REID (acting dazed as Axford helps
him to his feet): Green Hornet? I had
him trapped…tried to overpower him…he escaped through that window…
AXFORD: Well…how in the world did he ever get through there?
He lost seventy-five pounds and three feet off his
frame. In a hurry. Meanwhile, Kato has doubled back to the Black
Beauty and he speeds off, sounding the buzzing of the motor.
AXFORD: And there he goes…sure, he
must be the Devil himself…you sure none of my bullets hit ya, Reid?
REID: No…I’m all right…
AXFORD: That’s twice The Green Hornet has slipped through me fingers…
REID: He’s as slippery as an eel,
Michael…he got away from me, too…
AXFORD: And nearly with ya, from the looks of ya…
“Well, I guess there’s nothing left to do but be on our
way,” Reid tells both his bodyguard and ace reporter…hoping they won’t examine
that bogus out-the-window story too closely.
See, we have other fish to fry as this week’s chapter, “Bullets and
Ballots,” unfolds—not be confused with the 1936 Warner Bros release Bullets or Ballots starring Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart. For starters, the Warner’s picture makes you choose between ammunition or slips of
paper (you don’t get both). It also has
first-rate turns from TDOY faves Joan
Blondell and Louise Beavers, who pretty much steal the show. The only similarity between these two films
is that Anne Nagel, who plays the part of secretary Lenore “Casey” Case in The Green Hornet, has a bit role in the 1936 Bullets
(not to mention Joseph Crehan, who plays Judge Stanton, and Ralph Dunn, aka
“Andrew T. Thug”) as a bank secretary. So
as the scene shifts to the outside office of publisher Reid, we find her plying
her trade and chatting it up with reporter Jenks.
JENKS: Yeah, you seem kind of glad he got away…
CASEY: Well, maybe I am…and if you
ask me, I think he’s giving the crooks a run for their money…
JENKS: Yeah? Well, wait until after the election and watch
the Canby administration give the Green Hornet a run for his money…
CASEY: You talk as if John Canby
were already elected!
JENKS: It’s in the bag,
Casey…because that boy has promised to really
clean up the town!
“My first act as Mayor will be to allocate funds to hire an
additional 5,000 custodial engineers!”
This riveting political argument is interrupted by the arrival of
professional marksman Michael Axford…
AXFORD: Casey…Reid’s in his office,
isn’t he?
CASEY: He’s with Judge Stanton…
(She enunciates these nest words) Head of the...non…partisan…voters…league…
“Sufferin’ mackerels…” exclaims Axford, and the scene shifts
to the chinwag between Stanton (Joseph Crehan) and Reid:
REID: Why should The Sentinel take a stand against
Canby, his opponent? He has a clean
record…
Hey…crooks are
entitled to representation, too.
REID: Have you any definite proof
of that?
“I was hoping to change your mind on the basis of innuendo
and hearsay…”
REID: I’m sorry, Judge…unless you
can bring forward definite proof, The Sentinel will have to
maintain its neutral stance…
Well, of course he is.
That’s the way these serial chapters work—Reid won’t see the light until
the midway point. So Stanton
is escorted out of the publisher’s office, and we are transported to the Bradley
Building
“Meow meow…meow meow meow…meow meow!” (Translation: “My
first act as Mayor will be to allocate funds for an additional 5,000
mousetraps!”)
I guess that “clean up millions” reference is what Jenks meant when he told Casey Canby was the only guy able to “clean up” that town. The scene then shifts to a busy street front, and you’ll notice in the above screen cap that the Lynch Real Estate Company is, as I mentioned last week, right next to the Lynch Cleaning and Dyeing establishment. But that’s not the interesting news…
…the Lynch laundry company has been transformed into a voting precinct despite having been ravaged by fire in the last chapter! If this Hargrave guy is the incumbent mayor, I say he deserves another term simply for being able to make necessary civic improvements in the span of one week!
Inside the precinct, Reid and Axford have shown up to
exercise their privilege to vote. Reid’s
greeted warmly by the precinct captain (Ed Cassidy), who tells our hero that
the vote is “coming in heavy.” “That’s
fine,” replies Reid. “I’m always glad to
see people take an interest in civic affairs.”
AXFORD: That’s a true word for
ya—he’s done just that!
