| Slim | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Ray Enright |
| Written by | William Wister Haines |
| Starring | Henry Fonda |
| Release date(s) | 1937 |
| Running time | 85 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Slim is a 1937 movie starring Henry Fonda. The movie is sometimes (incorrectly) called Slim the Lineman.
It is a film adaptation of the 1934 novel Slim, written by William Wister Haines, which concerns linemen in the electric power industry. This movie documents how the electrical lineman's job and language have evolved and yet still remains the same in much of the terminology from the 1930s to today.
Henry Fonda plays Slim, a farm boy from the southern United States. As he is plowing the fields on his family's farm he stops to watch a crew of linemen erecting transmission towers across the property. He finally asks them for a job and is hired as a groundman. His partners on the job are Stumpy (Stuart Erwin), another groundman, and Red (Pat O'Brien), an experienced lineman who takes Slim under his wing.
Slim wins over the respect of the other linemen when he helps them in a fight during a poker game against some people from out of town who are trying to cheat them out of their money. Slim then advances in the job to become a lineman himself. When Slim and Red are both fired from the job at the same time for refusing to speak against a lineman killed in an accident, the two go on the road. They head to Chicago to see Red's girlfriend, Cally (Margaret Lindsay) a nurse, and Slim finds himself falling for her too and competing with Red for her affections.
The two then head to New Mexico in search of another job. They are hired, only to find that one of the linemen on the job, Wilcox (Joe Sawyer), is an old acquaintance of Red's and the two harbor a dislike of each other. Wilcox sees Red and Slim as competition to his own desire to be promoted to foreman, and one day stabs Slim on the job. The other linemen chase Wilcox off the job site while Slim recovers in the hospital. Cally comes to nurse Slim and tries to talk him out of line work, saying it is too dangerous. Slim however recovers and returns to work.
The job in New Mexico finished, Slim and Red then head to a new job in New York City to find that Stumpy and their old boss Pop (J. Farrell MacDonald) are both on the crew there. During a blizzard, the crew is called to a substation to restore power where Red falls to his death. Cally makes the trip from Chicago to New York to visit Slim and once again try to talk him out of line work, leaving Slim to face the choice between his job and his girl. Slim carries on with his job because "that's what's the matter".