Old “industrial” films are almost always bizarre to watch decades after they were made, and this deeply strange Chevrolet film from 1936 is no exception. I’m going to spoil the plot for you a bit, but I don’t care, because it’s so much fun to write out in actual words, especially when it involves a dude getting worked over at the opera.
The film is called “Turnabout Man,” and starts with an absolutely breathtakingly exciting scene of a bald dude dozing off while reading a newspaper, focusing on a pair of articles, one by the Mayor of Wherever extolling people to drive more courteously, and another about some opera performance that night.
We then end up in the mayor’s office, where bald dude is sporting a shiner and a lump on his head the size of an auk egg, blaming the mayor for convincing him to drive without being a dickhead.
You know this guy must normally have driven like a colossal dickhead because at one point in the film the protagonist brags about how, when a driver attempted to do a dumb left turn in front of him at an intersection, he didn’t “take the chance to smash him into the oncoming cars.”
That was what you were considering? Jeezis, dude, that’s murder.
Anyway, the dude drives like a saint and makes sure everyone knows it, then decides to go to the opera, where he admits he “swelled up inside with my own importance” and proceeds to act like a colossal asshole to such a degree that fucking opera ushers have to kick his ass and toss him out of the opera.
It’s all pretty insane. Here, just watch:
Of course, there are also lots of great early 20th-century cars tooling around all over the place (1936 Chevys feature prominently, no surprise), too, and that’s always worthwhile.
Also, a good takeaway: don’t fuck around at the opera.