The Crowd Roars (1932)

Gripping melodrama directed by Howard Hawks, about troubled racecar driver James Cagney and his younger brother who idolizes him. Cagney agrees to help him break into professional racing, but the brother's career takes off as Cagney's hits the skids.

Ann Dvorak (whom I had just watched in Three on a Match) is Cagney's long-suffering girlfriend who puts up with his drinking and hot temper, and Joan Blondell is the woman who ends up falling in love with Cagney's younger brother, driving a wedge between them.

The racing scenes are incredibly well-shot, only a handful of shots relying on back-projection. The camera is right there in the action, and there are more than a few scenes that had to have been extremely dangerous to shoot. About half a dozen actual racecar drivers are credited for their assistance with the filming, and performed in the driving scenes themselves.

The story, by Howard Hawks, was loosely remade by him in 1965 as Red Line 7000.