The Night Hollywood Played in Peoria

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For a brief moment, on July 14, 1936, Peoria, Ill., was the center of attention for Hollywood and the movie-going public. It was on that date that the Warner Brothers’ movie, Earthworm Tractors, starring Joe E. Brown, premiered in Peoria. It was the first Hollywood movie to premiere outside of Hollywood or New York. And for good reason. The movie was not only based on Caterpillar – its tractors and salespeople – it was also partially filmed at the East Peoria plant and featured four special tractors, including the Caterpillar RD4 and Caterpillar RD8.

The Plot
In the movie, Alexander Botts, played by comedian Joe E. Brown, is a salesman who falls in love with the pretty Sally Blair, played by Carol Hughes. Unfortunately, Botts has to compete against the successful Emmet McManus, played by Dick Foran, for Sally’s hand. Botts tries to impress Sally with the latest product he’s selling: a pipe that when blown into, sends a piece of cork up a string onto a hook, which he describes as “a little novelty that opens the pores, clears the eyes, takes the mind off business worries and last but not least brings laughter back into the life of the working man.” The attempt fails, causing Botts to look for a new job selling “big, important and worthwhile” products, which leads him to the Earthworm Tractor Company.

Botts cons his way to a job as a mechanic, working with Earthworm salesman George Healey, played by Gene Lockhart. After Healey mistakenly drinks shoe polish instead of whiskey, Botts finds himself in the position of salesman, forced to make a sales call on a customer named Jackson. However, Botts mistakes the name Jackson for Johnson and heads off in the wrong direction. After a series of comedic misadventures with the tractor – including attempts to pull a car from the mud and wreaking havoc downtown – Botts inadvertently meets Jackson and, despite the mayhem, convinces him to buy six Earthworms. At the same time, Botts meets and falls in love with Mabel Johnson, played by June Travis, to nicely tie the story up in the end.

The Stunt
While Earthworm Tractors is fairly typical of a comedic movie from that era, there is one amazing sequence at the end of the movie involving Botts driving a tractor across a rickety bridge. As the tractor crosses the bridge, dynamite charges are set off, destroying the base of the bridge as the tractor progresses. The tractor steadily moves across the swaying bridge, spitting boards behind it until it arrives safely on the other side – an amazing feat for the Caterpillar tractor and the moviemakers.

There were no special effects to speak of in 1936, making the stunt incredibly risky and the final scene incredibly hair-raising.

The Premiere
Complete with search lights, army stunt planes, fanfare and a huge parade, the city of Peoria pulled out all the stops for the movie’s premiere at the Madison Theater. July 14 became “Joe E. Brown Day” as the star visited town for the event. The Caterpillar Tractor Co. 40-piece band kept the crowd entertained and WMBD broadcast the red-carpet event, announcing the various officials and distinguished guests as they arrived. The event was a massive success and brought a lot of positive attention to Caterpillar as well as the city of Peoria.

The Character
William Upson’s popularity began in 1927 when the Saturday Evening Post began featuring the adventures of Alexander Botts and the Earthworm Tractor Company. The stories take the form of correspondences between the self-described “natural-born salesman” and his ever-perplexed boss, Mr. Henderson, who originally hired Botts as a mechanic.

Over the years, Botts worked his way up from mechanic through the sales force to, finally, General Manager, with Mr. Henderson firing him (and rehiring him) regularly. The correspondences are ingenious yarns, with Mr. Henderson objecting to Botts’ approach to sales and Botts refuting Mr. Henderson with his experiences out in the field. Over the years, Botts became known for his bumbling exploits and his positive outlook, which ultimately pulled him out of comedic disaster after comedic disaster. Some of these include adventures with private planes, the parts distribution department, caves, mines, income taxes, and the competition, Behemoth Tractor Company. Along with Behemoth Tractor, some other competitors Botts tangled with included Goliath, Superba, Elephant and Rough Rider – generally believed to be puns on real manufacturers like Massey and Deere.

The stories not only involved Botts traveling across the United States, but crossing the Atlantic and the Pacific as well as getting involved in the war. One memorable story concerns Botts' involvement with the invasion of Normandy and the liberation of a 100-year-old barrel of Calvados Brandy.

Upson’s collected stories about Alexander Botts were published in many books over the years, including Botts in War, Botts in Peace (1944), No Rest For Botts (1951), The Best of Botts (1967), The Fabulous Saga of Alexander Botts and the Earthworm Tractor, and, most recently, Alexander Botts Rides Again by Machinery Hill publishers in 2005.

The Writer
William Hazlett Upson was born in 1891 in New Jersey and fought in World War I, taking part in the Marne-Aisen, St. Mihiel and Meuse-Ardennes offensives. He turned to writing and journalism after the war, creating a massive body of work. During his time at the Post, from 1925 to 1974, Upson had 155 published articles, including 112 fictional stories. Of course, Alexander Botts was Upson’s greatest and most memorable creation. Upson spent a short stint at The Holt Manufacturing Company as a service mechanic and trouble shooter and based his character loosely on the Caterpillar sales people. Upson also was a good friend of Louis Neumiller, former Caterpillar chairman.

In 1971, the Saturday Evening Post decided to re-run some of the Alexander Botts stories since they “seemed by all odds, according to our most ancient files, to have been the most beloved material ever to run in the Post.” The magazine contacted Upson’s family and was surprised to find the “late author” wasn’t “late” at all – he was living it up in Florida. When the Post finally reached him, Upson responded, “Why reprint some old story? I’ll write you a new one on a contemporary theme like conservation.” The story he wrote was, in the words of the Post editor, “one of the zingiest, gol-dingiest, funniest stories we had ever read anywhere, anytime, obviously written by the man with the youngest mind and heart in America.” Upson wrote seven more stories for the Post after that. He died at 83 in 1975.

About the Author

A Juilliard-trained writer, Kevin Kizer has fought against numerous world-champion writers during his career, besting the reigning middle weight writing champion in an exhibition bout in Helsinki in 1976. He also played a crucial role on the U.S. gold-medal winning writing team during the 1984 Pan-Am games, where he came off the bench in dramatic fashion to write the winning prepositional phrase just as time expired.