True to form, Bucker one evening after work meets and becomes enamored with Mary (Mae Clarke), not knowing that she is one of the women whom Gunner dates regularly, although not seriously.
Bucker's anger builds over his perceived betrayal, and the next day while working at their construction site, he tries to kill his friend by sabotaging a walkway between two iron girders.
Disgusted by the ploy, which intends to get her to bend over to retrieve the coin and insinuates that her affections can be bought, the nurse turns and glares at Bucker, thinking he had done it.
Upon its release in 1933, the film received predominantly poor notices from reviewers in major newspapers and trade publications, as well as from theater owners and managers.
[7]Photoplay, the nation's leading movie fan magazine in 1933, simply stated in its terse review, "Mae Clarke fine in a dull tale about a two-timing skyscraper riveter (Jack Gilbert)".
[9] In their weekly reports to Motion Picture Herald in the spring and summer of 1933, theater owners in various locations in the United States personally complained about the film's plot and about the MGM production's poor drawing power at their box offices.
Brown, for example, owner of the Majestic Theatre in Nampa, Idaho, described Fast Workers as an "Unsatisfactory picture with a weak ending", noting it "Won't please" and "Business not good" during its screenings.
[10] Far from Idaho, Edith Fordyce, the proprietor of the Princess Theatre in Selma, Louisiana, advised her colleagues to present the film "on bargain night if you have to show it.
[12] There were also defenders and apologists for Gilbert in the media, reviewers who insisted that weak scripts were largely responsible for any perceived deficiencies in the actor's performance in Fast Workers and in most of his earlier "talkies".
It happens that Mr. Gilbert is, despite certain opinions to the contrary, an excellent actor, who can perform capably in a sensible role...In "Fast Workers" he is called upon to be a dashing fellow, irresistible to women, who is never so happy as when stealing a girl from his best friend, Robert Armstrong.
[13]In early 1933, despite the ongoing economic disruptions and financial uncertainties of the Great Depression, and the approaching expiration of John Gilbert's contract with MGM, the studio still committed $525,000 to the film's production budget, quite a high sum for a relatively short feature, especially given the cited circumstances.
[1] The sound track of Fast Workers belies claims that John Gilbert's film career declined due to the advent of talking pictures and, more specifically, to widespread negative reactions to his "unsuitable" voice by moviegoers in 1933.
[15] In its review of the film after its release, the trade publication Variety describes Gilbert as being "miscast in his final appearance for Metro" (actually his last as a contract star for MGM), adding that his "voice [is] okay but the part doesn't suit.