“And that’s Michael Axford of The Sentinel—he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.” Axford takes his ballot over to one of the
booths, and as the two paper employees vote two sinister-looking gentlemen enter
the precinct. When the captain asks them
their names, one of them replies: “Scanlon…George Scanlon…”
“Scanlon” is played by character great Bob Kortman, who provided villainy for B-westerns and serials dating all the way back to the silents. His serials include (but are not limited to) The Vanishing Legion, The Whispering Shadow, The Vigilantes are Coming, Secret Agent X-9 (the 1937 version), Wild West Days and Zorro Rides Again. It’s a little hard to tell from the above screen cap but he is stuffing the ballot box at the precinct, and the gentleman accompanying him does the same over the protests of the election judge…who ends up on the floor after receiving a sock from Mr. Scanlon. The two henchmen then hurriedly depart the scene and into a nearby car…Axford chases after them and fires a shot in their direction, but because of his lackluster shooting prowess he’s forced to take down the license number of the car.
We don’t see what happens after that, for in the next scene finds
Reid dictating a story to Casey as Axford looks on.
CASEY: Yes, sir…
As Casey gets up to leave, the circulation-obsessed editor
Gunnigan (Joe Whitehead) arrives and sits down in the chair she occupied.
(Jenks has entered the office)
GUNNIGAN: No casualties among the
Canby people, eh?
REID: Not one…
JENKS: That’s not all—the Canby
crowd are voting ghosts!
REID: You sure of that?
JENKS: Dead sure! The registration lists have names of people
who’ve been dead for years!
REID (hitting his desk for
emphasis): I want an extra on the streets quickly!
GUNNIGAN: On my way! (He gets up from his chair and heads out of
the office)
JENKS (grabbing Axford’s arm):
Look, Man of Action…don’t point! It isn’t good manners, and you’re liable to
get our blocks knocked off…
REID: You think that car contains
the same men we saw voting at the last polling place?
JENKS: Absolutely!
(The men emerge from the
automobile)
REID: Well, you’re wrong,
Jenks…that’s the same car but they’re not the same men…they’re not repeaters…
JENKS: Keep your shirt on, boss…get
to the car and be ready for a quick getaway…
Reid looks at Axford and shrugs, then makes tracks for the car. Before Axford can follow him, Jenks pulls him to one side and whispers something in his ear…prompting Axford to give Jenks an “I gotcha” look. Axford walks over to the entrance of the polling place, and when the men emerge from the building he asks one of them “Hey, buddy—got a match?” Axford then reaches up and pulls a mask off one of the men…revealing him to be Lon Chaney! No, wait…I have my movies mixed up—it’s one of the same guys from the earlier polling place, and after Jenks snaps his picture again with his trusty camera he and Axford start running for Reid’s automobile, which peels out and heads down the street. The “repeaters” take off after them, and as Reid’s car speeds along with Jenks at the wheel, Reid himself is positioned along the running board.
AXFORD: Well, what are we runnin’
away for?
REID: Gotta save these
pictures…they’re valuable evidence… (Looking behind to see the other car is
gaining on them) Pull over to that car!
The “repeaters” incident makes for good Sentinel copy, as these headlines indicate:
Certainly there’s something that can be done about this
travesty…isn’t there? Well, the words
coming from the District Attorney (Selmer Jackson) aren’t encouraging…
REID: You’re the District
Attorney…and there’s plenty of evidence to wholesale fraud in this election…
Remember this, good people—never pay retail for fraud.
REID: Subpoena the ballots and put
them in a safe place!
DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Why?
REID: So we can fingerprint them
and prove illegal handling!
DISTRICT ATTORNEY: That’s a great
idea…
Yeah, darn nice of Reid to do your job for you. (If this guy was up for re-election, maybe
we’d be better off allowing the election to stand.)
DISTRICT ATTORNEY: …but it will
take two days to obtain possession of those ballots through a court order…
REID: Well, that won’t do…the
minute the gang in back of Canby find out they’re going to be subpoenaed
they’ll destroy them…
DISTRICT ATTORNEY: I’m afraid
that’s the best I can do…
“…particularly since I’m depositing checks from Diebold…” This next headline…
…would seem to indicate that somebody in the D.A.’s office is a leaker, and since Monroe Enterprises is pretty good about paying their newspaper subscription bill in a timely fashion, this news doesn’t escape Curtis’ attention.
“Tri-State…storing your criminal documents for nearly a
quarter of a century…”
Okay, the way actor Loft delivered this line—complete with
lazy grin—made me laugh out loud because it sounded slightly Pythonesque (“Be a
shame if someone were to set fire to it…”); I think I’m going to start using
that “might burn down” line in real life from now on.
“But we are still going to burn the documents, right!”
