Postal Inspector

This film stars Ricardo Cortez as the title character investigating various mail fraud schemes, and, ultimately, the theft of 3 million bucks earmarked for destruction. Patricia Ellis plays a nightclub singer who falls for Cortez' brother. Bela Lugosi plays the nightclub owner who pulls the heist.

The second half of the film takes place during a flood, with Cortez promising everyone the mail will still get through, by train, plane, or boat if necessary. Right. I can't even get my store circulars delivered on time during a sunny day.

Cortez is better than usual, and Ellis is very attractive. She sings a few songs which are not memorable, including this ditty aboard a plane flying through dense fog while her maid (Hattie McDaniel) bugs her eyes out a la Mantan Moreland: "Here we are together flying high, We're up in heaven, you and I, We'll be coming down to earth someday, But in the meantime, let's be gay."

Well, I guess if you think you're about to crash, it's a good time to experiment with your orientation.

1936's "Postal Inspector" appeared to serve several purposes for cash strapped Universal following the March 1936 ouster of the extravagant Laemmles: a Warners-style glorification of a rarely spotlighted branch of government, a vehicle cheaply built around newly shot stock footage of heavy flooding in Pittsburgh PA, and a way to fulfill their three picture contract with Bela Lugosi, having failed to use him on "Dracula's Daughter" or a fourth pairing with Boris Karloff (they would finish Karloff's deal in Feb. 1937 with "Night Key"). Not only that, but this innocuous programmer also had the audacity to feature Patricia Ellis as Connie Larrimore belting out a whopping four songs by the film's midpoint, making for an awkward musical enabling her songbird to trill at the nightclub owned by Lugosi's Gregory Benez, his kindly nature hiding a dark secret of being heavily in debt to an impatient loan shark who has already murdered a previous client. The plot finally settles in at the 40 minute mark, as Benez and his confederates choose to rob a shipment of $3 million worth of retired currency (the driver a fatal casualty), a crime that could be pinned on Charlie Davis (Michael Loring), brother of Postal Inspector Bill Davis (Ricardo Cortez), because his car was used by the thieves. Severe flooding in Milltown finds cops and robbers engaging in a speedboat chase until the villains are apprehended and Charlie is free to wed childhood sweetheart Connie. More romantic trifle than serious drama, the daily activities in the inspector's office offering some novelty as many people are defrauded through the mail, basically those who can least afford it. Offbeat enough to still provide light entertainment as an hour long programmer, but little material for Lugosiphiles, 4th billed Bela on screen for barely 7 minutes in a bland role that still shows he was capable of playing a character without any sinister shadings, the main reason for film buffs to seek out after missing in action for decades.

Before seeing this the only other film I ever saw dealing with the Post Office police was a very good Alan Ladd noir film called Appointment With Danger where Ladd like Ricardo Cortez here plays a Post Office cop. Postal Inspector does not have the really good plot the Ladd film has but it's good enough and it has some nice action sequences involving a flood that spoils plans for the good guys and bad guys alike.

Bela Lugosi plays a nightclub owner who doubles as the boss of a gang and he's got a pretty good scheme involving the robbery of a shipment of old and soon to be retired currency being shipped by mail. He carries it off, but the flash flood interrupts his plans.

Patricia Ellis plays a nightclub singer and Michael Loring, Cortez's brother who get innocently into a jackpot in the robbery as he's suspected of being an inside man.

Postal Inspector has a nice action climax involving a chase with outboard motorboats through flooded. And in the role of the nightclub racketeer owner provided a nice change of pace for Bela Lugosi not playing a mad scientist or an inhuman fiend.

The British Board of Film Certifiers banned Universal's THE RAVEN as "overly brutal and sadistic" and gave THE INVISIBLE RAY an A (for Adults Only) Certificate. This pretty much ended the genre that we now call Universal's "Golden Age". So where did this leave its top terror stars, Boris and Bela? For awhile, nowhere! Boris ended up playing a kindly old grandfather type in NIGHT KEY (1937) and Bela ended up in the musical comedy/drama playing a Mexican nightclub owner! Ricardo Cortez (whose real name was Jack Kranz) plays the title role and much of the movies 58 minute running time shows him dealing with people who have been the victims of mail fraud. This provides a lot of intentional humour. Cortez's brother is a Treasury officer in charge of getting worn out bills back to Washington. The girl he is in love with sings in Lugosi's nightclub and lets slip a casual comment that $3 million in old bills will soon go out of the local bank. Bela is in debt to a gagnster and decides to steal the shipment. As if that were not bad enough the town is threatened by a flood! Republic would take that plot and stretch it out for a 12 chapter serial so believe me this film will be long on action. Bela played a similar character in the 1930 film WILD COMPANY. He is not menacing at all until the last 10 minutes of the film when he becomes a crook. Ricardo Cortez had worked with D.W. Griffith (THE SORROWS OF SATAN, 1926) and had been the first actor to play Sam Spade (THE MALTESE FALCON, 1931). Watch the supporting cast for Guy Usher, who would face Lugosi on less equal terms in THE DEVIL BAT (1942) and Hattie McDaniel who had already costarred with Bela in MURDER BY TELEVISION (1935) and would go on to appear in GONE WITH THE WIND (1939). The terror genre would start up again within 3 years but the old days were gone for good. This is still a fun film to watch even if it is just to see Bela in a relatively normal character role.

I doubt that any movie ever made better use of stock footage of floods than "Postal Inspector." Every time the tale sags -- or more accurately sogs -- it's back to some unfortunate town where the river is rising, the dam done burst, homes are being washed away and people are trudging through muck and mire (not to be confused with the vaudeville act of the same name,) trying to escape the deluge. The big chase scene even replaces cars and horses with speedboats. The plot centers on Bela Lugosi as a night club owner, drowning in debt, who tries to steal $3 million in old bills being transported by the US Post Office. Fortunately, Ricardo Cortez is there to sink him, aided by Patricia Ellis as a night club singer who manages to warble a few Frank Loesser tunes before the water rises. It's actually not a bad little thriller and manages to float along in a fast-moving 58 minutes.