Nell Shipman must have been paid a hefty sum of money to promote the Maxwell automobile's off-road capabilities. The plot of the movie is pretty simple, Nell plays a writer who has a bad case of writer's block, and needs inspiration, so she goes to visit Mexico to absorb the atmosphere. There she meets the hero (Bert Van Tuyle), a cowboy who chooses to drive a car rather than ride a horse. While Nell is visiting with her father's partner at his mining camp, a gang of local bandits kidnap her and bring her to their camp deep in the wilderness. The hero needs to get to her quickly, so he decides to drive there in his car. This is where the film takes a weird twist. Bert proceeds to drive over every terrain imaginable, huge rocks, small streams, heavy brush, scraggly tree stumps, steep inclines, etc etc, for the greater part of the film we get to see this car struggling to crawl over obstacles. Now mind you, this isn't a modern-day ATV, it's a 1920 Maxwell automobile, so it looks very out-of-place as an off-road vehicle. And it clearly has limitations for some of the terrain it encounters, we get to see it stuck more than once in this film. But the filmmakers made an effort to show it beating the odds and eventually passing all the obstacles. Once the hero gets to the hidden camp and rescues the girl, he jumps in the car with her and drives off with the bandits in hot pursuit (on horseback), and at this point it became hysterically funny to me. Watching this car slowly rolling over huge rocks, getting stuck in gravel and mountain brush, going forward and back to get momentum enough to pass over fallen tree limbs, the bandits should have had ample time to catch up. But they never do, even though we are to believe this wilderness chase goes on throughout the night. And in a silly climax, the car climbs a mountainside, and helps Nell and the hero push a huge boulder down the side to crush the pursuing bandits.
After seeing this film you would think the army should invest in 1920 Maxwell automobiles because they clearly have better off-road capabilities than Hummers and Bradley tanks combined. Watch this film just for laughs, it's worth it just to see Nell cuddling up to the car grill and saying "You did your best, brave little car"
After seeing this film you would think the army should invest in 1920 Maxwell automobiles because they clearly have better off-road capabilities than Hummers and Bradley tanks combined. Watch this film just for laughs, it's worth it just to see Nell cuddling up to the car grill and saying "You did your best, brave little car"