G-Men Never Forget (1948) – Chapter 2: 100,000 Volts

Our Story So Far: Vic Murkland (Roy Barcroft), criminal mastermind and an unpleasant person to be around in general, escapes the lax security of a penitentiary and makes his getaway to freedom…though forced to jettison his right-hand-man, Duke Graham (Drew Allen) in the attempt. Murkland arrives at his hideout, the sanitarium of Robert “Doc” Benson (Stanley Price), a medico of dubious degree who is able to use the plastic surgery techniques he learned via a correspondence course to change Murkland’s facial features into those of Commissioner Angus Cameron (also Barcroft), allowing them to put the snatch on Cameron and allow Murkland to impersonate him in his place.

Cameron, before his kidnapping, was fortunate in that he enlisted the aid of Special Agent Ted O’Hara (Clayton Moore), a gung-ho all-American who doesn’t drink, smoke or chew…but does have an eye for the females (known in criminal jurisprudence as “cherchez la femme”), enlisting the help of Detective Sergeant Francis Blake (Ramsay Ames). These two law enforcement professionals, unaware of Murkland’s deception, must combine their talents into taking down the powerful master criminal—otherwise, civilization as we know it will come to an end! (Well, okay…maybe it’s not all that bad. But it will provide twelve chapters of spills, thrills and chills.)

When we last looked in on the exploits of Agent Ted O’Hara, he had learned of Murkland’s attempt to destroy the brand-spanking new Channel Island Tunnel and was racing to prevent its destruction. Unfortunately, some careless individual—the kind of person who has to spoil a good time for everybody—set off dynamite in the tunnel, producing a rather wet torrent of water that threatens to engulf our hero before this darn cliffhanger even gets off the ground. But in the nick of time, O’Hara, astride his great horse Silver stolen motorcycle, escapes the deluge by closing a set of doors inside the tunnel that I’m pretty sure weren’t present in the previous chapter. This allows O’Hara to save the mayor and city officials who were also in the tunnel…although the loss of a few bureaucrats wouldn’t have been too much of a big deal. Those pinheads are a dime-a-dozen—it’s voters who are irreplaceable.

Meanwhile, back at City Hall:

CAMERON: I’d say Mr. Cook is getting a break with you on the case, O’Hara…your quick thinking and fast action saved the tunnel from complete destruction…
BLAKE: And what’s more important, you saved the lives of a lot of people…
O’HARA: But I didn’t catch Murkland or any of his gang…he’s smart…he has brains…

And he’s sitting right in front of you…idiot…

(Intercom buzzes)
CAMERON: Excuse me… (Presses button) Yes?
VOICE: Mr. Cook’s on the phone…
(Cameron hands the receiver extension to Ted, and then answers with the other)
CAMERON: Hello, Cook?
COOK: Cameron…I just received another extortion demand from the Murkland gang…they threaten my G.I. housing plan…
CAMERON: Surely you’re not going to pay off?
COOK: Certainly not…but you must put more men to guard my various construction jobs…
CAMERON: I’ll give you every available man in my department…right…goodbye… (Hanging up the phone, to O’Hara) What do you suggest?
O’HARA: First, I’ll check on all of Cook’s construction jobs to see where they’re vulnerable…
BLAKE: Do you want me to help?
O’HARA: Good idea! Let’s go…

Boy, he just made Frances’ day…he’s finally accepted her as a colleague, and not just some lovely who looks quite fetching disguised as a moll (see last chapter). As they leave the office, Cameron pulls out a match and begins chewing on one end—which is Vic Murkland’s trademark OCD calling card! He places a call to the sanitarium, where Benson, Graham and Slater are cooling their heels with the real Cameron:

BENSON: Benson Sanitarium…
MURKLAND: Murkland speaking…
BENSON: Oh, I’m glad you called…Commissioner Cameron has gone on a hunger strike…

Let my people go!

BENSON: Duke wants to bump him…
MURKLAND: No! Certainly not! We’ve got to save him to take the rap when I finish my impersonation of him…

He’ll just be thinner, that’s all…

MURKLAND: If he gets too weak, feed him by force…
BENSON: Okay, boss… (To Slater) Take him away!
MURKLAND: Put Duke on…
BENSON: Duke…
(As Slater wheels Cameron out of the room, Duke grasps the phone receiver…)
GRAHAM: Yeah, Chief…
MURKLAND: I’ve got a little job for you, Duke…Cook just called and won’t buy our protection…put the heat on him…
GRAHAM: Right…I’m on my way… (To Benson) This is gonna hurt Cook more than it does me…

We are then treated to a montage of an unknown hand breaking the glass on a fire alarm and pressing the button, followed by a newspaper headline that screams: COOK BUILDING BURNS (and that’s followed by firemen sliding down a fire pole and getting into trucks, to make sure the slower people in the audience keep up). Another headline follows: MANY LOSE LIVES IN FIRE! There is then a shot of O’Hara and Blake driving furiously behind fire trucks, and another headline reads: TENTH MYSTERIOUS FIRE! (I don’t want to say anything before all the facts are in…but I suspect Duke meant something with that “gonna hurt Cook more than it does me” crack.)

