Yukon Flight

"Yukon Flight" is a very forgettable and often silly little B-movie from Monogram Studios. It's even sillier than their normal fare—very silly indeed. It's a Renfrew of the Royal Mounted film (the last of three) starring James Newell—a handsome actor who seemed incapable of going very long without breaking into song! As for the plot, it's an escapist mystery film—common for this studio.

The film, not surprisingly, is set in the Canadian wilderness. Along with Renfrew, he has a very dim assistant and together (but mostly due to Renfrew), they manage to bring a gang to justice that is stealing gold shipments and claiming the planes were lost. What they really were doing was deliberately crashing their planes (along with the pilots) and substituting sand in the bags intended for gold. This IS odd, as gold would NOT be burned up in the crash, it would just melt and it would become obvious the switch was made.

Overall, this is a silly and tedious film. Tedious because the characters are all very one-dimensional and the plot isn't particularly engaging—especially since Renfrew keeps insisting on serenading everyone—even in the most ridiculous situations. Odd and forgettable.

Eddie Fetherston falls asleep at the wheel and crashes his plane. When Sergeant Renfrew of the RCMP and his constable Dave O'Brien investigate, O'brien thinks it's an accident, but Renfrew, in the person of James Newill knows better. When offers of real money come in for the worthless mine owned by Louise Stanley comes in, he starts to zero on on whodunnit, being distracted only enough to sing songs about Miss Stanley's ugliness and other songs.

Laurie York Erskine's series about the noble Mountie became a popular radio show. It was inevitable there would be a movie or six about him, and this extremely cheap and stage-bound version is one such typical entry. It's suitable for a kiddie's matinee, but little more.

This is an exciting blend of cowboy and pilot, of horse and airplane.

Tex O'Brien is in it and that would be enough for me, but in fact there is an exceptional cast, with some colorfully named characters who add some weight and who flesh out the story.

My copy of "Yukon Flight" is pretty bad, with some godawful dark scenes that make it hard to follow. As a result of the poor quality picture, I have had to extrapolate a bit, and I still loved this movie.

It is part of the Great American Western series from Echo Bridge Entertainment, Volume 35 of "over 30 Volumes," as it says on the case and "over 40" as it says on the other case in the box.

James Newill is the nominal star and is the title character, Sergeant Renfrew, who also sings. He is more Nelson Eddy than Gene Autry in style, so anyone who doesn't like operetta might feel like fast-forwarding. That's not a problem for me, though.

Roy Barcroft is one of the minor bad guys, in a different kind of role for him.

Jack Clifford plays a character named "Whispering Smith," but he has no resemblance to any other "Whispering Smith," such as that of Alan Ladd, Richard Carlson, or Audie Murphy. Apparently his character shows up in two other Renfrew films.

This is fun. I only hope you find a better copy than mine, which is still fun.

Added 17 January 2015: There is a copy at YouTube that seems to be much better.