Motor Patrol

Another Kit Hammer special, "Motor Patrol" from 1950 concerns the motorcycle police of the traffic division at the LAPD.

Ken Foster, an officer in training, is engaged to Jean, who is the sister of a motorcycle cop, Larry Collins.

Larry is investigating a hit-and-run that seems deliberate. When he sees a stolen car that was used in the crime, the driver kills him.

Ken then impersonates an auto thief who is now in police custody and is accepted into the city's stolen car ring. The problem is, one of the people involved is suspicious of him.

I recognized one of the actors from television but that's about it, though the acting was okay. It was another low-budget black and white film about law enforcement.

Not much else to say about it - a couple of big car/motorcycle chases.

Motor Patrol is a Lippert Pictures salute to those unsung heroes of the police force, the motorcycle patrol cops who normally spend their days issuing tickets. One of them, William Henry answers a call from a distressed citizen reporting a dead body lying in the road. It's declared a hit and run fatality.

Whether it was a deliberate homicide is for the Accident Investigation Squad in the person of Reed Hadley to determine. When Hadley starts getting a lead as it turns out Henry is killed pursuing the suspect Hadley was drawing an investigative bead on.

Don Castle steps into the picture, he's still in the Academy and is engaged to Henry's sister. He agrees to go undercover as a known booster of cars and infiltrates the gang. It's quite a set up headed by a garage owner who funnels stolen cars through an established used car dealer.

One thing did bother me throughout the film. A group as organized as this crowd would have stripped the car and ditched it if it was involved in the homicide of a cop. That was a big glaring hole in the plot, bad writing as far as I was concerned.

Lippert Pictures regular Sid Melton is in this one and he's for once not part of the gang, but owner of a bar where these folks apparently congregate. He's strictly comic relief in this film as he does a variation of the old burlesque routine 'pay the two dollars' on the phone with an operator as he keeps throwing in nickels that the phone eats.

Motor Patrol is a sincere if cheaply made film, but with some glaring errors in plot.

Motorcycle cop Don Castle is first on the scene when a couple of people report a corpse on the highway. It turns out to be a used car salesman.

It's a decently executed police procedural -- a mystery genre I am not particularly fond of -- leavened with some personal life for Castle, and some comic relief by Sid Melton that works pretty well. When the production is a typically cheap one from the Lippert organization, director Sam Newfield shows he can do well with a decent script, and performers who include Reed Hadley, Richard Travis, and Onslow Stevens.

This film is about some motorcycle policemen. They discover a body by the side of the road and it's puzzling. It looks like a hit & run victim, but there is no apparent evidence. So it looks like a tough job for the cops. It gets even tougher for the cops when one is killed by a suspect driving a stolen car! Apparently, a hot car ring has something to do with BOTH these killings. So it calls for a little undercover work...very dangerous undercover work.

This is a low-budget film, though despite its low pedigree, the acting is competent and the story worth seeing. While it is not a must-see, it fits the bill when you are looking for a decent 1950s cop drama. It's told in a no-nonsense fashion and has enough twists and turns to keep your attention. All this actually surprised me, as this is the first movie I have seen that violates the 'Sid Melton rule'. In other words, every low-budget film I've seen up until now that had this cheesy actor in it turned out to be terrible. However, despite his being in the film, it's actually quite watchable!

By the way....towards the end of the film, watch the guy on the motorcycle. How in the heck did he keep his hat on during this high speed chase?!