Undercover Agent (1939)

So much average

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Did you people see the same film I saw?

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The bookie business isn't paying for Ralf Harolde, so he decides to sell phony sweepstakes tickets. Meanwhile, Russell Gleason saves the neighborhood pawnshop owner by shooting the robber with his service revolver. He gets busted for 90 days because he's a trainee Postal Inspector and he's not supposed to be carrying off duty. This disappoints his fiancee, Shirley Grey, who works for the bookies as a hatcheck girl, and her father, who's been peddling the tickets, thinking they're honest, for a 20% commission. He suggests that Russell do the same while he's laid off. Russell checks with his quondam boss and does some undercover sleuthing.It's a thin and short Monogram second feature, run on speed, charm, and Kerrigan's rat-a-tat blather: not much, but there's a thin layer of justification beneath everything that isn't mentioned in the script -- the Post Office is investigating because the receipts from the phony sweepstakes are supposed to be mailed from France, which makes it mail fraud or something. Director Howard Breatherton gets through the matter as fast and painlessly as possible.

IMDb shows this film as having a running time of 65 minutes, yet the link to watch or download the film is for a copy only 47 minutes in length. Considering B-movies generally ran from 58-70 minutes, I assume that the version I saw is not the original. It was truncated to fit on television--I know this because the original titles are gone and one for Motion Pictures For Television, Inc. has inserted a new one. Distributing companies like this often bought up cheap films and hacked them to pieces and then sold them to television. Because of this, my review must be taken with this in mind--perhaps the longer version is a bit better.This film is a low-budget story about crooks who cheat unsuspecting gamblers by selling them fake lottery tickets. The problem comes to the attention of a young go-getter--a postal inspector who had been inexplicably suspended from his job. Now, if he digs deeper and uncovers this racket, perhaps he can get reinstated. One serious problem standing in his way is his girlfriend's drunk father--as he IS an annoying idiot and might just jeopardize the young man's investigation.Overall, the story isn't bad, but the character of the old man is too colorful--too much of a caricature to be realistic. Plus, I was just kind of hoping one of the crooks would kill him--after all, they sure wanted to! The acting, writing and direction were all adequate and what you might expect from an average to slightly below average B-movie and nothing more.

Monogram was a wonderful little factory of b-movies, films that delivered the goods week after week for small town and neighborhood audiences. UNDERCOVER AGENT is a typical Monogram programmer, directed by Howard Bretherton, a man who directed many fine westerns and two interesting Columbia serials in the mid-40s, but it contains many small tidbits of particularity and humanity that make it somehow special even today, 60+ years after it was made. The plot involves sweepstakes fraud (I remember a similar plot being used in a 1930's Frankie Darro vehicle)and Russell Gleason, as boyish as ever, convincingly plays a postal inspector who is put on suspension due to an warranted but technical illegal shooting. He is gradually working his way up the ranks and wants to marry his girlfriend, played by Shirley Deane. One interesting detail in the story is that Ms. Deane's father, played by J. M. Kerrigan, is a hardcore alcoholic who is seen pawning his daughter's confirmation ring in the film's first scene. He is turned down and thrown out of establishments in scenes that echo of TEN NIGHTS IN A BARROOM. The film, like so many forgotten little b-movies of yesteryear, is full of such small details that still work today. Kerrigan's character, of course, eventually finds redemption (no surprise there!), but the sweepstakes scam is cleverly put together by the criminals, and cleverly busted by Gleason.