Fast Digs: Could be MSG

Madison Square Garden.

I suppose the 6 Day Bike Rider could have been filmed at any number of tracks, but it wasn't. It was filmed, at least in part, at the track constructed inside Hollywood's Winter Garden, and that is what makes it apropos for inclusion in Fast Digs. With a world class track right in their backyard, and a stellar field already in town to race, I am confident the decision was an easy one for Warner Brothers to make.

You can find various reviews of the film, but the best may be one from when the movie was originally released (New York Times, November 3, 1934): "... Before Mr. Brown is draped with the floral horseshoe of victory, his life-line is crossed by a dastardly rival (Gordon Westcott) and embroidered by a romance (with Maxine Doyle being decidedly offhand as the romantic interest). But he manages, also, to ride as hectic a race as Madison Square Garden has never seen, what with the loose floor boards, chloroform, getting his directions mixed and having coffee squirted in his face. But that's the way Mr. Brown does things, and you can take it or leave it." Yes, filmed at the Winter Garden, but set at Madison Square Garden which, admittedly, was the best known track in the United States at the time.