We then cut to a scene where Frances is unwrapping what appears to be a dollhouse. She says to O’Hara: “Well, here’s your dollhouse…but what you want with it I can’t imagine.” I also refuse to comment further—but all seriousness aside, O’Hara plans to use it a tool of study as to what caused the ten previous fires:

O’HARA: …if my analysis is correct, the Murkland gang is using pyroxene to start the fires at the Cook Enterprises…
BLAKE: Pyroxene! I’ve heard of that!

Oh, you have not…you’re just grasping onto any explanation that will wipe away the realization your boyfriend plays with dollhouses, you silly bimbo.

O’HARA: It’s safe in a liquid form…but highly inflammable when dry…I believe they spray it on…and when it becomes thoroughly dry it bursts into flames…

You’re thinking of the Pyroxene that comes in an aerosol…Pyroxene Roll-On not only goes on dry, but it’s strong enough for a woman.

O’HARA: The heat generated is so tremendous that it destroys everything in its area…understand?
BLAKE: Now I see the why of the dollhouse…well, if I have to wait twenty-four hours for results I may just as well be comfortable…
O’HARA: Hardly so long as that…wait and see…

O’Hara drags over a floor lamp and shines it on the dollhouse, explaining that he only used a little pyroxene and that the heat from the lamp should dry it out quickly. No sooner has this sentence come out of his mouth when the dollhouse goes up in flames as if it had been napalmed:

BLAKE: Your analysis was right…that pyroxene is dangerous stuff…
O’HARA: It sure is… (He throws a blanket over the dollhouse to squelch the flames) So dangerous it can only be sold by a government-bonded company…
BLAKE: That would be the Cornwall Chemical Company on the other side of town…they’re the only company operating under government bond…

Don’t tell me you had that memorized…

O’HARA: All right, have the Commissioner put a stop order on the pyroxene shipment…and tell him I’m on my way to the Cornwall Chemical Company…

Send me my mail there! Ted, upstanding Boy-Scout-of-a-guy that he is, doesn’t realize that the Commissioner is in fact his nemesis Vic Murkland. So when he arrives at the C.C.C. and finds Duke outside loading up with plenty o’pyroxene, a chase naturally ensues. As both Ted and Duke are putting the pedal to the metal, Duke spots a freight train racing beside him and…well, you know how henchmen are. Duke easily eludes Ted, who in playing “chicken” with the locomotive stops just in the nick of time…and losing his prey in the process.

O’Hara and Blake wind up in the office of R.J. Cook (Edmund Cobb), and O’Hara explains to him what’s been going down:

O’HARA: …and you see, Mr. Cook—by spraying pyroxene onto the lumber before it went into the building, they didn’t have to be on the job to start the fire…
COOK: I wonder if all the lumber in my yard has been treated that way…
O’HARA: No, or it would have gone up in smoke before now…I’m certain they treat the lumber after it leaves the yard and before it reaches the job…
BLAKE: That must mean that some of your drivers are selling out…
O’HARA: Obviously…and now to prove we’re right—Mr. Cook, your yard runs a night shift, doesn’t it?
COOK: Yes…

“Although from what you’ve told me, I intend to keep those kids out of my yard from now on…”

O’HARA: Well, Sergeant Blake and myself will take the night guard’s place on the Allen Street job…now tonight, when the lumber is delivered…

Fade to night, and a building with a sign that reads: “Allen Street Development.” Though Ted and Frances have made no attempt to disguise themselves as workers, they’re just officious enough to stop a truck that’s carrying a load of lumber and has just been driven into the yard. Two hoodlums get out the vehicle, and O’Hara says to one of them: “Just a minute, men…I want to inspect that load of lumber.”

“Hop to it, brother—nobody’s stopping you,” returns one of them, a tall, lanky individual who should be instantly recognizable as Tom Steele, ace stuntman and Republic extra who makes the first of his three appearances in G-Men Never Forget. In the Balcony’s Laughing Gravy has devised the perfect drinking game that involves Steele and his serial appearances: “…pour yourself a shot and down it every time stuntman Tom Steele shows up as a different character. Down two shots every time he’s wearing a silly moustache.” In G-Men, however, you’ll be snockered much faster if you use the other goon with Steele, stuntman Dale Van Sickel, as your focal point—he plays five different henchmen in this one.

Anyway, O’Hara cuts some sample fragments from the lumber and then takes them over to his Junior Chemistry Set—where, after dousing them with a combination of chemicals, turns to Blake and seriously intones: “It’s a positive test, Frances.” (I sorta get the feeling that’s not the first time she’s heard that—rimshot!) Ted tells the two men that they’re under arrest for attempted arson, and Van Sickel decks him, sending him to the ground. Frances scoops up O’Hara’s gun and fires after the fleeing arsonists, who, cut off from their ride, attempt to start a second truck in order to take it on the lam. Frances brings Ted to, and as the two goons ride off, Ted climbs onto the back of the truck, determined not to let them get away. Finding Steele in the back, O’Hara engages in a rigorous series of fisticuffs while Van Sickel drives on—but in fighting for O’Hara’s gun, the firearm goes off and kills Van Sickel, who slumps over in the driver’s seat, his foot causing the truck to careen off the main drag. The truck is headed for a barbed wire fence on which hangs a sign that reads: DANGER – KEEP OUT – 100,000 VOLTS. (The fence surrounds a series of electrical transformers.) Stuntman Steele flees out of the back of the truck to escape being barbecued…but O’Hara is not so lucky…

Next Saturday, Chapter Three: Code Six Four Five!