The Big Broadcast of 1938 1938

In a splashy setup billed as “The Race of the Ages,” two giants of the sea collide in a two-and-a-half-day Atlantic dash: the forty-million-dollar, radio-powered S.S. Gigantic faces off against its traditional rival, the S.S. Colossal. The Gigantic’s owner, T. Frothingill Bellows W.C. Fields, hopes to clinch victory through mischief, planning to send his nearly identical younger brother S.B. Bellows W.C. Fields aboard the Colossal to sow trouble and tilt the race in his Bellows Line’s favor.

But the plan is upended when S.B., delayed by a golf game, ascends into the high-stakes spectacle and somehow lands on the Gigantic’s deck, upsetting Captain Stafford Russell Hicks and throwing the crew into quick-thinking chaos. The ship also welcomes Martha Bellows Martha Raye, the notoriously unlucky daughter who arrives after surviving the yacht Hesperus V’s wreck, her presence adding a wild card to an already tense voyage.

Meanwhile, Buzz Fielding Bob Hope, the beloved OBC radio emcee just out of “alimony jail,” is broadcasting live from the Gigantic and juggling a growing tangle of relationships. He tries to keep the show running while navigating his three ex-wives—Cleo Fielding Shirley Ross, Grace Fielding Grace Bradley, and Joan Fielding Virginia Vale—as well as his on-again, off-again romance with Dorothy Wyndham Dorothy Lamour and his haplessly loyal microphone assistant Mike Ben Blue. The interplay among these powers on board—humor, envy, and romance—gives the voyage a lively, kinetic rhythm.

Dorothy Wyndham becomes the focal point of a budding romance with First Officer Robert Hayes, the inventor of the Gigantic’s enormous radio power plant, a role brought to life by Leif Erickson Leif Erickson. Hayes’s presence adds a layer of earnest charm to the onboard capers, offering a steadier counterweight to the shipboard comedy. The ship’s musical heartbeat arrives through dazzling performances staged for the passengers and the radio audience, featuring specialty appearances by Kirsten Flagstad Kirsten Flagstad and Wilfrid Pelletier Wilfrid Pelletier of the Metropolitan Opera Company, whose presence elevates the atmosphere above mere farce.

As the voyage unfolds, the film threads together the racing plot with a tangle of family dynamics, old flames, and new affections, all against a backdrop of daring maritime engineering and on-deck entertainment. The result is a breezy, star-studded comedy that mixes slapstick with warmth, keeping the narrative buoyant even as rival schemes collide with genuine human moments. The story moves with a buoyant energy, never losing sight of its core promise: a public spectacle of speed, spectacle, and the stubborn, comedic resilience of the people aboard the Gigantic.