Nick Carter, Master Detective (1939)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

With a cast list as long as your arm, there's no denying that M-G-M's high-budget, introductory "B" casebook of Nick Carter, private detective, is either a movie you love or one you will hate. The reason for this gulf between admirers and detractors is a little actor with ultra-fussy mannerisms (topped by a penetrating voice) named Donald Meek. In fact, Meek was so popular with moviegoers that his Bee Man became a continuing character in both the sequel, Phantom Raiders and the third and final entry, Sky Murder. All three of course starred Walter Pidgeon as New York detective, Nick Carter. In this first entry, Nick is engaged to ferret out spies at an airplane factory – and highly ingenious are the methods in which spies manage to steal plans and specifications. But in addition to the spies and the Bee Man, the movie also manages to cram in a lovely if slightly suspicious heroine played here by the ultra-beautiful Rita Johnson. The support cast is full of familiar faces including Addison Richards, Henry Hull, Martin Kosleck, Frank Faylen and Sterling Holloway. And the director was none other than Jacques Tourneur, here making his second feature after graduating from M-G-M's shorts department (to which he returned briefly in 1942 and 1944). His best film, in my opinion, was Stars in My Crown (1950) – though most people would select Cat People (1942) or I Walked with a Zombie (1943) or Out of the Past (1947). He was most surprised – and pleased – when I told him that Stars in My Crown was my favorite. It turned out that Stars was his favorite too. "And it was a movie the studio had no faith in!" he told me. And yet that's what Stars was all about! Faith!

***SPOILERS*** First and best of the trio of Nick Carter Detective movies directed by film noir pioneer Jacques Tourneur of "Cat People" & "Leopard Man" fame. With the handsome NY detective Walter Pidgeon as the witty and hard hitting Nick Carter in the leading role. Sent undercover to the Radex Airplane Plant Nick as aeronautical engineer Robert Chambers is hired to find out who's sneaking out blueprints of the company's most secretive aircraft that will revolutionize the airplane industry: It can actually fly!As Nick soon finds out there's a major spy ring in operation, from the usual unnamed country, at the plant that's paying off a number of the workers there to do it's bidding by sneaking out important blue prints of this new aircraft that the nutty inventor John A. Keller,Henry Hull, has come up with. A plane that can fly circles around anything,in airplanes, that's now flying up there in the wild blue yonder. There's also pretty flight attendant and part pilot Lou Farnsby, Rita Johnson, who soon takes a shine to the handsome Nick that in the end leads to something far more serious: Being held hostage by the spies to keep Nick and the local police from apprehending them. Nick soon gets help from the Bee-Man Bartholomew, Donald Meek, who's unorthodox detective tactics, that at first Nick is totally opposed to, that in the end breaks the mysterious spy case wide open. ***SPOILERS***This all leads to a spectacular car plane and boat chase by Nick and the local police and FBI agents to prevent the spies who are holding Lou hostage from escaping justice by reaching neutral Mexican waters. The highlight of the movie is the plane used in the movie that Nick, who recently got his flying incense, is in control off. By Nick not only behind the controls but at the same time using a tommy-gun to shoot it out with the fleeing spies on the high seas! Something that I think that hasn't been done before or after in films since!

MGM in buying the rights to the Nick Carter stories and then making three films with the character just shows the twist of fate in some people's careers.Walter Pidgeon was one of their second magnitude stars at that time. B picture leads and occasionally in an A film where he always lost the girl. Louis B. Mayer must have thought a whole slew of these would have been made for Pidgeon and he would have become identified as Nick Carter on screen. But he managed to get some decent films, two back to back Best Pictures, How Green Was My Valley and Mrs. Miniver and a lifetime partnership with Greer Garson. He escaped movie oblivion then.It's a competently executed film, but I have to agree with previous reviewers. Donald Meek as the bee man looked like he just took his zany character from You Can't Take It With You and it just didn't fit in this fast paced detective story. The film itself is barely an hour. Meek distracts from the plot. Too bad because Donald Meek is usually a fine performer.I much prefer Walter Pidgeon as the Reverend Mr. Gruffydd or Clem Miniver or even Dr. Morbius. Good thing he escaped Nick Carter.

Nick Carter- Master Detective tries way to hard to make a B film into an A film. The director uses countless tricky film techniques and camera angles to make the film a classic. The result: Failure!!! Nick Carter good of been one hell of a film without that stuff and the stupid humor that was featured in the film, especially that stupid, annoying Bee-man. He was a total joke and very irritating to watch anytime the old guy's face appeared on screen. It would probably of been better if a child tagged along instead of the annoying old geezer. If the film did without the humor and the Bee-man, the result: Entertaining!!! Nick Carter is noooo Charlie Chan and doesn't have the skill or mind like he does. He's also kind of a bore and sometimes very cardboard like. To sum it all up, at times entertaining but with the humor and old dude the film just isn't that masterful. Charlie Chan kicks Nick Carter's ass anytime, anyplace, anywhere. *1/2 out of ****.