It's a Monogram film folks so don't expect too much. But if you're a fan of Harold Lloyd, lead character and creator of Cosmo Jones on the radio, Frank Graham, comes over like Harold Lloyd in one of his sound films.
Cosmo Jones, Crime Smasher did his smashing on radio originally. In this film our hero freshly graduated from correspondence school and now a detective happens to witness an attempted kidnapping of an oil heiress. He's with Sergeant Richard Cromwell who fires some shots and wounds a 'bystander'.
Cromwell gets no help from the victim who denies anything was going on and is demoted. That's when Graham goes to work with the aid of porter Eustace Jones played by Mantan Moreland on hiatus from Charlie Chan. It all becomes too real when the heiress is kidnapped for real.
Mantan and his shtick help this film along as does Edgar Kennedy playing a police captain with Irish brogue added to his slow burn.
Graham has a lot of screen credits, mostly however as voice only. This is one of the few times you'll actually see him on screen. I suspect Monogram wanted to do a series of Cosmo Jones films, but the demand was underwhelming.
Graham in his crime fighting mode has the talents of voice mimicry and ventriloquism at his command. But I suspect not in real life. His impression of Edgar Kennedy was too real, it had to be dubbed.
Sam Katzman over at Monogram had enough series with the East Side Kids and Charlie Chan. Another wasn't in the cards.
