Perhaps the major interest of this film lies in its depiction of period bicycles and of cycling in its pre-motor-traffic heyday, when a young man who could barely steer his machine in a straight line could ride off on a week's 'cycle tour' and stumble across a lady in distress -- all in dusty lanes and car-free streets. There is even a bit of pioneering off-road riding by the rash novice, although the consequences to his front wheel are rather more easily fixed than modern-day experience might expect!
As a piece of cinema, "The Wheels of Chance" suffers from a strange dichotomy between its 'suburban' scenes (featuring the heroine's suffocatingly conventional stepmother), which I found stilted and extremely tedious -- this may be intentional in an attempt at humour -- and its 'on the road' scenes featuring George K. Arthur as the draper's assistant Hoopdriver, who is an instantly recognisable H.G.Wells character, class-conscious and inhibited but secretly heroic. This film was shot back-to-back with "Kipps", also starring the young Arthur, and the relationship between the two characters is obvious.
Arthur is here a wonderfully natural actor, depicting Hoopdriver's embarrassment and stilted admiration for the lady he rescues, along with the boy's patent decency and innocence and his latent capacity for adventure. He is probably the best thing in the film. Unfortunately the other performers are not necessarily up to the same standard, with the heroine's acting being somewhat uneven and her mother, as already mentioned, decidedly tedious.
As a piece of cinema, "The Wheels of Chance" suffers from a strange dichotomy between its 'suburban' scenes (featuring the heroine's suffocatingly conventional stepmother), which I found stilted and extremely tedious -- this may be intentional in an attempt at humour -- and its 'on the road' scenes featuring George K. Arthur as the draper's assistant Hoopdriver, who is an instantly recognisable H.G.Wells character, class-conscious and inhibited but secretly heroic. This film was shot back-to-back with "Kipps", also starring the young Arthur, and the relationship between the two characters is obvious.
Arthur is here a wonderfully natural actor, depicting Hoopdriver's embarrassment and stilted admiration for the lady he rescues, along with the boy's patent decency and innocence and his latent capacity for adventure. He is probably the best thing in the film. Unfortunately the other performers are not necessarily up to the same standard, with the heroine's acting being somewhat uneven and her mother, as already mentioned, decidedly tedious.
