Bank Alarm

Conrad Nagel is an investigator for the Justice Department. With the assistance of Eleanor Hunt, he is trying to trail down some bank robbers operating out of Hollywood. Little do the pair suspect that one of the gang is Frank Milan, who is posing as a writer and romancing Nagel's sister, Wilmer Francis.

It's the fourth and last pairing of Nagel and Hunt for Grand National, and the direction by Louis Gasnier is all right, if a bit talky. Less amusing to me is comic relief Vince Barnett. Barnett had a reputation as a real-life practical joker, but his appearances in movies tend to be mechanical and not very funny. In this one, he's a newspaper photographer whose tripod is always knocked under; he gets tangled up in the story from his second job, moonlighting as a private detective, for no obvious reason; apparently his unadorned pratfalls were considered amusing. I don't find them so.

In the 1920s, Conrad Nagel was one of those male leading men who could co-star with a woman and not overshadow her. With the dawn of sound, his cultured, recordable voice made him much in demand for a few years. However, while always competent, his appeal was rather wan; one reviewer noted "he looked like Leslie Howard without the raw Latin sexuality." Fortunately, he was well respected, was President of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Science, did well in radio and on stage.

It's a 30's programmer, the last of a four entry series featuring Nagel and Hunt (IMDB) in the roles of detective and girl-friend assistant. The cast is lively even though there's not much suspense, while most action is goofy Barnette trying to tame his spindly camera stand. The good guys are on the trail of bank robbers who've made a series of big money heists. My favorite scene is the robbers in jail where they proceed to steal a big bundle, an imaginative idea that plays well. Adding to the plot is Nagel's sister Kay (Francis) who's unknowingly hooked up with the baddies and in danger of coming between brother and baddies. Too bad that angle is not played up more for suspense value. Then too, Barnette's role as comic relief is bigger than usual and unfortunately rivals the dramatic development. Anyway, the flick's nothing special, just an easy way to pass an hour and glimpse 30's fashions and flivvers, sort of like an installment of 30's TV if there were such a thing.

On the silent screen and the early sound era Conrad Nagel was a major star working with such people as Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer. But by 1937 he was in the minor leagues working at Grand National Studios and starring in a series where he plays G-man named Alan O'Connor.

In this film Bank Alarm Nagel is working on a series of bank robberies and since the New Deal and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation bank robbery is now a federal crime. It's what J. Edgar Hoover's agency did its best work.

But there's another wrinkle here as someone is attempting to change serial numbers to make the loot untraceable. By dumb luck he changes a bill and makes a serial number the same as one in Nagel's hands. The second wrinkle is that Nagel's sister is actually being romanced by one of the gang.

Vince Barnett plays a photographer and Nagel's sidekick. I might have shot the guy on general stupidity grounds. What was kind of touching in Scarface did not work at all in Bank Alarm for Barnett.

Conrad Nagel must have wished for the arms of Greta Garbo once more.

I am a life-long lover of 'B' movies, especially those from the 30's but this one is so inept I'm amazed it wasn't shelved into oblivion.

Being a low-budget job is no excuse for the dreadful writing, non-existent direction, the camera shots that simply don't match, the poor editing, the always-smiling or laughing performances... and the pathetically acted 'funny-man' who provides the foil for the Thin Man-like leads in place of the latter's dog...

Believe me, the dog did better.

Bank Alarm... by the way, despite being mentioned in the opening scene, has absolutely nothing to do with alarms, and actually very little to do with banks...!

There is only ONE scene in the film worth mentioning, set in a jail... which I won't spoil for you... and that's it...!

There are hundreds of films of this genre and period, and 10 minutes from any one of them will provide more satisfaction than this entire film. Trying to defend this rubbish by saying it's 'low-budget' and a 'B-movie' is grossly insulting to all the good (even excellent) films in this category.

Even if you just like slapstick, and are under 9-years-old you can do better than this.

Such a disappointment.

_____________________________

Clean-cut Conrad Nagel has a quick smile and ready wit as a federal agent on the trail of a pair of bank robbers whose brief stay in a small-town jail provides them with the perfect alibi when the local bank is robbed. A routine low-budget programmer that will fade quickly from the memory. The obligatory comic relief character - a clumsy photographer named Bulb - is particularly irritating.