry Carruthers

Directed by Roland D. Reed
Written by Robert Ellis, Helen Logan
Produced by George R. Batcheller
Cinematography M.A. Andersen
Edited by Dan Milner
Production company Chesterfield Pictures
Distributed by Chesterfield Pictures
Release date November 29, 1936
Running time 70 minutes
Country United States
Language English