Murder in the Air (1940)

The 4th and final of Ronald Reagan's "Bass Bancroft of the Secret Service" films, this is the one that I'd most wanted to see, given its later (real or imagined) connection to the president's "Star Wars" defense program. Murder in the Air is also the most problematic, even ridiculous film of the series, and that's saying something. At the start of the film we are made aware of a series of terrorist attacks in the United States apparently aimed at slowing  the nations war production. Now it is important to remember that when this film was made the United States had yet to enter the second world war, in fact we hadn't even begun lend-lease to supply the British, though given the general disarray of the world at the time its not surprising that we may have up ticked our domestic arms production as a precaution. Also Germany and Russia were still allies in 1940, which I suppose is an important plot point here as the group trying to keep America neutral and disarmed (they somehow think terrorism is a good way of accomplishing this) is apparently Soviet backed (if I remember correctly this is implied but never stated), and later one the Russians would have given almost anything to get the United States involved agents the Germans as quickly as possible. There is here a "socialist" group of "patriotic" naturalized citizens that is serving as a cover for the terrorist activates. Among the things this group does is blow up a train (presumably hauling military equipment) in upstate New York, but they should have coordinated better because an expert terrorist the group wanted to use was aboard, and they killed him.

The terrorists name was Steve Cole and he had been deported from the United States after a prison sentence some years earlier, so he had to sneak back into the country and was disguised as a train hopping bum at the time of his death. Remarkably, given that somehow next to nobody is suppose to know what this known terrorist, convicted criminal, and deportee is suppose to look like (doesn't anybody keep photographic records?), the Secret Service manage to identify Steve, then surprise decide to send Brass Bancroft under cover as Mr. Cole to infiltrate the terrorists. Now this is a bad idea because they always send Bancroft under cover, and after the first film where he appeared on front pages throughout California and presumably across the nation in relation to a "undercover" job he did for the Secret Service his face should be well known. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised when one character does recognize him as a secret service man! Wow, how come that never happened before?

Anyway Bancroft as Cole is made aware of what the groups then primary objective is and what they want him to do. It seems some clever scientist types working for the US government have come up with what they call an Inertia Projector, and are going to be testing it on a mock invasion fleet from aboard a zeppelin. What the Inertia Projector is suppose to do is stop inertia, stop mechanical movement of plans, ships and things, so if an army can't move there tanks etc. its going to be very difficult to invade a country; kind of like how in theory the Star Wars missile defense system would prevent nuclear missiles from hitting their targets thus prevent nuclear Armageddon. Of course how the Inertia Projector works is never explained, other then that when the ray is pointed at say a plan or a car it causes the target vehicle to short out and crash or at least stop. Anyway the "socialist patriot group of naturalized citizens" wants to steal this weapon, and need explosive expert Coles help to blow up the zeppelin while another associate of the group absconds with the IP.

As you can tell from the three paragraphs above the plot here is surprisingly complicated and contrived, and I simplified it. The inertia Project is a comic book weapon, yet the Soviets desires in obtaining it are surprisingly real politic, while still marginal allies of the Germans as ideological foes Stalin must have never fully trusted them (he never fully trusted a lot of his own people) and by early 1940 the Russians had gotten most of the territorial concessions the Germans were likely to allow, so it would be helpful to be able to stop there advance with something other then generals population and winter. Plus the Russians worked better covertly then overtly in exporting there ideology so being able to prevent military response from countries they sought to undermined from within would be right up there ally. Though on the other hand if the United States had this weapon, as a neutral power it wouldn't pose much threat to them, and even if it was used on there machines the Russians had more then enough people to keep up a small arms fire defense of the mother country and its acquired territories. Yes I'm over analyzing, especially given lazy, slapdash impression the film leaves of how it was put together. While interesting as an oddity, Murder in the Air is also very much the last effort of a plaid out franchise, and that's something you can really feel throughout the film. *1/2