Desperate Cargo

Released july 1941... europe was already knee deep in the war, but the united states didn't get pulled in until december. The story here is that two chorus girls are stuck in puerta nueve, according to the map they show at the start. (although the hotel staff all say puerto nuevo. And at about thirty four minutes, the update on the board shows "puerte nueve"!). Also in the hotel are a gang of crooks, planning a robbery on the airplane. The girls lack work and money to leave, and want to return to new york. So they chat up tony, who works for the airline. Can they all work together to stop the holdup before they are airborn? Stars ralph byrd, carol hughes, julie duncan. It's a producers releasing corp film, so we know they weren't spending much cash on this one. It's okay. Sound and picture are actually pretty good on the version shown on tubi streaminng. Although with all the shots they fired, the plane probably wouldn't have been able to fly anyway! Directed by bill beaudine, who made so many low budget and bowery boys films. Story by eustace adams, in a magazine article. Byrd died young at 43 from a heart attack.

Back in the 1930s-40s, there sprung up an industry in Hollywood to produce B-movies. What is a B? Well, it's a short (50-70 minutes) film with low production values, lesser stars and it was intended as a second picture for a double-feature. Of course the major studios made Bs, but the need was such that some secondary studios (such as Republic and Columbia) made mostly Bs but also some A-level (feature) pictures. And, a few, such as Monogram and PRC were devoted exclusively towards making Bs and were often called 'Poverty Row Studios'...since they were making such cheap films.

Of all the Poverty Row film studios, PRC was generally among the cheapest and worst of them. While I have seen a few very good PRC films, they were definitely the exception to the rule. Most had very hastily written scripts, no-name actors and were very bad movies. As a result, my expectations for "Desperate Cargo" were very low.

The story begins on some Caribbean island. A group of criminals is planning on boarding a clipper plane in order to rob its safe (a safe on an airplane??). Unfortunately, there are other passengers whose lives might be in jeopardy. Is there any hope for the passengers? And, if the criminals are stopped...who and how will they stop them?

For a PRC film, this is pretty good stuff. The writing is only fair but the action is good and overall, it's not nearly as creaky and slow as most PRC outings.

This is the film version of amnesia, or Chinese food, five minutes after you watch it you've completely forgotten what you've seen. Thats not a bad thing because the movie is entertaining while you watch it but if you're looking for something that stays with you after you've seen it I'd try something else.

The story concerns several people on a small island who are looking to get back to America. There's two show girl sisters, a reporter and a member of an airplane clipper crew. All are waiting for the plane that will take them to a new job. Into the mix add a band of crooks who are looking to hijack the plane and steal the valuables on board. Half the movie takes place on the island while the other half is on the besieged plane.

There is nothing bad about the movie, except that it is forgettable.

Then again seeing Ralph Byrd and realizing that this was one of his few starring roles outside of the Dick Tracy serials and TV show is sad. Byrd was an excellent actor with a screen presence that made you instantly like him. The trouble is that he became so identified with the Tracy role he was never really ever given the chance to star in anything other than low budget features after that. Seeing him here as a less than perfect member of the flight crew reminds one of how stupid Hollywood can be when choosing its stars.

If you've got an hour or so to kill and you run across this, give it a shot. It won't tax you in the least and will leave you enough room for something meatier later on.

After a slow-moving and sometimes aimless first half, the last part of this B-feature is not bad, with some good action and suspense. The likable Ralph Byrd stars in one of his better non-Dick Tracy roles, and Jack Mulhall helps out a little as a reporter. The last part also features an interesting setting on a seaplane, where a series of tense confrontations takes place.

Byrd plays one of several persons waiting in a Caribbean port for the 'Caribbean Cruiser' to arrive. By the time it does, a lot of tensions and possibilities have been developed. A gang of criminals is plotting to take over the ship and rob it, while Byrd's character, the cruiser's new purser, has gone through a romantic disappointment with one of the prospective passengers and has gotten into trouble in a bar.

Unfortunately, the movie takes a long time to set up all this, and it is sometimes muddled as it does. With a more carefully written script, the first 30-35 minutes or so could easily have accomplished at least as much in half the time. But the last 20-25 minutes are much better, as the various intrigues among the characters come to a head on board the cruiser. Given the obviously low budget, the setting itself works pretty well, furnishing a simple but interesting variety of sets for the climactic series of events.

More recent film-makers have more or less established a relatively reliable formula for this kind of movie, by showing brief scenes that establish the personalities and agendas of each of the characters, and then getting into the action as soon as it is reasonably possible. Such an approach would have worked better here. It's not worth a lot of effort to seek out, but it's also probably worth a look if you like movies of its era and genre. If you do watch "Desperate Cargo", stick with it during the first half, because the last part does get better.

I don't know what one calls the genre of movies about passengers trapped on an airplane with criminals and summoning the courage to break free, but there are lots of movies with this basic plot, and what we have here may be one of the earliest entries into the genre. In order for the idea to work, the plane has to be big enough for people to move about from the cabin to the flight deck, and by placing the action on a clipper plane (at the time a state of the art luxury sea-plane), PRC, a notoriously low-budget "B" company, had plenty of opportunities to set a number of interesting confrontations in motion.

After a solid set-up in the fictional Caribbean island town of Puerte Nueve, the plane finally takes off and it's all action from that moment on. Jack Mulhall is dashingly handsome when he strips down to his undershirt, and his fight scenes are convincingly brutal. Ralph Byrd, former silent lead, was in his 50s when he made this film, and thus plays a second lead, but he is great as a tough newspaper reporter with a touch of John Barrymore bravura and a hint of Adolph Menjou suaveness. The two lead women, Carol Hughs and Julie Duncan, are fun as a squabbling Broadway sister act on the skids. Extra bonuses include some great supporting cast members, including our old friend I. Stanford Jolley, the rat-faced villain of a zillion TV and theatrical westerns; burly Australian stunt/actor Frank Hagney as a two-fisted heavyweight bar bouncer; Thomas Edwards doing a comic Latino turn; silent screen star Kenneth Harlan as the airship's captain; and tiny bespectacled Harry Depp as a tiny bespectacled airplane passenger.

Also, just for the sake of weirdness, check out Richard Clarke, who plays Carter's henchman Ryan. He is no rough-and-tumble match for Mulhall or Hagney, but he does play a tough, and so it is very unexpected to notice that he has the strangest speech affliction -- every time he says more than a sentence or two, his voice begins to shake and tremble like he is frightened or has some sort of nerve-malady. It's just very odd.

All in all, this was a great little movie of its type. Sure, it could have been better -- a shorter set-up and more tension in the final scenes, a staccato musical score to heighten the drama, a cuter and more compliant lead actress -- but it is certainly worth a viewing.