AllMovie

Movie trends always come in cycles: in 1937, motorboat melodramas were briefly the rage. In Columbia's Motor Madness, small-time boat manufacturer Cap McNeil (J. M. Kerrigan) enters an international cup race to raise enough money to keep his business afloat. Much to the delight of Cap's pretty daughter Peggy (Rosalind Keith), handsome mechanic Joe Dunn (Allan Brooks) is chosen to steer McNeil's motorboat to (hopefully) victory. Complicating matters is a cute orphan lad (George Ernest) whom Joe adopts and a gambling boat which serves as a safe haven for wanted criminals. While leading players Allan Brooks and Rosalind Keith didn't go very far in Hollywood, the supporting cast of Motor Madness is full of reassuringly familiar Columbia faces, including the ubiquitous Marc Lawrence and Joe Sawyer.