Idol of the Crowds

Idol of the Crowds (1937)

Retired hockey player Johnny Hansen, in order to make money to enlarge his chicken farm, returns to the game and leads his team into the championship series. Just before the series starts, he is offered a bribe to throw the games but refuses. An attempt is made on his life which results in Bobby, the team's mascot, being injured.

Date of release
1937-09-30
TMDB
5.1 / 10 (5)
Runtime
1h 0m
Genres
Drama, Romance
Director
Arthur Lubin

Casting

Interesting facts

Idol of the Crowds is a 1937 American sports drama film directed by Arthur Lubin and starring John Wayne as an ice hockey player. It was one of a series of non-Westerns Wayne made for Universal. The film was originally called Hell on Ice but the Hays Office requested this be changed.

Production

The film was announced in April 1937. In May Universal announced the film as part of its upcoming output.

Filming took place in May. Wayne later said "I'm from Southern California. I've never been on [expletive] skates in my life. I was in the hospital for two [expletive] days after that."

Wayne's biographer Scott Eyman later said "It was a fish-out-of-water experience" for the actor. "Hockey was just something completely alien to him. This was before television, so he'd probably never even seen a hockey game... As for his skating, he basically gets away with it. He's OK as long as he's moving in a straight line."

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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