Government Agents vs. Phantom Legion – Chapter 2: The Stolen Corpse

Here’s what I love about the Republic serials…they don’t require me to transcribe the lengthy (and often patently false) recaps dictated by the Universal chapter plays.  The above Hal infographic is all we need to know about what went down last week.

The Hal is, of course, Hal Duncan (Walter Reed)—a mild mannered trucking company owner who’s been elevated to the post of Special Government Agent simply because he knows a few people.  (Meritocracy…feh!)  The screen cap does leave out the part that he was chasing Regan (Dick Curtis) and Cady (Fred Coby) via railroad handcars and that his mode of transportation just happened to be carrying some heavy-duty explodiating hand grenades that had been set on fire thanks to a leaky gasoline can and Regan’s Zippo.  But worry ye not—Hal jumped off the sidecar just in the nick of time to avoid being explodiated.

A little Neosporin and he’ll be right as rain.  Hal scampers back up a ladder and emerges from the trap door to join his sidekick, Sam Bradley (John Packard), who’s examining the body of some poor Coveralls Henchman that was shot and killed in the last chapter.

HAL: You okay?

SAM: Sure…what happened to you?

HAL: Plenty…I’ll tell you later…there’s a tunnel under here that looks like it might lead to the waterfront…I’m going to report to the police and then we’ll check on that tunnel…look around and see what else you can find…

“’Please’ would be nice.”  There’s a fade to black, and then the next scene establishes that we’re scheduled to attend a meeting of the Interstate Truck Owners Association in the historic Interstate Block building.  Present and accounted for are these four men…

…Armstrong (Pierce Lyden), Crandall (Arthur Space), Thompson (Mauritz Hugo) and Willard (George Meeker).  Taking down the notes for this meeting is the underappreciated girl Friday known as Kay Roberts (Mary Ellen Kay), whose dreams of finding a nice man while vacationing in Cancun have been dashed because she’s stuck playing stenographer to these jamokes.

HAL: …so I followed the tunnel to a small warehouse on the waterfront…but the two men had disappeared…

“Then I got a working-over from Johnny Friendly and some of his goons…”

ARMSTONG: Then the thieves must have shipping their loot out by water…probably to some enemy country…

THOMPSON: And it was all critical defense material…

Do hand grenades really constitute ‘critical defense material’?  I would think they would be cheap and plentiful…particularly if you shopped in Georgia, for example.

THOMPSON: …we must do something to break this up…did you find any clues as to the identity of the criminals?

HAL: No, the owner of the warehouse rented it out to the man that was killed…I couldn’t connect him with anyone else…however, I did find these papers…duplicates of our shipping schedules…

WILLARD: Well…that certainly proves that some of our employees are selling us out…

HAL: Yes, and I suggest in the future you keep your schedules as secret as possible…

“No one—not even the drivers—is to know the schedule…”

HAL: …and if you’ll notify me when you have an important shipment, I’ll try to protect it for you…

And thus endeth the meeting.  While the four suspects head out to go across the street to the local watering hole for a libation, Hal and Kay engage in some expository office banter.

KAY: Hal…how are you going to protect those shipments?

“With my brute strength, Kay…you see. I have a secret—I am not of your world…”

HAL: I’m going to set up checkpoints along the highways and schedules for every driver…if a truck fails to pass a checkpoint on time, it’ll be reported and we can go looking for it right away…

“Violators will be persecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

KAY: Well, that sounds practical…do you want to handle the reports through this office?

HAL: Yes…I’ll put in a two-way radio here…

Look, dude…just because you resemble Ralph Byrd doesn’t make you freaking Dick Tracy…

HAL: The checkpoints will report to you, and you can pass the information along to me…Sam and I will be cruising around in a patrol car so we can in action in a hurry…oh, better still—we’ll use an old jalopy so that they can’t spot us so easily…

KAY: That’s a better idea…

“And it’ll be so much easier to match the stock footage.”  I’m sure Kay is excited to take on all that extra work for which she will receive precious little recompense…but in the meantime, leave us journey to the Metz Building…

…where in an undisclosed office (that’s behind in its rent, by the way), the mysterious figure we call “The Voice” is issuing instructions to his lackeys, Regan and Cady.

VOICE: …Duncan is attempting to keep the shipment schedule secret…but of course I will always be able to obtain the necessary information…

“I’m that damn good.”

REGAN: What’s the next job?

VOICE: Some radar equipment…which I need to fill a foreign order…it will be coming in on Highway 17…and should be crossing the mountains between 10 and 12 tonight…

REGAN: Do you think they’ll be any extra guards?

VOICE: As far as I know, Duncan has made no arrangements for any…

Because Hal is undoubtedly thinking: “Heckfire, I can get the job done with just two guys.”  There’s a dissolve to a highway, where we find Hal and Sam tooling around in a woody emblazoned with “State Engineering Dept.” on the side.  (So much for not being spotted so easily.)

KAY (on radio): Calling Association Patrol…calling Association Patrol…

“Broderick Crawford starring in…Association Patrol!  Whenever the laws of any state are broken, a duly-authorized organization swings into action…it may be called the State Police…State Troopers…Militia…the Rangers…or the Association Patrol…these are the stories of the men whose training, skill and courage have enforced and preserved our state laws…”

HAL: Come in, Kay…

KAY: Armstrong’s number five is thirty minutes overdue at Stewart’s Corner checkpoint…

HAL: Right, Kay…we’ll look for it!

