Nick Carter, Master Detective

Based on the popular Nick Carter pulp stories, this detective B movie should have been a real winner with Walter Pidgeon as Carter and a host of excellent character actors. But instead it's only average. The movie takes place a couple of years before America entered WWII and involves a plot to steal blueprints for a new aircraft design by foreign spies from an unnamed country (duh, maybe Germany?). There is an attempt to bring humor to the film with the role of Mr. Bartholomew, the master beekeeper played by Donald Meek. While the character is occasionally amusing, he is just as often irritating. What was nice was the Rita Johnson role of the stewardess/nurse who actually helps Carter in his investigation. While this is good enough that it makes one want to see the other two entries in the Nick Carter series, it is not in the top tier of B detective movie series entries.

This B movie was directed by Jacques Tourneur, who went on to direct one of my favorite films, Cat People. It also has handsome Walter Pidgeon in an early starring role. This is a 1939 film about sabotage at an aircraft plant that Carter is called in to investigate. There are many airplane sequences, lots of fog, and everyone looks suspicious. Donald Meek is on hand as loony Bartholemew, the bee man, providing the comedy.

It's fun to see people who, 15-20 years later, would be TV names: Frank Faylen of "Dobie Gillis," Milburn Stone of "Gunsmoke," Sterling Holloway, he of the unusual voice, of just about every TV show, who was also the voice of Winnie the Pooh. Henry Hull, who plays the old man in this and sported white hair, was 49 when this film was made. I took the trouble to look it up because in the 60s he was at least 150 years old. No, just in his 70s, one of those people who played old man all his life, I guess.

This is a fun movie, with its old-fashioned and poorly done process shots, a very handsome Pidgeon, and some character actors from my youth.

Nick Carter, Master Detective was the first of the two movies about a very popular fiction detective Nick Carter, which were directed by Jacques Tourneur for MGM, the other one being 1940 Phantom Raiders.

Nick Carter was created in 1886 and since the times of silent cinema had several times been chosen as a protagonist of various films made in France and United States prior to this 1939 Jacques Tourneur version. This time Nick Carter is played by Walter Pigeon in his first starring role. He is chosen to conduct an investigation in the case of industrial espionage on one of the American factories that manufactures warplanes. The film quite memorable especially because of the very remarkable plane chase sequence at the end and because of the comic relief given by Bartholomew, the Bee-man, wonderfully played by Donald Meek, a Nick Carter's partner in investigation who always appears when less expected to give help or to free a number of bees.

Overall Nick Carter, Master Detective is a quite pleasant 1930s B detective film, with its memorable moments, worth to take a look at. 6/10

I totally disagree with the IMDb reviewer who panned this film. Walter Pigeon is just right as the master detective, Nick Carter. He made two more superior Nick Carter B films after this one, but then was on his way to becoming a big Hollywood star. The producers decided to can the series rather than find a suitable replacement. And the Bee man is one of the great movie characters. Donald Meek was a wonderful character actor who could play many roles and this is one of his best. He is a good comic foil for the great detective. The masterful Jacques Tourneur directs with a knowing eye. He knows exactly how to give the audience chills, excitement and mystery in an hour time slot. It was a stroke of genius for the writers to put the bee man in the Nick Carter movies. He is one of the reasons I like to watch the Nick Carter movies more than once.

Tourneur's first feature was basically a B-movie, albeit made for slick-but-superficial MGM; at a mere 60 minutes, it is eminently watchable and, given the film's modest reputation, it proves surprisingly enjoyable. Watched after the same director's CIRCLE OF DANGER (1951) and the somewhat similar ROUGH SHOOT (1953), this provides yet another connection to Fritz Lang's MAN HUNT (1941) in leading man Walter Pidgeon.

The central figure was a popular crime-fighter in print, debuting in 1886 and reportedly involved in over a 1,000 cases before transferring to a 12-year stint on the radio between 1943-55. However, only 3 films were ever made and, bafflingly, they all turned out to be based on original scripts (since such characters' exploits were, in any case, being updated to the prevalent wartime aura – for instance, the contemporaneous Sherlock Holmes series); incidentally, I just found out that the second one, PHANTOM RAIDERS (1940), was also directed by Tourneur! Anyway, the narrative here involves secret aviation plans being leaked to the enemy that climaxes in a far-fetched chase sequence involving a plane and a speeding boat.

Apart from leading lady Rita Johnson, the rather-too-jovial star is ably supported here by the likes of Henry Hull (already playing eccentric old types!), Stanley Ridges (type-cast as a villain), Martin Kosleck (ditto) and Donald Meek. The latter's hilarious characterization, of an improbably zany private eye, seems to have dropped in from another movie altogether: keeping bees as a hobby but constantly getting into the hero's hair, he even ends up deposited in the trash-can!