Radar Secret Service

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!!

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.

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".

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.

This movie seems to think radar is some super weapon that can do absolutely anything. I mean, it begins with quick scene on how radar was important in World War II. While this might seem fair enough, the movie takes radar's importance to ludicrous levels. When a truck is hijacked, the government uses radar to track it down. Radar mounted on a vehicle can apparently deliver TV quality images that follow the truck like a camera (I wonder why?). You can't say a bad thing about radar in this film. Don't worry, though. The guys from MST3K came to the rescue, and made it quite enjoyable (like they always do with bad movies) with their running commentary.