Secret Service of the Air (1939)

For those of you not in the know, from 1939-1940 future president Ronald Reagan stared in four Warner Brothers B-pictures playing the character of intrepid Secret Service agent "Brass" Bancroft. In this the first film in the series Reagan is pitted against an unscrupulous group of criminals smuggling illegal aliens into the country from Mexico, yes you heard that right, this is a tea party dream. Now today we mostly think of the Secret Service as a group that protects high profile government officials, but lets not forget that they are also charged with fighting counterfeiting, and that is the angle this film takes.

The movie starts with a group of aliens boarding a plane to sneak into the United States. Now these particular aliens aren't your average Mexicans seeking work, no they are a mostly white group of ner-do-wells, one of whom is involved in counterfeiting. There is an undercover Secret Service agent among them who is after the counterfeiter, once the plane takes off the agent tries to commender it, but the pilot knocks him from the cockpit back into the cabin and pulls a secret lever that releases a trap door dropping the agent and the six other passengers to there deaths (this scene kind of shocked me). Eventually the corpses are discovered in the desert, the agent identified and this information relayed back to Washington. Now the Secret Service is intent on busting this smuggling operation, not exactly something that agency does but oh well. The Service decides that they are going to need someone on this job who is a very good pilot, cue Bancroft. You see Lt. Bancroft had been a navy flier and now works in commercial  aviation doing taxing trans-pacific flights. Bancroft has long desired to enter the Secret Service (he has a friend who works for it) and now is his chance.

This friend recruits Bancroft into the Service, but he is not to tell anyone about his new position, this is because they need to give him a criminal record first. The Service plants evidence of counterfeiting on Bancroft, and quickly have him tried, found guilty, and sent to prison, where he is assigned to be the cell mate of a man who once flew for the smuggling racket. Bancroft befriends this man, they plot escape together, but Reagan stools to the warden who is of course aware of Brass's true mission. Bancroft's cell mate is sent to a more secure prison and Bancroft is released with a cover story that he got his sentence commuted when he agreed to revel the location of his printing plates to the Feds. Other incidents are subsequently arranged that ingratiate Bancroft in with the smugglers, now the only people that can blow his cover are his now recently escaped former cell mate and his good from the airline (Eddy Foy Jr.) who is convinced that Bancroft ain't no crook.

All in all a pretty good B picture, decent plot, surprisingly harsh in places. I enjoyed it and look forward to viewing the other entries in this series. **1/2