CODE OF THE SECRET SERVICE (1939)

Brass Bancroft of the Secret Service (Ronald Reagan) is sent on the trail of some "queer stuff": counterfeit American money coming over the border from Mexico, made with stolen engraving plates. Brass and his comic relief buddy Gabby (Eddie Foy Jr.) meet up with Crockett, another agent who fears he is being followed by the bad guys. To allay suspicions about Bancroft, he and Crockett stage a fistfight at the Silver Slipper, a saloon which is a front for the counterfeiters. Unfortunately during the fight, the lights go out and Crockett is shot to death. Bancroft, realizing he's a suspect, takes off on a train for Santa Margarita, but two members of the crime ring are also on the train and they tip off the cops about Bancroft's presence. He jumps off the train and is picked up on the road by a kindly mission priest—who is actually Parker, the head of the ring. Bancroft escapes again but is shot; the bad guys think he's dead, but the bullet hits his Spanish/English dictionary (!) and he just plays dead. Eventually Gabby shows up, and, in a move out of THE 39 STEPS, Brass forces Elaine, an innocent bystander, to help him wrap the case up. The second of four Bancroft B-movies that Reagan made (all released between March 1939 and June 1940), this has a bad reputation largely because Reagan himself is on record has calling it the worst film he made. But in my eyes, Warners' B-movie unit rarely made a truly bad film, and while this one may not rank with the very best, it's good enough not to be a waste of time. Like the first in the series, it's short and fast paced, like a serial with all the tedious stuff cut out. Also as in the first film, the romance element here is minimal—the heroine (Rosella Towne) doesn't even enter the picture until about 45 minutes into the 58 minute movie. Released as part of a Warner Archive DVD set of all four Brass Bancroft films, and well worth purchasing for B-movie fans. [DVD]