Wanted! Jane Turner

Lee Tracy and Gloria Stuart are a couple of Postal Inspectors. They're following the trail of a major postal robbery, which has been remailed to "Jane Turner" at a city's general post office. When some really named Jane Turner (actress Ann Shepherd) picks it up, the situation goes all pear-shaped, with Paul Guilfoyle willing to kill anyone who stands in the way of his pay-off, even Frank Yaconelli, who keeps showing up with a different bunch of dogs.

It's a nice adventure-romance-thriller with a pleasant screwball edge, thanks to some fresh performances by Lee Tracy -- who must have been relieved not to be playing a news reporter -- and Gloria Stuart. Director Edward Killy may have been more accustomed to to being an assistant director on some distinguished projects, but with a fine cast, he just had to make sure they stood in the right place and then turn them loose. With Barbara Pepper, Dick Elliott, and the ubiquitous Queen of the Dress Extras, Bess Flowers.

... because it involves postal inspectors trying to track down the thieves who robbed a mail truck of ten thousand dollars and killed the driver.

The two inspectors on the case are Tom Mallory (Lee Tracy) and Doris Martin (Gloria Stuart), and they find the letter with the robbery loot in it mailed general delivery to the titular Jane Turner, a fake name for a go between who will distribute the loot to the gang in Los Angeles. Solving the crime itself doesn't take that much time or effort, so some subplots are fed into it. These include a bank employee who has been falsely accused of embezzling bank funds, a man with an Italian accent who goes around delivering dogs, and a marriage racket perpetrated by two women who bilk lonely men.

I like both Stuart and Tracy, but they just have no chemistry together. They seem like they are acting when it comes to any fire that might be between them, and that is the main drawback of the film. It is interesting to see people walk up to the post office window and claim mail and packages with absolutely zero identification. It's not like that would have helped anyways, since California drivers licenses had no picture on them into the 1960s. Keep a look out for Barbara Pepper as a gangster's girl. She played Doris Ziffel on the TV show Green Acres during the 1960s.

This was made in 1936, so it is of course very dated. However, I found it to be funny and it had enough action to keep me interested. I like that fact that it's about a little known federal law enforcement agency that doesn't get enough credit (The U.S. Postal Inspection Service). They were around long before the FBI, IRS agents and Secret Service and carried guns back when the FBI could not. It's worth checking out. I don't know any of the actors in this film. I think the lead male plays it mostly for laughs and the lead female is pretty enough and helps him carry it off. I'm pretty sure the L.A. Post Office depicted in the film is the actual Terminal Annex post office in L.A. right next to Grand Central Station and a short walk from Olvera Street.

Yes, it's a typical Lee Tracy film. It's as fast paced, and as much fun as most of his films of the period are. But, there are a lot of subplots, and unusual scenes, that make it rise above the ordinary. The marriage by mail con has been mentioned, as has the crooked dog catcher. Another is the little old guy who comes to the PO every day, expecting a letter from his son. The whole seeing the public through the eyes of the PO worker in the window bit is a marvelous slice of life of the day. The film also has one of the strangest "interrogation" scenes I've ever seen. Three cops work on a suspect by being annoying, all psychological, no rough stuff at all. Great stuff. I also loved the art deco interior hallway in Tracy and Stuart's hotel. They don't make 'em like that any more. I think this film is a keeper.

In "Wanted! Jane Turner", Lee Tracy plays a rather typical sort of character. He's brash, fast-talking and full of himself. Often this means he is playing a reporter but here he's a postal inspector. He's assisted with a female postal inspector (Gloria Stuart) and they and their fellow inspectors deal with several cases. The most important one is tracking down a crook who committed a deadly robbery of a mail truck (Paul Guilfoyle).

This is a very well made and enjoyable B-movie...the type Tracy made often in the 1930s...but still well worth seeing. The writing is very good for a B and the story is told economically and well.