Ghost Patrol

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USA • 1936 • 60m •

• Directed by: Sam Newfield. • Starring: Tim McCoy, Claudia Dell, Walter Miller, Wheeler Oakman, James P. Burtis, Lloyd Ingraham, Dick Curtis, May Beatty, C.V. Bussey, Jack Casey, Jack Cheatham, Art Dillard, John Webb Dillion..

A professor invents a radium tube that makes internal combustion engines stop running. He and his invention are captured by a gang of robbers. A federal agent is sent to rescue him.

Review:

A resourceful Justice Department agent, Tim Caverly (Tim McCoy of "Bulldog Courage"), is winging his way over California's Shiloh Mountain range when the engine of his bi-plane begins to cut out. He notifies his superior, Justice Chief Anderson (Bruce Mitchell of "Mystery Plane") back in Los Angeles about his problem as the aircraft descends. Anderson has already warned Caverly that the job may be too dangerous, but Caverly isn't the kind of hombre to back down from any assignment. Meanwhile, a group of horsemen is following the progress of Caverly's aircraft as it approaches the same place, five miles from Rocky Point, where the previous plane went down. Prolific director Sam Newfield of "The Flying Serpent") must have gotten a good deal on the aerial footage because the plane that Caverly is piloting spirals down for what seems forever while the second-string villain, Kincaid (Wheeler Oakman of "The Ape Man"), challenges his henchmen to make wagers about where the aircraft will crash. Caverly bails out to safety, while Kincaid and Charlie (Dick Curtis of "Renegade Girl") ransack the wreckage and find a half-million dollars worth of bonds. Kincaid sends Charlie off to the remote town of Shiloh to hand the bonds over to Louie. Interestingly, Kincaid and his gunmen neglect to take care of Caverly. This is all the more curious because Kincaid had mentioned the fates of the previous fliers. Anyway, Caverly reaches his crashed aircraft after Kincaid and company have ridden away. We see Caverly as he is still wearing his pilot's outfit and wrestling to bring his billowing parachute under control. Mind you, Caverly is unarmed so Kincaid and company could have killed him without much effort and saved themselves a lot of trouble.

The scene shifts to a woman, Natalie Brent (Claudia Dell of "Sweet Kitty Bellairs"), who reads about her renowned scientist father, Professor Brent, who has created a gadget that can shut down the electric system of a plane and bring it down. When she isn't perusing this newspaper clipping, she is looking at a Los Angeles area newspaper about another mysterious airplane crash. Whoever assembled the articles for this bogus newspaper that Natalie reads must have had a sense of humor because an article about hundreds of thousands of Chinese living in trees after a devastating flood can be seen next to the article about the aircraft crash. Immediately, Natalie makes a phone call to get tickets to go to Shiloh. She is the plucky little heroine who goes off in search of her father. Eventually, Natalie's path will cross that of Caverly. Meantime, the villains encounter trouble when plainclothes Los Angeles gunman Tim Toomey (Blackie Whiteford) interrupts Charlie as Charlie is talking to Kincaid on a shortwave radio in the Shiloh Hotel and tells Kincaid that he is being watched. The conversation starts off amiably enough with the unsuspecting Kincaid saying, "What's on your mind besides your hair?" Kincaid and company are shocked when they hear gunshots. Charlie takes a slug in the shoulder before he signs off.

The next time that we see our hero, he is decked out like a frontiersman. Ostensibly, "Ghost Patrol" is a B-movie western. Nevertheless, like many B-movie westerns, the action here takes place in contemporary society because we see airplanes, shortwave radios, telephones, and other bits and pieces of twentieth century technology that wouldn't have been around on the early frontier. Our hero sports the biggest Stetson in the film. Caverly encounters Natalie Brent on the way to Shiloh. She is sitting on a rock, checking her make-up when Tim, who is driving a two-horse wagon with his partner, Henry Brownlee (James P. Burtis of "The Hurricane Express"), is concealed underneath a tarp in the back. Caverly gives Natalie a lift to town.

Tim masquerades as the villainous Tim Toomey so he can infiltrate Kincaid's gang. In Shiloh, Kincaid's men welcome them with drawn six-guns, but Tim and Henry turn the tables on them. While Tim and he are holding them at gunpoint, Henry observes that his finger twitches when his nose itches. Eventually, Tim enters Kincaid's hideout and informs Kincaid's boss, Ted Dawson (Walter Miller of "Street Scene"), about another aircraft transporting currency flying from New York City. Our hero discovers that Dawson and company have kidnapped Professor Brent and hold him hostage in a radium mine. Dawson has forced the scientist to use his electrical ray to shut down aircraft engines so they will crash. This idea was put to later use in the British spy thriller "Clouds Over Europe" several years later.

Meantime, Kincaid is surprised when Charlie returns to the gang. Everybody thought Charlie was dead. Now, Dawson grows suspicious about Toomey, because Charlie says the G-men arrested Toomey in Los Angeles. Our intrepid hero prevents Dawson from looting the next plane, but Professor Brent is wounded when he refuses to bow to Dawson's demands. Everything concludes on a happy ending with our hero rounding up the villains and getting hitched to Natalie. Altogether, "Ghost Patrol," which contains no ghosts, is a marginal effort with some sci-fi gadgetry. Newfield doesn't generate much in the way of suspense or mystery. The best thing about "Ghost Patrol" is that it runs about an hour in length. Nevertheless, Professor Brent's contraption that brings down aircraft foreshadowed it later use in "Clouds Over Europe" and the same device was modified to bring down space capsules in the James Bond thriller "You Only Live Twice.".

Review by zardoz-13 from the Internet Movie Database.

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