Don Winslow of the Navy (1942) – Chapter 3: Weapons of Horror

OUR STORY SO FAR (taken directly from the “crawl” that opens Part the Third): Comdr. Don Winslow, U.S. Naval Intelligence, is investigating sabotage at the new Naval Base on Tangita Island.

Spencer Merlin, posing as a mining superintendent, offers to help Winslow, though secretly acting as chief agent of “The Scorpion,” International spy and Winslow’s old enemy. 

Winslow discovers a murderer, Paul Barsac, is a “Scorpion” agent and trails him in a car.  To throw Winslow off Barsac’s track, Merlin sets fire to Barsac’s car and…

…has a lot of explaining to do to the rental car people.  Well, as predicted—Winslow (Don Terry) leaps from his car seconds before it collides with the other burning automobile.  Now, it looks as if as he when goes into his leap…

…he lands in the nice soft water below.  But because the two crashed cars also end up in the drink…

…they had a bit farther to fall.  Did Winslow had to do a tuck and roll to get to the water, or did he run down there or what?  I suppose it doesn’t really matter in the long run—but topside, his two dumb sidekicks—“Red” Pennington (Walter Sande) and Michael Axford Splendor (Wade Boteler)—spot him climbing out after going for a swim and Don gives them an “I’m okay!” wave.

SPLENDOR: By golly—Don was sure lucky that time!

RED: I’ll say he was!  Doesn’t look like Barsac was…

SPLENDOR: Not if he was in the burnin’ car…

RED: He must have lost control right after the fire started…

SPLENDOR: Ah, sure—let’s not worry about Barsac…let’s get down and see if we can help Don!

Yeah!  Barsac (John Holland) isn’t all that important in the big picture—but you wouldn’t think to know it from a following scene set at the Tangita gold mine that serves as the cover for the Scorpion’s (Kurt Katch) headquarters.  This week, I did not get to laugh at the reusing of the same entrance from the past two chapters, in which “brains heavy” Spencer Merlin (John Litel) stubs out a cigarette before entering the mine…because both Barsac and Merlin’s lieutenant, Prindle (Robert Barron), are accompanying him.  (Prindle does take a second to put out his cigarette, though.)  They go into the mine and the guy who operates the mine shaft elevator is catching forty winks, prompting Merlin to snap at him: “Come on, Karl—wake up!”  (The actor playing Karl goes unidentified.)

But upon seeing Barsac, Karl becomes quite convivial: “Hi, Barsac—glad to see you got here!”  “I’m glad to be here,” replies Barsac…and because I laugh out loud at the most peculiar things, this one definitely produced a king-sized chortle.  I found myself speculating on Karl’s life outside of work—picturing him going home to a hot dinner and the wife, complaining how inconsequential his day was (“Ach…I lower the elevator…I raise the elevator…it’s a living…hey, guess who I saw at work today?  Paul Barsac!”)…but apparently he’s chummy enough with Barsac to want to chew the fat when he arrives.  (“I like you, Paulie…you’re good people.  Not like that bastid M-22…”)

Back in Chapter 1, I giggled at the fact that despite the state-of-the-art facility that is Scorpion, LLC the bad guys always have to stumble over a bit of mine wreckage from an apparent cave-in.  The screen capture above explains why they do this (I guess it’s to disguise the headquarters and all).

MERLIN: How does this place strike you, Barsac?

BARSAC: Great!

“It’s the bestest clubhouse ever!”

BARSAC: But how do the boats get in here?

MERLIN: That’s the secret of the place…an underwater tunnel leads from here out to the ocean…

BARSAC: It strikes me as the perfect submarine base…

PRINDLE: Especially with our undersea oil well to refuel the subs…

MERLIN: It’s the only place like it in the world…our master The Scorpion deserves a lot of credit for this discovery…

Yeah, yeah, yeah…The Scorpion is great and we’re all darn proud of him.  Merlin, Barsac and Pringle maneuver their way through the mine until reaching “the radio room” of Scorpion, Ltd—where the operator who’s always announcing that the Scorpion requires an audience with Merlin greets Barsac jovially as well: “Hello, Barsac!  Hear you had a little trouble getting here…”

“Yeah—thanks to our good friend Winslow,” is Barsac’s reply.  Merlin’s probably thinking to himself: “How can I be on better terms with the service staff?  Maybe if I brought donuts…”  Well, this will all have to wait until another time because the radio guy gets the signal that The Scorpion is calling—and if past performance is any indication, he’s going to give Merlin a dressing down in front of everybody.