The “Dean” to whom Ogden is
referring is a henchman played by Walter McGrail, your typical serial goon who,
while proving to be inept at carrying out any sort of deviltry dictated by the
head man, manages to escape being caught by the hero in order to prolong this
serial for the full thirteen chapters.
We’ll meet Dean and his associates in a sec, but the tableau has now
shifted to the apartment of Britt Reid…who is not told by his valet Kato to go
jump in the lake when he instructs his manservant to “get the Hornet’s
disguise.”
REID (on the telephone): Hello…Banks Incorporated? This is The Daily Sentinel speaking…we’ve had some heavy collections come in since the banks have closed… (One can faintly hear the voice on the other end ask: “You want an armored car?”) Yes…that’s right…an armored car at the loading platform as soon as possible…yes…thanks…good-bye…
KATO (entering the room with Reid’s
garb): What you do now, Mr. Britt?
REID: I’m afraid, Kato, The Green
Hornet is going to have to do what the law has been unable to do…prevent those ballots from falling into the hands of crooks!
The armored car pulls up at the platform, and the driver (Michael O’Hara) is asked by the Sentinel’s watchman what’s the dealio. The watchman is a little hard to make out in this screen cap (what my bud Stacia has taken to calling “Mostly Dark Theater”) but he’s played by comic actor Heinie Conklin, a veteran of the Keystone studio (he claimed to have been one of the original Keystone Kops) and not, despite what I thought for years, related to another Keystone contemporary, Chester Conklin. If there was a bit part in a Hollywood picture, Heinie was usually around to fill it—you can spot him in any number of the Columbia two-reel comedies with The Three Stooges, Andy Clyde, Harry Langdon, etc. Heinie was also billed from time to time as Charles Conklin as insurance against some of the anti-German sentiment prevalent during the period he was making films.
Inside the warehouse, Dean and his fellow henchies—Corey (Gene
Rizzi) and Pete (John Kelly)—are loading boxes of the tainted ballots onto a
truck. Well, perhaps I should clarify
this and say that Corey and Pete are doing the heavy lifting…Dean seems to be
acting in a purely supervisory foreman capacity.
DEAN: You sure you got them all?
COREY: Yeah…I checked them off this
copy of the warehouse receipt I snitched
from the Election Commissioner’s office…
Such lawlessness.
Dean tells Pete to “phone the Chief we’re loaded”…and I’m not sure if
he’s calling Monroe to tell them they’re ready to move out or if it’s actually
The Chief himself, the mysterious boss of bosses who communicates only by
intercom (and apparently by phone in this case…and if this is the case, why
doesn’t somebody just trace that phone number and find out who the hell “The
Chief” is?). Actually, this just gives
the writers an excuse to allow Pete to utilize his self-preservation skills,
for while Pete is off somewhere in the warehouse, the Hornet surprises Dean and
Corey…
DEAN: The Green Hornet!
It ain’t the Green Lantern, kiddies.
COREY: What do you want?
HORNET: For you to do exactly as
you’re told…there’s an armored car
coming here…I want you to unload the cases from that truck and put them in the
armored car…
COREY: Huh! We are not!
HORNET: All right…you asked for
it! (He draws his gas gun)
DEAN: No, no! Don’t shoot…we’ll do what you say…
And although they’re not happy about it, Dean and Corey do
the necessary heavy lifting and transfer the cargo from their truck to the
Hornet’s armored vehicle. The Hornet
tells Kato to keep an eye on the two stooges while he checks to make sure all
the cases have been loaded…and that’s when Corey and Dean foolishly make a run
for it. They do not get far, however, as
Kato fells the two of them with the gas gun.
“Nice work,” compliments the Hornet on his valet’s sharpshooting prowess. “We’ll be back for them later.” The Hornet instructs Kato to follow him in the Black Beauty while he commandeers the armored car…and once the two of them have sped off, we see ol’ cover-my-assets Pete watching from the shadows. He quickly gets on the horn to
PETE: I’m tellin’ you, we can still
stop him…
PETE: He’s going by the way of the
Westwood Pike and Valley
Spring Road
All roads lead to the Mortinson place, I’m guessing. Well, it doesn’t take long for Andrew T. Thug to “get busy”—he and an unidentified henchie (with a polka dot tie) plant a few explosives at a certain point in the road on which the Hornet is driving along in the armored car. The Hornet approaches…the thugs detonate the explosives…and most of the road falls away like a mud slide, plunging the car into a ravine below…
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