Top Speed (film)
1930 film by Mervyn LeRoy
Top Speed is a 1930 American Pre-Code musical comedy film released by First National Pictures, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Pictures. It was based on a 1929 stage musical of the same name by Harry Ruby, Guy Bolton and Bert Kalmar. The film stars Joe E. Brown, Bernice Claire, Jack Whiting, Laura Lee, and Frank McHugh.
Plot
Elmer Peters and Gerald Brooks, bond clerks on a weekend vacation, are on the run from a local sheriff after Elmer attempts to fish in a "no fishing" area. The two men arrive at an expensive hotel where they rescue Virginia Rollins and Babs Green, who have just been involved in a car accident. Gerald falls in love with Virginia, and Elmer falls for Babs, and the two fugitives decide to remain at the hotel for the rest of the weekend. Elmer begins boasting to hotel guests and personnel; soon, everyone believes that he and Gerald are millionaires, and that Gerald is an expert boat racer.
Virginia's father owns a speedboat that he plans to enter in a big race. After he fires his pilot, whom he caught taking a bribe, Virginia convinces her father to let Gerald pilot the boat.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Top Speed (film)” is 1930 film by Mervyn LeRoy. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Speed, film and Mervyn, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1930 film by Mervyn LeRoy” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7824622. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1930 and 1929.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Top Speed (film)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Top Speed (film) primary sources, Top Speed (film) archive and Speed research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Top Speed (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.