SCORPION: M-22…I can’t under your stupidity in permitting the Baratavia to unload supplies for the new naval base…neither should Winslow have been allowed to identify Barsac…but we’ll discuss your mistakes later…

Scorp—have you ever thought about chastising Spence out of earshot of everyone else?  I assume you have an office, maybe?

SCORPION: Now…there is important work to be done…the S.S. Tarleton, carrying a load of gun mountings and a million dollars in gold, is due north of Tangita tomorrow morning…the ship is to be captured as a decoy for our submarines…the gold must be removed for my use…communicate with my agent Kramer, a passenger aboard the Tarleton…he will give you further instructions…those are my orders, M-22…see that they are obeyed…

Merlin barks the order to Barsac to see that the captain of the Z-37 submarine is “ready for action” (the new captain is named “Ryker”—he has replaced the late and unlamented “human torpedo” Tranker).  As for Don Winslow and his 620 Destroyer—well, “that is a problem,” acknowledges Spence.  “It would help a lot if we knew Winslow’s plans.”

Prindle suggests eavesdropping on Don and Company via the “listening post”—the fake jungle shack that is concealing a Dictaphone hooked up to the office of John Blake (Ben Taggart).  This listening post has figured in two previous chapters, mostly as the site where poorly-staged fistfights take place, and yet for some odd reason no attempt has been made to seize it or tear that sucka down.

Back in the radio room of the construction office, radio operator Seaman Chapman (Peter Leeds) hands Don an important message from his supervisor, Captain Holding.  After studying it for a few minutes, Red asks him “What is it, Don?”

“Read it,” Don tells him as he hands him the message.  (“But, Don…you know I can’t read…”)

RED (reading): “S.S. Tarleton will be in Tangita danger zone at 8am the 27th…freighter carries gun mountings and million dollar gold shipment…meet ship with destroyer 620 and convoy beyond area of submarine activity…” 27th?  Why, that’s tomorrow!

DON: Yes…we’re leaving for convoy duty at midnight…it’s important work, but I don’t like being interrupted on this island job…

SPLENDOR: Well, it makes no difference, me lad…you’ve bungled it so far…

DON: Huh?

“Old man, I will kick your Irish ass clear back to Dublin…”  Splendor is just having one on our hero; joking that even though work on the naval base has continued Winslow let Barsac get away “without finding anything about The Scar-pian’s hideout.”

DON: We’re not through with Barsac yet…

RED: I don’t get you, Don…Barsac is dead…

DON: Yes…but his luggage is still at the hotel…

“…and very much alive!”  At the listening post, Merlin, Prindle and the other two henchies, Corley (Lane Chandler) and Spike (Ethan Laidlaw), listen as Don explains to Red that they’ll go over there that evening because they may find a clue among his personal effects that will lead them to Project Scorpion.

PRINDLE: Winslow’s convoying the Tarleton isn’t going to help The Scorpion’s plans any…

MERLIN: I have an idea Winslow won’t be anyplace near the Tarleton…

PRINDLE: But he just said he was…

MERLIN (interrupting): He also said he was going to examine Barsac’s luggage…if he does, he’ll find something that will throw him off the track…

“Little hotel soaps.”  Merlin grabs a pencil and pad of paper and begins to write while ordering Spike and Corley to take the message to the hotel.  Back in the radio room, Winslow is still pushing his “let’s-ransack-Barsac’s-hotel-room” plan, but is receiving resistance from Splendor.  “Well, that’s fine, lad—but I’ll creep up no dark alleys or shinny up any posts!  I’m too old for second story work!”

“We’ll rent a room!” says Red brightly, and with a chuckleworthy bit of sexual subtext.  And speaking of sex, it is at this point in time that we hear from the female contingent in this serial—nurse Mercedes Colby (Claire Dodd) and her BFF Misty Gaye (Anne Nagel), who enter the office and reference the fact that “Lt. Pennington” has promised to take them to dinner.  Now, we’ve established in this serial that the Pacific Hotel is the only lodging on the island (run by a “half-caste” named Tangita Jim) and it looks to be pretty much a fleabag.  I can’t believe the restaurant is any better.

DON: I’ve got it!  Misty, you’re just in time!

