The Reckless Way apparently earned very few bookings when first released in April of 1936. And it's no wonder; incredibly crude and plagued by sloppy editing, bad sound, and even worse acting, this little Hollywood drama meanders along for almost 70 long minutes before Marion Nixon finally decides to give Kane Richmond her yes. Before that happens, however, director/writer Raymond K. Johnson has trotted out every back lot cliché imaginable, from the language-mangling studio boss (William Strauss) to the wisecracking girlfriend (Inez Courtney) to the autocratic and, yes, Teutonic, star director (John Peters). The latter was obviously based on Erich Von Stroheim, but Peters plays it just a mite too broad. The small back lot seen in The Reckless Way was actually the former Tec-Art Studios, a popular rental facility for independent producers in the early '30s.
