Moviecut—Devil's Playground

source: Devil's Playground

Devil's Playground

Jack Dorgan (Richard Dix), the roughest-toughest diver in the navy, dreams of settling down and buying his own house. He eventually marries dance hall girl Carmen (Dolores Del Rio), but when Jack goes off on an assignment, Carmen stars an affair with Jack's best friend Robert Mason (Chester Morris), who is unaware that Carmen is married. However, when Mason is trapped in a submarine, Jack is the only person that can save him... Based on a silent Frank Capra film, Devil's Playground, despite the eye-catching title, is a poorly written melodrama. Richard Dix and Chester Morris are solid as the leads, while Dolores Del Rio is a bit over-the-top. The script, frankly, is awful. The submarine rescue only takes fifteen minutes, with the rest of the film take up with dull romantic shenanigans. This one's a dud.

Jack Dorgan is an expert Navy diver. Robert Mason is a submariner. The best friends love carousing while on shore leave. After Mason goes on an extended tour, Dorgan marries dance-hall girl Carmen. She comes between the best friends until an underwater incident forces them back together. I like Richard Dix playing the loveable lug. He's fun. I want to be his friend. The guys do need to be more different. Mason is a bigger brain than Dorgan but they look a bit too similar. The love triangle would work better with all three people being present. There are some good and some less than good in this story. As for the submarine, the set is too roomy. It's too big to have the claustrophobic tension. The miniature work looks amateurish and the incident is rather contrived. All in all, this is a functional B-movie with some good and I like Dorgan.

Devil's Playground is the story of two navy pals and the woman who makes a monkey out of both of them. Dolore Del Rio is said woman and she meets and marries Richard Dix known as the best deep sea diver in the US Navy. She works as a dime a dance dancer in a dance hall. But just as they're about to do the honeymoon thing Dix gets called away for sea duty. Del Rio goes back to the dance hall rather than sit at home. As fate would have it she runs into Chester Morris who duty has brought to town and he's a man ever ready to help scratch an itch. And Del Rio has been left with an itch that needs some desperate scratching. I think you can figure the rest of this out. The film is dominated by Del Rio's portrayal of the sly little minx who gets both Dix and Morris's hormones a raging. There are also some nice deep sea rescue sequences performed. Still it's Del Rio whom you will remember.