Two American couples defeat Axis plans to relay military intelligence to off-shore subs.
This Monogam programmer was made right after the start of WWII. What surprises me is that the Nazis and Japanese are not as caricatured as I would expect. They're more scheming than malevolent, though Okura (Lebedeff) grunts more than he speaks. That's probably because Lebedeff had trouble with Japanese inflections.
Anyway, if you can figure out how the message interception method works, you're smarter than I am. Note too how the blue-collar duo of Collins (Moran) and McGurk (Lytell) do the gritty barroom fighting. That prefigures Hollywood's heightening of the common man's role in defeating the Axis. Then too, there's that soapbox speech from an apparent isolationist who wants the US to steer clear of war. Isolationism from European wars was a controversial topic of the time. Here, however, it's used as part of a Nazi plot. But maybe most telling of the time are the very real fears of a Japanese attack on the West Coast, following their success at Pearl Harbor.
Good thing that Gale Storm is cast. She sparkles, as usual, while the rather homely Moran also shows engaging personality. Together, they lift the energy level beyond the colorless leading man (Shelton). Then there's the climax that's so sudden and flat, it's like Monogram ran out of film, which they probably did. Anyway, the movie remains an interesting little time capsule, livelier than the usual poverty row product.