MISTY: Would you mind repeating that?  Red says I’m always late…

A quick screen capture reveals that Misty has been shopping the Martha Raye Collection at the Tangita K-Mart.

DON: I’d like you to go to your room at the hotel…

MERCEDES: But, Don…we just came from there…

MISTY: And Red promised to take me to…

DON: Now don’t argue, girls…this is important!

“I’d explain it to you, but it’s far too complicated for your primitive female minds…”  A regular old chauvinist porker, that’s our Donny.  Don ushers both of them out of the office and then a scene shift finds Winslow and Pennington getting ready to knock on the door of Misty’s room when Don stops his friend.  “There’s Barsac’s room,” whispers Don.  “Give me the passkey.”  Don’t ask me where they got a passkey, by the way.  From the last chapter, we learned that Tangita Jim (Jerry Mandy) is working with the bad guys so I hardly think he would be so generous as to grant them carte blanche into anybody’s hotel room.

So as Don prepares to ransack Barsac’s hotel room, we hear Misty greeting Don at her door.  We also see Spencer peeking out from another room down the hall, admonishing Spike and Corley as they start toward Barsac’s: “Be careful no one sees you.”  Hearing the two henchies outside, Winslow ducks into a closet inside Barsac’s suite.  Spike and Corley then go over to Barsac’s suitcase and plant the phony message in it—Don watches them for a few seconds and then, emerging from the closet, asks them “Did you find anything?”  (“Yeah—this guy’s packed his valise full of hotel towels!”)

A fistfight breaks out on a special edition of Mostly Dark Theater, where the henchmen jump Don (Winslow had his pistol drawn, and a random shot is fired) and demonstrate that all those years in Naval Intelligence have made our hero marshmallow-soft.  Don calls out to Red several times (“Pull these guys off of me, will ya?”) until his sidekick finally gets to the room; he enters, and Spike and Corley escape without detection (they were hiding behind the door) except that they bump into Mercedes and Misty on their way out.  Emerging from the room, Red asks Misty “Did you see two…?”

“Did we!  They practically knocked us down!” shouts Misty breathlessly.  “They ran down the hall,” Mercedes points out helpfully, and Red starts after them…but then remembers that there are still nine more chapters to go, so he doubles back.  The scene then shifts to Spence having a confab with his goons in their hotel room.

PRINDLE: Did Winslow swallow the bait?

MERLIN: I don’t know…he pretended thieves broke into Miss Gaye’s room…Spike—are you sure Winslow didn’t see you plant that note?

SPIKE: He couldn’t see me—my back was to the closet he was hiding in…

PRINDLE: I don’t see what good it will do even if he does find the note…

MERLIN: That’s what we’re going to find out…Corley, take that key…slip into that empty room next to the girls and keep your ears open…

Back in Misty’s room, Don hands off the message he found in Barsac’s suitcase to Red—I guess he figures this is good practice for his pal, reading out loud and all.

RED (reading): “The S.S. Mordania is to be torpedoed at eight o’clock on the 27th a short distance south of Tangita…it is your duty to see that the ship cargo and munitions does not reach its destination!”

MERCEDES: That’s terrible!

RED: The worst part of it is, we have to meet the Tarleton at the time the Mordania’s to be torpedoed!

What to do, what to do…there is a knock at the door, and in lumbers Splendor the Comic Relief.  He tells Don that Chapman’s received a communiqué from the Tarleton and that the ship will be due north of Tangita at eight o’clock in the morning.  Corley is behind a door listening—it looks as if he’s hiding in a closet…do adjoining rooms share a closet?—and as he leans in for a better listen, the door creaks slightly.  Don picks up on it immediately and wants to know what the noise was but Misty waves him off: “Oh, don’t worry about that—this whole place is full of creepy sounds.”

But Don’s not buying it.  He knows there’s somebody behind that door…but unlike his earlier zeal in Barsac’s room, when he told Red to follow “the Scorpion agents” while he secured the suitcase, he seems strangely unconcerned with yanking open the door and capturing the person behind it.  I speculated last week that Commander Winslow seems to demonstrate a yellow streak on occasion—something that will become more apparent here in a few.

RED: What are we going to do about the Mordania, Don?

DON (loudly, so Corley and everyone else on the island can hear): We’re going to protect the Mordania!  Inform Grady that we sail within the hour!

