Just perfect...

Excellent but underrated film

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Call it a war on espionage, a war on terrorism, a war for world peace. It's a serious example of the horrors of what evil will do to destroy freedom and create anarchy. This starts off with the most horrifying murder, that of a scientist who has created a tracking devise to prevent our ships and oilers from being detected. The enemy uses it for just the opposite, to be able to track tankers and destroy them so bombers cannot be re- fueled. When radio engineers are let go from their positions out of suspicion of being part of this espionage ring, one of them (Richard Arlen) unknowingly becomes involved with the villains, putting both the government and the bad guys on his trail.A subplot involving Arlen's niece being in surgery sugar-coats the drama which at its best has elements of film noir and at its weakest, elements of DrKildare. Some of the chase sequences with Arlen desperate to get the goods away from the Japs and Nazi's is close to what Dick Powell was trying to do in the same year's "Murder My Sweet". Wendy Barrie is along for the ride as a government agent who at first follows Arlene around and later tries to help him. One dimensional villains give a predictability to this interesting and often complex drama that isn't overloaded with war propaganda and is at its best when it focuses on the important elements of the story and gets off the unnecessary soap involving the little girl. More psychologically gripping than action packed, it ranks slightly higher than most of the propaganda filled action films released through Pine Thomas at Paramount around the same time.

It's a hurried story of enemy spies sending signals to German U-boats offshore about the sailing of American cargo ships down the coast. Of course it's low budget and rude but I kind of liked it. (The Morse code used is real, not just gibberish. That is, somebody CARED.) It's 1942 and the US is having a tough time with so many freighters and tankers being sunk off the coast. And they were being sunk in numbers, too. The U-boats called it the second "happy time." But it didn't require Nazi spies. The US had just entered the war and unlike Britain had no clear idea of how to proceed with the business of protecting its shipping. The coast was considered safe from submarines because of the submarine's short cruising range. But they were supplied mid way across the Atlantic by Milchkühe, "milk cows." The cities along the coast -- Boston, New York, Charleston, and the rest -- left their lights on at night, so U-boats could silhouette our ships easily. It was so easy for the U-boats that the crews sometimes greeted survivors and distributed food to the lifeboats. "Charge this to Churchill." In this movie, the FBI, realizing that the unnecessary transmitter must be tiny and portable, and must be carefully attended, sees to it that dozens of radio engineers are fired, hoping that one will be approached by the Nazis. Richard Arlen is one of the experts fired and the Nazis offer him a job which, all unwittingly, he accepts.True. It's as improbable as all hell. Furthermore, these white-collar types lead stuffy lives. They all wear suits and ties, their shoes are shined, and their manners unimpeachable. Dwight Frye ("Renfield") is cast as a Nazi agent. The non-diegetic music is out of a Saturday-afternoon serial, popular at the time. But please, let's not get off on a tangent. Let's stick to events, shall we? It's a little puzzling that after the FBI's machinations that result in the firing of all these radio experts, those that are offered jobs are treated as potential traitors. After all, they've done nothing but legally exercised their skills. Frankly, I didn't get the logic. But in any case, the lead character, Richard Alrlen, a dull actor, is followed by an FBI agent, Wendy Barrie. He falls in love with her fifteen minutes after they first meet. The evildoers try to steambath Arlen and Barrie to death. It doesn't work. It's dumb but comforting, like hearing a Kindergarten child recite the ABCs flawlessly and everyone is happy.

Richard Arlen generally took on films which had some thought involved over action. Here, the thought is missing.It is a McCarthy era style film about espionage, with Arlen as a "brainy" sort who gets into a lot more fisticuffs than one would imagine. We're given the FBI characters who really don't fit into any mold-they're not McCarthy, they're not sharpshooters, they're not any of the usual cinema stereotypes, and that may be the only thing going for this very generic spy piece, since the plot never even begins to make any sense.We have a "cute kid" of course, since a Hollywood male hero has to be a family man or former family man. The kid does an excellent job, too, but is really just a gimmick in this formula film.

Some one is using a new radio system to alert submarines of the course tankers and supply ships will be taking. When the radio signals go silent and a radio expert turns up dead the FBI thinks something has happened to the radio. Taking matters in to their own hands they have several other radio men fired hoping that the saboteurs will contact one of them to repair the radio. One man is contacted and he begins working for the enemy agents unaware what he is working on or that the FBI is keeping an eye on him. Very good war time spy thriller moves along at a good clip. While it doesn't have any big names it does have plenty of atmosphere including a spooky mill that plays a nice role in the closing portion of the film. This is a solid little film that seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle. Worth a look.