It was Olga's tumultuous relationship with this wanted killer that made her swear off men or harbor any illusions about love and marriage. George is actually Olga's former lover Jerry who is now using a pseudonym for his life of crime. The dynamic in their relationship changes, however, with the arrival of fleeing criminals George (Preston Foster) and Jeff (Lyle Talbot), who pass themselves off as oilmen on a business trip. Determined to prevent her younger sister Myra (Ann Dvorak) from making the same mistakes she did with men, Olga only further alienates Myra by refusing to let her date. MacMahon plays Olga, a woman with a past who has started a new life for herself in a remote prairie outpost away from the corrupting influences of the city. While The Petrified Forest, though equally stagebound, is the more accomplished film, Heat Lightning remains a fascinating Pre-Code oddity with a proto-feminist heroine, risqué dialogue and scenes ripe with sexual innuendo. One fateful day their rest stop plays host to several unexpected overnight guests, including two bank robbers on the lam for murder. Heat Lighting, also based on a stage play, is set in the Mojave Desert and focuses on two sisters who run a café/gas station/motor court on a desolate stretch of highway. Robert Sherwood's play of The Petrified Forest, first performed on Broadway in 1936, takes place in a diner in a remote part of the Arizona desert where wanted criminal Duke Mantee and his cohorts show up and terrorize the diner employees and customers.
#Heat lightning movie
The movie also prefigures The Petrified Forest (1936) by two years with a similar setting and plot.
in their assembly line fashion, Heat Lightning (1934) is more ambitious and offbeat than most low-budget melodramas from that studio, introducing multiple plotlines within a brisk 64 minute running time, and boasting a vivid ensemble cast that is highlighted by versatile supporting actress Aline MacMahon in her first top billed film role. One of numerous B-movie programmers made quickly and inexpensively by Warner Bros. Olga then returns to her emotionless life as a mechanic. Olga lets Jeff get away, then explains the incident to her friend, Everett Marshall, who promises to take care of everything. Olga then shoots George, who is armed, and he apologizes as he dies in her arms. Olga then catches George and Jeff picking her safe and overhears George tell Jeff he slept with Olga so that Jeff could perform the robbery. Myra then sees George leaving Olga's room and confesses to Olga that she was right about Steve, and the sisters hold each other. At dawn, Steve brings Myra home after having taken advantage of her. The divorcées, meanwhile, have locked their jewels in Olga's safe to protect them from a friendly Mexican family who they fear are gypsies.
While Olga is distracted, Myra sneaks out with Steve.
As heat lightning flashes in the distance, Olga transforms herself into a beautiful woman and says goodbye to George, who kisses her.
When Olga asks him to leave, George tells Olga he no longer wants her because she has let herself go. Hoping to steal the jewels, George and Jeff plan to spend the night. Aston-Ashley, called "Tinkle," rich, divorced women who are laden with jewels, arrive with their chauffeur Frank on their way home from Reno. When the sheriff passes through, George pretends to be an oilman and Olga says that he is an old friend. Olga recognizes George as Jerry, the man she loved and walked out on when she was a beautiful cabaret dancer in Tulsa. George and Jeff, two thieves on the run from a bank heist in Salt Lake City in which George killed two cashiers, stop at the station on their way to the Mexican border. Despite her sister's warnings, Myra makes plans to meet Steve after dark. Myra, her younger sister, is in love with a man named Steve Laird, whom Olga distrusts, as she believes that Steve will take advantage of Myra sexually. Olga works as a mechanic and is jaded when it comes to men. Two sisters, Olga and Myra, operate a combination gas station, lunchroom and tourist hotel in the California desert.
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