RED: But, Don…Captain Holding said…

DON: That’s an order, Lieutenant Pennington…

RED: Aye, aye sir…

Winslow has adopted this annoying habit of pulling rank on his buddy that, if I were Pennington, would start to get on my wick after a fashion.  (“Bite me, Commander!”)  Corley returns to the room and fills Merlin in on the details, allowing Prindle to kiss a little butt when he gushes “Your scheme worked, M-22!  Now we can take over the Tarleton without interference from Winslow and the 620!”

Spence is quite pleased with himself.  “We’ll get back to headquarters and send the Z-37 on its way!”  And return he does, taking time out to issue orders to Barsac—who’s to accompany Ryker on the Z-37 and take command of the Tarleton when the ship is captured.  To the strains of Fingal’s Cave Overture, Prindle calls Merlin over to a periscope so that they can gaze fondly on some stock footage of a Navy destroyer, which in this case is supposed to represent the 620 as it sails south to “rescue” the Mordania.  “By the time Winslow discovers the Tarleton is in trouble, he’ll be too far away to do any good,” says Merlin delightfully.

Merlin and Prindle leave the radio room at headquarters and continue to make their way through the cave—briefly stopping to see the Z-37 pulling out on its way to meet up with the Tarleton.  “And there’s nothing Winslow can do to stop it,” Spence editorializes.

The scene shifts to more stock footage of the destroyer—let me state here for the record that if you’ve ever dreamed of watching an old serial where most of its content is recycled film of vessels and submarines (generously provided by the U.S. Navy)…Don Winslow of the Navy is what you have been searching for all your life.  On the bridge of the 620, Red is still fussing about Don’s disobeying the direct order of Holding…and even the wildly enthusiastic Lt. Cmdr. Grady (Dirk Thane), who’s been placed in charge of the 620 while Don and Red pretend to capture bad guys, is puzzled as well.  “He’ll be up to gettin’ himself court-martialed, I reckon,” muses Splendor.  Don then enters the scene, because he’s detected that they’ve been talking about him.

DON: Change course to due north…we’re meeting the Tarleton to convoy…

GRADY: Aye, aye sir… (To a helmsman) Change course to due north…

HELMSMAN: Aye, aye sir…

RED: But, Don—what about the Mordania?

DON: That message about the Mordania was a blind…to get us away from the Tarleton so she could be raided…

SPLENDOR: What makes you think that?

DON: Well, that message wasn’t in Barsac’s suitcase when I first looked through it…it was planted there later, by an agent!

RED: And you gave me those orders about the Mordania so that any Scorpion agents listening would think you’d fallen for their trick!

DON: Right!

“Then why didn’t you just grab the agent in the first place?”  “Stand down, lieutenant…that’s an order!”  Yes, Commander Winslow is feeling very pleased with himself and even Splendor comments on his cleverness with “By golly—you know a trick or two yourself, don’tcha?”

The unsmiling Grady breaks up this Winslow strokefest by alerting Don that Captain Sanden of the Tarleton has been contacted by radio, and Winslow tells Grady to pass the word that Sanborn’s to hold his course and stand by to pick him (Winslow) up—“I’m going to transfer to the Tarleton to direct operations!”  You are so butch, Don.

A scene shift finds Don aboard the Tarleton, bragging to Sanden (Heenan Elliott) about what a clever little sod he is.  Sanden is polite about Winslow wanting to be aboard to protect the Tarleton, but I think he secretly wishes the guy would just mind his own beeswax.  There is then a cut to a submarine, presumably the Z-37, and Ryker (no actor identified—so sorry) informs Barsac that the Tarleton is in its sights.  Barsac then instructs him to radio Kramer on board, and they will proceed according to plan.

Kramer (“Kray-muh!”), the passenger on board the Tarleton and secretly in the employ of The Scorpion, is introduced to us softly knocking at a door on the ship.  He’s played by character veteran Paul Bryar, whose real name of Gabriel Paul Berrere was also adopted by his son (sans the “Gabriel”), who was a singer-guitarist with the band Little Feat.  Bryar appeared in many feature films and television shows; if you’re old enough to remember the short-lived TV series The Long, Hot Summer (based on the 1958 movie) you may have seen him on that playing the sheriff.  His serial work includes Spy Smasher and Lost City of the Jungle.

