The Dawn Express

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.

When "The Dawn Express" began, I assumed that It would be a pretty bad film. After all, it was made by PRC and it had a cast filled with complete unknowns. And, it turned out I was pretty much right about this one. The film is a wartime propaganda movie—meant to capitalize on the war as well as engender support at home for the war effort. Because of this, it is unabashedly patriotic and obvious. Subtle it isn't. Quickly written and often illogical it is.

The film begins with a couple workers from a chemical plant being kidnapped by Nazi spies. Then, after pumping them for information about a top secret formula, the two are murdered and their bodies dumped. Not surprisingly, US agents took notice of this—and it's odd the Nazis didn't think of this. The next guy they pump for information is different. Instead of kidnapping him, they know he's a bit of a playboy—so they send a pretty Nazi agent his way. Soon, her superiors demand he give them the formula but he refuses. They threaten to kill his family and he asks for time. Now you'd think they'd kill him or torture him….but they let him go! And, oddly, this dodo doesn't tell anyone!! What's going to happen next and how will Professor Schmidt figure into all this nonsense, find out for yourself.

Despite having many more plot holes than I mentioned above, the film has a certain silly likability. I often find these super-low budget films great fun if you don't take them seriously and they are exciting…if also quite dumb. Exciting and dumb…yep, that pretty much sums "The Dawn Express"!

Michael Whalen and William Bakewell are research chemists at the same factory. Whalen is engaged to Bakewell's sister, Anne Neagle, who is a secretary at the plant. The men are working on a formula to make gasoline more powerful, which the plant's manager explains to a government man twice. Bakewell picks up Constance Worth in a bar. She says she's a Polish refugee. Actually, she's part of a German spy ring run by Hans von Twardowsk trying to get the formula. When a man trailing Bakewell is killed, Whalen is told to do what he thinks best. Meanwhile, a passenger plane spends the movie showing up in flight occasionally.

If they're relying on Whalen's judgment, the first thing I wonder about is relying on the judgment of a man who agreed to be in this shoddy and dull movie.I'm sure Twardowski, whose character says several times that he never makes mistakes, wondered the same thing. He had entered the theater in Germany in 1919, and had success on stage on screen through the 1920s. When the Nazis took power, he fled; they didn't like homosexuals. Throughout the War years, he made a decent living playing Nazis on the screen, but that evaporated after the war, and he went back to the stage. He died in 1958, aged 60.

While there is an airplane at the end of the film this film really has nothing to do with the cover artwork. This film deals with synthetic fuel (formula 311) developed by two scientists apart from each other as security measures. A love interest between the two stars adds to the story and intrigue. This is a slower paced film but I like the plot and the conclusion is surprising. The good news is it is available for free on the internet archive and their copy is watchable. The score by Lee Zahler is passable. Nothing stands out but it is passable. The number of people who were watching Norton was hilarious. The German Captain Gemmler in the picture somewhat reminds me Col. Klink in the television show "Hogan Heroes." I give this film a #100 ranking.

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.