The Flaming Signal

One of my rules about movies is beware any film that has a dog top billed. Doubly so if the film is from the early sound period. I won't go into the rule about top billed dogs with flight goggles in early sound films.

Flash is the top billed canine in this dated piece of fluff from the early 1930's and he is the best buddy to a flier trying to go nonstop from California to Hawaii. After a storm the plane bursts into flame and Flash is given the parachute. Both dog an pilot end up on an island lorded over by evil Noah Beery. Beery is is the typical evil white man exploiting the native and being a general slime. Misha Auer is the medicine man who nominally keeps the seething natives in check. There's a missionary on the island with his daughter with whom the pilot falls in love... and you can pretty much guess the rest.

Very dated mix of sound and silent stock footage with added effects, this is a mess of a movie. Its not horrible, but very clichéd ( and slightly racist) to the point where I was laughing at the film instead of with it. After about 20 minutes of this nonsense I started to fast forward a little bit because while I was interested in seeing what happened it was simply too slow for my mood.

Not bad but really not worth the effort.

Jim Robbins is planning to make an around the world flight in a new speed plane, when he encounters a storm and is blown off course to an island not far from Hawaii. Jim meets Sally, who lives on the island with her father, Rev. James, the island's missionary. The reverend tells Jim of how the natives are exploited by the trading post operator, Otto Von Krantz. Von Krantz gets a local drunk, which causes him to miss his wedding to the tribal chief's daughter. When the girl is molested by Von Krantz, the entire tribe rush to the post, where a drunken Von Krantz shoots the chief. The tribe conducts a ceremony where they hope to restore the life of their chief, and when that happens no white man will be safe on the island. The film is really a bland excuse for a B film, primarily because of leading man (used very loosely) Horsely in one of his few films, where he is so green that you can tell it's not the character, but the actor. Beery plays his usual villainous role here to his best, and the rest of the cast is decent, but the script basically could have had the option of several different subplots, but they none of the possibilities for fleshing them out are attempted, so the film really drags on for its running time. Flash, the wonder dog, had little impact on the film as well. Ranking, 3.

John David Horsley decides not to take Flash the Wonder Dog on his dangerous flight to Hawaii. Flash, however, is top dog in the cast list, and so he goes along anyway, parachuting to safety when Holley crashes on an island where Noah Beery buys pearls cheap from the natives, Henry B. Walthall is the nice old Christian minister, and Marceline Day his daughter.

It's a very cheap B from William Pizor, with the interesting talent in support, including Carmelita Geraghty and Mischa Auer as Manu, the local high priest. It hits all the stereotypes of the South Seas drama, and the performers do their best with their dull lines, but I couldn't work up any interest.

"The Flaming Signal" is an awfully bad film made on a shoestring budget by a tiny studio. In order to save money, they used an awful lot of stock footage and blending it in with the scenes they actually shot was far from seamless.

The film begins with Lt. Jim Robbins flying about setting all sorts of flying records. And, on most of these trips, his doggy Flash (played by Flash) accompanies him. On one particular occasion, he tries to leave his beloved pooch behind, but Flash, like other German Shepard heroes of the era, KNOWS he's needed and sneaks aboard the plane. Soon, the plane crashes near a tropical island that just happens to have a sexy naked WHITE lady--and Flash soon finds her. During this scene, the audience is treated to a lot of skin since this is a Pre-Code movie--and pretty much anything went during this era! Additionally, a Bluto-like character named Von Krantz (Noah Beery) rapes a girl and the islanders go on the warpath. Unfortunately, the pilot, his dog, the missionary and the missionary's daughter (the one who was naked) are all about to be killed because of this idiot. So what do they do? Pretty much nothing! Even when Von Krantz then murders an islander, the other white folks do nothing to stop or kill him. Later, when he kills the priest again (it's not worth getting into that), there is a big fight in which one of the worst old movie clichés occurs--the bad guy drops his gun by the lady's feet and she just stands there watching the fight! Hello, stupid...pick up the gun and shoot the crazed killer and sex pervert!! And since she doesn't have the guts, the ever faithful Flame crushes the guy's throat. But does that please the villagers? Nah...they just love to hold grudges--so it's up to Flame to murder another one. The probably rabid doggy then falls about 100-200 feet while killing the next one but he is fine--just a sprained paw!! He probably would have killed more, but a plane soon lands and the surviving white folks beat a hasty retreat along with their demented dog.

This is a profoundly silly film with bad acting, horrible script-writing (if there even was a script) and sloppy production values. However, it IS funny...unintentionally so, but it does at times make you laugh because the film is so incompetently made--hence instead of a 1, I score this one a 2.

The Flaming Signal (1933)

** (out of 4)

Lt. Robbins (John Horsley) and his dog (Flash) crash land on a mysterious island that has a strange set of characters on it. Robbins begins seeing the beautiful Molly James (Marceline Day) but this doesn't sit well with one of the locals who uses voodoo to put a trance on some people.

THE FLAMING SIGNAL has pretty much been forgotten over the years but at the time of its release it was a showcase for the dog Flash. As you'd expect in a dog feature, Mr. Flash gets quite a bit of action scenes but the highlight happens right towards the start of the picture when he has to jump out of a plane with a parachute. Of course, this was all a stunt with rear projection but I do wish that they should have educated us on how he pulled the plug. With that said, the film itself really isn't any good but there are a couple interesting things throughout the 60 minute running time.

For starters, this has several pre-code elements including a rape sequence. Obviously it's not overly graphic or even shown but the hint is obvious as we see the bare legs of a woman kicking and screaming as she gets carried off. The introduction of Day has her swimming topless and we watch her walk out of the water in just her panties. Again, no actual nudity but this was still 1933. Finally, the most interesting thing is the voodoo that is used to put people into the trance. This film isn't known as a zombie movie but I guess it should be since the same type of trance was used in films from the era like WHITE ZOMBIE and KING OF THE ZOMBIES.

Horsley is pretty boring in the lead role and Flash actually gives the best of the two performances. I thought Day was extremely charming in her role, which was another reason to check this film out. THE FLAMING SIGNAL is far from a good movie but it contains enough interesting things to make it worth sitting through.