Murder in the Air (1940)

Nice effects though.

i must have seen a different film!!

Excellent adaptation.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Watched all four of the Secret Agent movies. Every one was fun. Does Hollyweird even have an inkling of what that word means? Fun with dialogue, plot, clean language, no bathroom humor, and no nudity. Going to the movies used to be worth the money. There was support of our great nation and no stupid correctness. It was patriotism and the movies used to make the viewer more positive after the viewing. What a concept. B-Movies were and are better than so called A movies. Ronald was very handsome. Eddie Foy, Jr. was enjoyable as the sidekick. The story actually had a beginning, middle, and end. There was a conflict to be resolved.

The fourth in the "Brass Bancroft" series is the best. Once again, RONALD REAGAN plays the confident government man whose job it is to expose spies led by JAMES STEPHENSON, the accented villain. It has the flavor of an extended Saturday afternoon serial, the kind that movie fans came to expect as a steady diet during the '30s and '40s.All the ingredients for such an adventurous tale are here--a mysterious man with a tattoo on his arm; a ring of spies; good guys putting themselves into dangerous positions by posing as gangsters; and the inevitable conclusion with the spies efficiently disposed of by U.S. agents on their trail.And once again, one gets the impression that Ronald Reagan was indeed being groomed for stardom as an Errol Flynn type of action star in his early days. He once described himself as the "Errol Flynn of the B-films" and it's an apt description.Simplistic spy story made a year before Pearl Harbor, has its best moments when it uses actual footage from a dirigible disaster at sea with the footage blended evenly with studio scenes aboard the dirigible before it crashes. It's the last twenty minutes or so that makes the whole thing worth watching.Fortunately for Reagan, it wasn't long after this one that the studio began putting him in A-films where he eventually earned his leading man status and became a dependable fixture throughout the forties.

SYNOPSIS: Ronald Reagan, G-Men, Espionage, Airplanes....that about sums it up.CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER: American Government = Good / Foreigners = Bad. An entertaining propaganda film for its day. Supposedly, the 3rd in a series of G-Men pictures that Ronald Regan stared in. His character is named Brass Bancroft (Hollywood just doesn't use names like this anymore). Written and filmed during a time when the U.S. Government was never questioned and Communism was considered a mental plague and not a political view. It is easy to tell who the good guys are and you know the bad guys will be defeated in the end.PROS AND CONS: I have a soft spot for the old days. Back in the day when even second rate B-Movies had some art and talent to them. These films reflected the audience that they were marketed toward which was middle class white Americans before World War II. The concept of ethnicity hadn't yet come to light, segregation was the norm. The government was a benevolent autocratic entity that could do no wrong. The film centers around science aviation and espionage, which back in the day was about as gee-wiz as you could get. There are shades of the Movie-Serials of the 40s as well as the coming paranoia of the communist conspiracy. If you want to see the roots of Star Wars and the Indiana Jones films, see pictures such as this.One of the first things that was evident is that this film was produced on the studio lot. There is no location shooting and everything is shot on sound stage sets. What gives this away is the the lack of any ceiling on the interior shots and the shadows cast by the lighting. This gives the illusion that each room has 20 foot high ceilings that go up forever. This is pretty basic entertainment, meant to satisfy a pretty simple audience that didn't question much. Now, it is almost more entertaining for its simplicity and gullibility than anything else....and of course that the lead actor becomes president of the United States.

Starting with SECRET SERVICE OF THE AIR (1938), Ronald Reagan made four B-movie series film with the character of "Brass Bancroft". I have seen all but SMASHING THE MONEY RING. The first film, despite its very low budget and modest pretense, was an exceptional film for the genre. The second, CODE OF THE SECRET SERVICE was just awful--with an extremely poorly written script that wasn't worthy of the franchise. This final film, MURDER IN THE AIR, isn't quite as good as the first film but it sure comes close--making a nice conclusion to this series.Reagan is given a special assignment to infiltrate a mob of spies who are seeking to destroy American. Oddly, like in his other films, the exact countries involved never are alluded to, though in this one Communists are mentioned. These evil rats have a big plan, but Reagan and the rest of his fellow agents have no idea what it will be. Fortunately, one of the spies is accidentally killed and Reagan assumes his identity. I'd rather not discuss exactly what happens next, as it might spoil the surprise, but I was excited to see that the film was set partially on board a US Navy dirigible and the scene involving it crashing was pretty exciting.All in all, this is not a film that you'll long remember--it's a B-film through and through. But for a B, it's an excellent one and stand above the crowd of many B series films.