“To the Engineeringmobile, Sam!”

HAL: Number five was coming in on 17…if it was stolen, they’ll probably bring it through over Morgan Hill Road, Sam…head for there!

SAM: We’re on our way…that is, if this chariot you insist on using holds together…

And so our heroes make my job easier by filling up the chapter’s running time with stock footage of their wagon running along various highways—with Hal commenting “Something happened to that truck, all right, or we would have met it by now.”  Sam takes a turnoff on the right side of the road and Hal fortuitously spots the truck up ahead.

SAM: It ain’t gonna be easy to flag down that string of freight cars on this road…

HAL: Pull alongside that ladder…I’ll climb aboard!

“Or rather my stuntman will!”

Behind the wheel of the truck, Cady notices that Hal is hanging on the back of the rig, and mentions it to his pal Regan…who decides to send his extra outside for a look-see.

Hal and Regan have a display of fisticuffs on top of the rig, while Cady has fun with Sam, trying to run him off the road.

Cady eventually succeeds in his game of “chicken,” but in the process of running Sam into a ditch, he knocks both Hal and Regan off the top of the truck.  They land safely in the weeds—although there might be a skinned knee or two involved.  Sam leaps out of the wagon and runs over to check on his boss.

SAM: Well…we collected one of them, anyway…

HAL: Is the car wrecked?

SAM: No…we can push it back onto the road…what are we going to do with him?

HAL: Well, we’ll park him in the Mercer jail tonight…then I’ll take him in to the Association meeting tomorrow morning and see if any of them recognize him… (To Regan) Come on, on your feet…get going…

Knowing, of course, that if any of the ITOA did recognize him they would essentially be admitting they’re the head bad guy.  (Hal’s a decent sort…but dumber than a bag of hammers.)  There’s a fade, and we’re in another meeting again (how do those guys ever get anything done?).  But something is amiss…

KAY: I’m sorry to keep you waiting…but Mr. Duncan said he’d be here with the prisoner by ten o’clock…

See…I told there was a miss.  (Hey…if you think you can do better, come right up on stage.)  Thompson asks Kay where Hal kept the prisoner last night and she replies that Regan did his boardin’ with the warden at the Mercer jail.  There is then a dissolve to a car parked outside the rear entrance of a building marked “Mercer Hospital.”  Hal contacts Kay via that nifty two-way radio that he just had to have.

HAL: Our prisoner’s dead…he had some sort of pill hidden on him and he swallowed it as we were taking him out of jail…we rushed him to the hospital…but he passed out before they could do anything for him…

KAY: Are you coming back here, Hal?  The meeting’s waiting…

“What are you, my mother?”

HAL: Well, tell them I can’t possibly make it…I’m just leaving the hospital here in Mercer to go to the county seat and get the coroner…it’ll be the middle of the afternoon before I can get away…

KAY: All right, Hal…

Hey—this means the bar is open early for a change!  “Well, there’s nothing more we can do here,” observes Armstrong as another riveting ITOA meeting adjourns.  Meanwhile…back at the Metz Building…a nervous Cady paces in front of the mirror that oh-so-cleverly conceals…The Voice!

VOICE: I’ve located Regan…

CADY: Where is he?

VOICE: He’s in the hospital in Mercer…he took one of the M6 pills…they think he’s dead…

CADY: Well, we can get him out of there, all right…

VOICE: Yes, but you’ll have to move fast…phone Miller and tell him to meet you down at…

The Voice trails off because there’s a dissolve to a hospital assistant (Jay Merrick) helping two men roll a gurney towards their vehicle.  Those two men, disguised as paramedics, are Cady and Miller (Joe Phillips)!  They pull back the sheet to make sure they have Regan, and then load him into the back of the van.  (I imagine the Mercer Hospital board of directors will be calling a meeting soon to discuss the lax security procedures.)

No sooner have Cady and Miller made off with “the stolen corpse” when Hal pulls up in his jalopy with the coroner (George Lloyd) in tow.

ATTENDANT: Why, I didn’t expect you, sir…the men from the morgue said that you told them to bring the body to you…and they just left with it!

CORONER: What?!! I did no such thing!

HAL: I’d better stop that morgue wagon!  Which way did it go?

ATTENDANT (pointing): East—along the highway!

If you had told me many years back that I’d eventually watch a movie with the line of dialogue “I’d better stop that morgue wagon!”—I probably wouldn’t have believed you.  Hal gets in his car and he’s off in pursuit of the bad guys.  Down the road a ways, Cady is soaking some cotton with a substance (probably ammonia) that revives his pal Regan.

REGAN: Where are we?

CADY: On a mountain road outside of Mercer…we got away okay…

Au contraire, mon frere!  The doggedly determined Hal Duncan—Special Government Agent—is hot on your tail, and is catching up to you as you speak!

I think the above screen cap is a riot.  You can almost hear Regan say: “Cady my man…that M6 pill gave me the best sleep I’ve had in years…but this morning I feel like I spent all night at a fraternity kegger.”

Naturally, the two men notice that they are being followed by Hal…and they open the back doors of the vehicle to fire shots at him, which he returns in kind.  There’s a little more stunt driving…both men run out of ammo…so Regan and Cady toss the stretcher out the back doors and it rolls into Hal’s path…

…causing him to swerve and wind up in a cliffhanger right out of the 1947 serial The Black Widow (Chapter 2—also titled “The Stolen Corpse”)!