So one of Kramer’s confederates opens the door and informs Kramer that the Z-37 is “standing by” and “you’re to resume operations.”  A small group of men follow Kramer, and the confederate goes to another area of the ship and knocks on another door—when that is opened he lets the men inside there know that the taking over of the ship has commenced.  When Kramer and his people finally do erupt in action, it is daylight (they must have taken a while getting everybody coordinated)…but he and three other men burst onto the captain’s bridge with guns drawn, announcing that the two-bit Tarleton is now theirs.

Here’s where my theory of Don Winslow-as-craven-coward goes into action.  Winslow throws one, maybe two punches and then runs out of the bridge and down to the radio room.  He may be telling the operator to contact the 620 to move out (okay, he does) but when he runs back on deck he turns a corner and sees this:

Nothing there.  So he doubles back toward the radio room and what does he do?

He hides in a lifeboat.  Kramer and two of his goons arrive outside the lifeboat, and he instructs those guys to go to the radio room where…

…they end up killing the operator.  (That was a dangerous job to have onboard a ship in those days.)  Kramer meets the two men outside the radio room (where the lifeboat is not more than a few feet away) and instructs them to “tell Barsac it’s okay.”  Does the heroic Don Winslow emerge from his hiding place to take on Kramer once the two men have run off?  He does not.  For all I know he peed in his Navy whites.

The Z-37 submarine surfaces via stock footage, and Barsac and an identified man climb aboard the Tarleton.  They arrive at the radio room and upon seeing Kramer, Barsac congratulates him on his fine work.  Where is Winslow?  He’s still curled up in a fetal position in that damn lifeboat.

KRAMER: Everything went just as The Scorpion planned…

BARSAC: First we’ll transfer the gold to the Z-37…this ship is to be outfitted as a decoy for our submarines…I’m to take command, you know…

KRAMER (sounding as if he’s not entirely on board with this): Okay…commander…

Then the new radio operator whips around to tell Commander Barsac that “the 620 wants us to confirm Winslow’s message to come within hail”:

BARSAC: Winslow’s message?

RADIO MAN: That must have been the message the operator was sending when I shot him…

BARSAC (to the man who came with him): Go back to the sub…tell Ryker to remain on our starboard side and get ready for action…

Barsac then tells Radio Guy to confirm Winslow’s call…and to tell the 620 to come within hail on the port side…that way, when the destroyer comes within range Ryker “can nose around our bow and torpedo her.”  Barsac and Kramer head off to take over the wheel, Radio Guy sends the message…and Winslow remains hidden, paralyzed with fright.

The 620 gets the message to come within hail.  Splendor is pretty excited about being on board because now he gets to see destroyer blow shit up.  But Red teasingly tells him (and mocking his brogue): “Remember, Mikey boy…you’re only along by special permission.”  Mike sputters and fumes and says something about knocking him down.  Alas, he does not follow through with his threat.

What follows is more stock footage (God help us) and then a shot of Kramer, Barsac and two others on the bridge—with Barsac musing that once the destroyer gets closer the Z-37 is going to shoot at it like it’s on a target range.  Barsac and Kramer then announce they’re going to “man the main guns” to be on the safe side.  This is when Winslow decides to come out from his hiding place.  He traipses down to the bridge and with the help of his stuntman, knocks the two men out who were at the helm.  Don then takes over and maneuvers the ship in the direction of the Z-37 submarine.  With ramming speed, the Z-37 is soon blub-blub-blubbing its way to the bottom of the ocean floor.  Barsac, Kramer and two other men are busy picking themselves off the ground near the guns because the impact made them fall on their fee-fees.

“That rammed our sub!” Barsac cries out—but not to worry, they still have the guns to fire at the 620.  (Meanwhile, two goons have jumped Winslow on the bridge and are pummeling him senseless.)  Grady and the others are puzzled as to why the Tarleton is firing upon them while traveling full speed ahead (Red: “Something must have happened with Don!”).  Whether Don is aboard that ship or no, Grady passionately gives the order for the 620 to fire upon the Tarleton.

RED: But, sir…Commander Winslow’s aboard that ship!

GRADY: I know how you feel, Lieutenant…but it must be duty before friendship…

SPLENDOR (a reassuring hand on Red’s shoulder): Take it easy, Laddie…Don would want it that way, too, you know…

From what I’ve seen of Winslow’s valor in this chapter my guess is that he would want to be back in the States, sitting in the bleachers of a ballgame.  The 620 fires upon the Tarleton, and inside the ship’s bridge the ceiling collapses on Don and his challenger like they were characters in the 1940 Shadow serial…