Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

MartinHafer In many ways, this film reminds me of another Warner Brothers film made just a few years later, "The Petrified Forest". Both are set at isolated gas stations in the desert and both involve gangsters who come there to seek shelter. However, the films are certainly different enough to make it worth seeing them both.Olga (Aline MacMahon) is a world-weary soul who has chosen to move into the middle of nowhere because she's tired of people. Her sister, Myrna (Ann Dvorak), however, isn't tired of people and yearns for excitement and men-- and the pair couldn't be more different. Into their very dull and predictable lives come an assortment of folks to stay at their gas station/motor court. One pair are a couple of divorcées on their way from Reno after their latest conquest. Another are a pair of crooks on the run from the law. In a coincidence you'll only see in a play or movie, it turns out the boss (Preston Foster) was once Olga's lover! What's next? See the film.There are two main things going for this film--Foster and MacMahon. Their characters are interesting and the final scene between them is something to see! Unfortunately, Dvorak's role is very whiny and annoying--and the character significantly impairs the film with her overwrought performance. Overall, it is worth seeing but is far from brilliant work from the studio.

ksf-2 ... must have been filmed around Joshua Tree or Lone Pine.. unfortunately, no locations listed as of March 2010. Warner Brothers shortie... but TCM host Robert Osborne mentioned that the Catholic League wanted changes made, so I wonder if the original play was longer or even naughtier. Also loved seeing Frank McHugh & Aline MacMahon... McHugh was toned way down for this part...he's funnier and louder in some of his other roles; MacMahon was the big star of this one.... as one of the female mechanics (sisters) that run the gas station, they come REAL close to being lesbians, whether or not that was the intention... Jerry, her ex says: "you're right... you changed plenty!" and when Myra goes out with a guy, her sister Olga gives her hell when she gets back. When the folks in the car insist it'll take a "darn good man" to get the radiator cap off, Olga opens it, no problem. Fun, quick story, even if i'm not really sure what we learned.. I thought it had a lot in common with Key Largo, but lesser known actors in this one.

bkoganbing Heat Lightning was an early work by George Abbott, written and directed by him in 1933 it had only a run of 44 performances in that anemic Depression Era season on Broadway. It was not the best work Abbott was ever associated with, but I'm sure he was grateful that Warner Brothers bought the screen rights in those cash strapped times.It stars Aline McMahon and Ann Dvorak as a pair of sisters running a filling station, automobile camp out in the American west, very similar to the one Bette Davis and her family was running in The Petrified Forest. They're both a bit antsy being stuck out in the desert without the attention of the male of the species. But McMahon's been around the track a little too often and she tries to steer Dvorak right.The guy who gave her that ride a few times is Preston Foster and he's shown up with pal Lyle Talbot. On the lam as it turns out, but the sisters don't know it. Foster's putting the moves on Dvorak and McMahon ain't having any of that. Truth be told she's got a bit of a yen still left and the desert isolation ain't curing the yen.Some other characters pop up in this drama, a pair of would be divorcées heading for Reno with their 'chauffeur' played by Glenda Farrell, Ruth Donnelly and Frank McHugh. Also at the beginning Edgar Kennedy and Jane Darwell are a married couple going west. I wish we could have seen more of them. In fact I'm surprised that Jack Warner didn't recognize a good potential comic team there and made more films with them.As you can see there are a lot of similarities to The Petrified Forest, but I think that even with the tragedies that befall both Humphrey Bogart and Leslie Howard there, The Petrified Forest is a more optimistic play. Bette Davis does get her chance to leave and see the wider world. Not quite what happens here, but I can't say more.As compared to some of the legendary work George Abbott was associated with on stage Heat Lightning is definitely minor league. Yet it's not a bad piece of work, definitely in keeping with the times. Mervyn LeRoy did a good job in filling the screen and striking a nice balance between the comic and the dramatic. Very typical of what came from the working man's studio.

Neil Doyle If you can get over the unlikely pairing of ALINE MacMAHON and PRESTON FOSTER as former lovers and stand the desert heat at a motor court stranded in the middle of nowhere, you may be able to accept some of the melodramatics of HEAT LIGHTNING.Nevertheless, I have to agree with The N.Y. Times when it summed it up as: "Drab melodrama with occasional flashes of forced comedy." The forced comedy is supplied by RUTH DONNELLY and GLENDA FARRELL as two rich dames being chauffeured by FRANK McHUGH, and in an early scene, JANE DARWELL and EDGAR KENNEDY as a bickering married couple who stop by for car repair and a coke. Otherwise, it's pretty dreary stuff, with Foster trying to con McMahon and her sister (ANN DVORAK) out of some money in their safe.The downbeat ending only emphasizes the dreariness of the plot which seems to go nowhere fast.