Murder in the Air (1940)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Murder in the Air (1940) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Fourth and final film in Warner's Brass Bancroft series with Ronald Reagan in the lead. This time out enemy agents are destroying various sites and now they have their eyes on destroying the entire country. Reagan goes undercover and gets inside the gang to try and stop them before more damage is done. This is probably the second best in the series (behind the third film) and fans of "B" movies will certainly have enough here to keep them entertained. The film, running just 55-minutes, makes for some nice entertainment because it throws pretty much everything in except for the kitchen sink but then again that might have ended up on the cutting room floor. The entire movie goes at a very fast pace and it leads up to a very good ending set on a Dirigible, which of course has to crash into the ocean. I wish this sequence would have gone on longer but what's here is nice. Reagan is very comfortable in the role and manages to turn in his best performance of the series. His tough act is a lot more believable here than in the previous three films and Eddie Foy, Jr. is back for comic relief. John Litel and James Stephenson co-star.

Murder In The Air marked the conclusion of future president Ronald Reagan as two fisted, hard hitting Secret Service agent Brass Bancroft with Eddie Foy, Jr. as his sidekick. It's got every ingredient a B film for the Saturday matinée crowd should have, spies with tattoos, a secret weapon, and a two timing double crossing dame who nearly ends it for our hero.Although the spies are never outrightly identified as German, the head guy talks with a Teutonic accent, all the bad guys have German sounding names, and they all have the same tattoo on the arm. When a body turns up Philadelphia with a lot of cash and a letter in invisible ink to a guy the US government has been looking to nail for espionage, Ron is sent in undercover taking the dead guy's identity.These spies have something big in mind, to steal the plans of a secret weapon, a ray that can paralyze electrical currents. The weapon is called the Inertia Projector and its years in advance before the term laser came into general use. The femme fatale in the plot is Lya Lys who is best remembered for being robbed of all her blood in The Return Of Doctor X by Humphrey Bogart. She's the wife of the dead guy Reagan is masquerading as and she nearly cooks Reagan's act. Good thing Ron was thinking fast on his feet here.The film was written around some real footage of the USS Macon dirigible crash and incorporated in Murder In The Air. It's the best thing about the movie, the way Warner Brothers skilfully edited the disaster film footage into this movie.My big question is how come the ray wasn't used the following year at Pearl Harbor against the Japanese?

Starting with SECRET SERVICE OF THE AIR (1938), Ronald Reagan made four B-movie series film with the character of "Brass Bancroft". I have seen all but SMASHING THE MONEY RING. The first film, despite its very low budget and modest pretense, was an exceptional film for the genre. The second, CODE OF THE SECRET SERVICE was just awful--with an extremely poorly written script that wasn't worthy of the franchise. This final film, MURDER IN THE AIR, isn't quite as good as the first film but it sure comes close--making a nice conclusion to this series.Reagan is given a special assignment to infiltrate a mob of spies who are seeking to destroy American. Oddly, like in his other films, the exact countries involved never are alluded to, though in this one Communists are mentioned. These evil rats have a big plan, but Reagan and the rest of his fellow agents have no idea what it will be. Fortunately, one of the spies is accidentally killed and Reagan assumes his identity. I'd rather not discuss exactly what happens next, as it might spoil the surprise, but I was excited to see that the film was set partially on board a US Navy dirigible and the scene involving it crashing was pretty exciting.All in all, this is not a film that you'll long remember--it's a B-film through and through. But for a B, it's an excellent one and stand above the crowd of many B series films.

This movie is notable for what it wrought 40 years later. In the film, Reagan's character -- Brass Bancroft -- is a government "T"-man who is tasked to protect a new secret weapon called the Inertia Protector, which can destroy all incoming bombs before they hit the US. Total nonsense, of course, but it does explain, years later, why Reagan really believed in Star Wars. He had already seen it work in a movie.