The Dawn Express

It is during World War II and nazi spies will stop at nothing to get a secret formula of increasing the power of gasoline. Two scientists Norton and Fielding have the information. Will Norton accept the offer of 100,000 dollars or will Fielding accept the offer of the lives of his mother and sister? What about the protection of the american intelligence team assigned to protect them? One of the agents should have watched an episode of "Get Smart" because when he gets killed he could have said "fell for the old knife hidden in the blind man's cane trick." A rather interesting film and worth the watch.

Cheaply done propaganda film from PRC directed by Albert Herman. Done in 1942, it looks like it was done in 1932.

The Nazis are afoot in the U. S. after a formula that can take regular gasoline and give it more oomph. One company is tackling one part of the formula, with another company doing the rest.

The Nazis obtain half and zero in on two chemists, Fielding and Norton (Michael Whelan) one of whom will have the other half. They kidnap Tom Fielding (William Bakewell) and use harm to his sister (Anna Nagel) and his mother as a threat.

To protect his friend Norton who knows the formula and is engaged to his sister, Tom claims to know how to combine the two halves.

Agonizing with the film using the exact same closeups and a restaurant door constantly.

There was a director - some kind of boy wonder - who fired Tyrone Power from a film and replaced him with Whelan. Same kind of mind that put this film together.

It's a PRC film so start with low expectations, but The Dawn Express will not even meet those. This is a horribly dated early World War II era flag waver when we were told to be on the alert for Nazi spies everywhere.

Michael Whalen and William Bakewell are a pair of scientists working in a chemical laboratory on a formula to get a little more mileage out of the gasoline in your tank's tank. Something no doubt that General Patton will find invaluable, not to mention what it will do for the post war civilian drivers. The Nazis want it too and they're even sending one of their top scientists, flying him secretly to America to test it for himself.

It's Bakewell they get to first putting an alluring Constance Worth in his path. Bakewell does fancy himself a player. Then it's up to Whalen to keep the formula out of Nazi hands and rescue Bakewell if he can do both. In fact he's engaged to Bakewell's sister Anne Nagel.

There are about a dozen holes in this story and it looks like it was shot with an old Bell&Howell home movie camera. I just hope our post war drivers got the benefit of this research.

This film is SO bad I couldn't stop watching. If you watch it with this in mind you could be smiling and chuckling for an hour.

Stars Michael Whalen and Anne Nagel. Picture quality is pretty terrible, but the acting is so lame, it's unlikely this one will be restored anytime soon. The usual wartime flick, with the Nazi's of germany trying to steal the formula from workers who get knocked off one by one. The story line is actually pretty good, if formulaic. Acting and production values are pretty cardboard and stilted, but easy to follow. Written by Arthur St. Claire, who wrote a ton of stuff in the 1940s. Directed by Albert Herman... looks like he directed many, many shorties from the early days of silents, and jumped right in with full length features when the studios began with talkies. An M&A Production, which seems to stand for Merrick and Alexander, the producers.