Radar Secret Service

Please, before being harsh with this Lippert production, don't forget that the director is no one else than Sam Newfield, the pope of the grade Z movie, a chain film maker, as many others of this era, forties and fifties, before the raging wave of TV industry, the tsunami that occured on the big screen business. For me, this is a pretty good, agreeable little thriller, fun and enjoyable to watch. And for fifty-seven minutes, you can't argue to have lost much time. Espionage Z flick, it is fast paced, pulled by a rather good directing, at the level of an Edward L Cahn's movie, the equivalent of a Sam Newfield.

Radar Secret Service is a service to nobody unless watched with MST. Wow what a film, slightly more action than Starfighters but not by much. More script than action here, men in gray suits and hats stand around and talk about what they are A: Going to do, and B: What they plan to do. In between there's a couple of gals who look exactly alike yet are different characters who are somehow involved and a boss who talks to the main radar operations guy on how wonderful radar is. Nothing really is accomplished even though the movie claims something did happen. Mike and the bots make this film enjoyable. Oh yes, Sid Melton is thrown in for comedy relief, but this is not apparent. Enjoy!!

You see, Bulldog Drummond and Dick Tracy (actually two aging actors who at one time or another played those roles) are working as "Radar Agents" of the government. I wonder if they had badges that said "Radar Agent"?

"Our beams have all the roads covered" the head agent says, so we are reassured that radar can solve any crime. Everybody knows that radar beams aimed at all the streets catches criminals, right? So, ordinary crimes that would have been solved by regular means are solved by radar machines instead, presumably at a great waste of taxpayer dollars. And a black Chevrolet runs around town with a silly metal dome bolted to its roof.

The director of this movie really did a lousy job, and the acting is poor except for Tom Neal who is convincing as a bad guy. Buxom Adele Jergens has the role of a blonde gang moll, but I still haven't figured out why her character is in the script at all. John Howard, as Radar Agent Travis, has exactly the same expression on his face throughout the whole film. I guess he thought "why bother" to smile, frown or emote at all. Absolutely nobody involved seems to care that they are in this film, but all they are asked to do is just read their lines and get in and out of cars.

If you are a fan of any of the actors involved, or even a fan of Lippert Pictures (which made some far better movies than this), you should just skip "Radar Secret Service".

This film must be the most radar friendly film ever made with "The Deadly Mantis" being a close second. Yes, this film seems almost to be an advertisement for the wonders of radar and chances are if you have seen this obscure flick, you watched it on the riff show, Mystery Science Theater 3000. I could not imagine seeing it any other way, just as I cannot see this film having all that many actual fans. Seriously, the film plays out like an advertisement for something and in the case of radar it is not as if one can actually purchase it or needs it. Well, I guess someone fishing could use it, but aside from that, most people just do not really need it. It is like the film had to stress upon us the importance of it because if we are not interested it will no longer be used!

The story has a special department that uses radar to solve crimes. At the beginning two guys are using it to find a gun tossed out of a car or something. That is spectacular! Why it is so easy, I do not understand why they don't use radar for things like that now! Oh yeah, that is not how radar works! Well, at a diner we have some people starting a caper that involves radioactive substances and they actually do manage to get it! What amazes me is that for some reason the radar can find a buried gun, but not a radioactive substance! That should be relatively simple for the all powerful radar to pick up! You would think anyway, but no, they have to do a lot of actual police work until the end when they put radar into a chopper to find the stolen merchandise!

This made for a pretty good episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The mads kept acting like this one was going to be torturous to watch as it would eclipse 'Deep Hurting' and 'Sandstorm' as one of the more painful experiences yet. However, I do believe the rock climbing scene from "The Lost Continent" and the Hercules 'Sandstorm' were much more dragging. No wonder Mike made it through this relatively unscathed. Funny episode, the the best part about this one was the short preceding it.

So the film was like an advertisement...to much so. It actually detracted from the film. Any time the criminals would get serious someone would pop up talking about how wonderful radar was and all that. It simply makes any suspense completely and utterly disappear. Not that there was much suspense to begin with. The film is better than say, "Rocket Attack U.S.A" as it does have a semblance of a plot going on, but on the whole a very badly done film. The makers of this one were just too enamored with radar, I'm afraid.

Not that anything in Radar Secret Service will tell you this is a futuristic drama because everybody drives cars and dresses in fashions of the present day of 1950, but the fact is even the movie-going public was aware that radar did not have the capabilities so described in that time. It still doesn't. But the premise around the film that radar was an all purpose crime fighting and detecting tool was way in the future.

Two futuristic cops, John Howard and Ralph Byrd, ride around in a car equipped with radar detection and they're on a case involving some stolen uranium. The gang has all kinds of layers within it with your typical gangster's moll Adele Jergens supposedly gunman Tom Neal's woman, but really two timing him with mastermind Tris Coffin. In fact this whole film is proof positive of the premise there is definitely no honor among thieves.

Something tells me that the Radar Secret Service was not used in tracking down two bit stickup men and that the public was supposed to feel good about radar keeping us safe. This film really plays to Cold War paranoia.

On the plus side Adele Jergens and Myrna Dell playing a waitress are always good to look at and perennial Lippert Pictures regular Sid Melton is once again in this for comic relief. Sid was really needed here.