Government Agents vs. Phantom Legion – Chapter 7: Flaming Highway

  
Serial Saturdays rolls on with another chapter in the pulse-pounding serial Big Gubmint Agents vs. Phantom Legion (1951), which left off last week with the possibility of Hal Duncan (Walter Reed)—Special Government Agent!—cashing in his chips after being trapped behind the wheel of an explosives-filled truck headed for the humble domicile of trucking company owner Crandall (Arthur Space).

"Hannh?"

Fortunately for Hal, he was able to smash the little remote control device on the dashboard of the truck, which allowed him to steer away from the house and into a garage that blowed up real good.  And for good measure, Duncan leapt from the vehicle in the nick of time, saving his own fool neck.

A further explanation of these shenanigans is offered up by Hal at the next Interstate Truck Owners Association meeting, with Crandall, Armstrong (Pierce Lyden), Thompson (Mauritz Hugo) and Willard (George Meeker) in attendance (and the lovely Kay Roberts [Mary Ellen Kay] on steno pad!)…

HAL: I was able to smash part of the control unit so I could keep the truck from hitting Mr. Crandall’s house…

“Yes…I am awesome!”

HAL: …but I couldn’t stop it from hitting the garage…

CRANDALL: You did all right…you saved me and my family from being blown to bits…

“My mechanic, on the other hand…well, I’ve arranged for his family in Hidalgo del Parral to collect his last paycheck…”

THOMPSON: You were very fortunate…but you may not be so lucky the next time if you insist on trying to handle all of the government trucking orders yourself…

CRANDALL: I don’t intend to be intimidated!

ARMSTRONG: How about the risk to your family?

“You’ve got a nice family here, Crandall…be a shame if anything were to happen to them…”

HAL: I’m afraid they’re right, Mr. Crandall…it’s obvious that this gang of hijackers will stop at nothing…and I don’t think it’s fair to ask you to face all the danger alone…

“What part about ‘squeezing out my competition’ do you not get, Duncan?”

CRANDALL: How else are you going to keep these critical shipments moving?

HAL: Well, I think it’s worthwhile trying my system of giving each of you sealed shipping orders as late as possible…

WILLARD: Well, we tried keeping our schedules secret before…but…uh…the information always seems to leak out…

Could it be because one of these gentlemen is in actuality…The Voice?  (Music sting)

HAL: But my method will at least make it easier to find the leak…for instance—if one of your cargos is hijacked, we’ll know the trouble is in your organization and we can act accordingly…it’ll make each of you more or less responsible for policing your own organization…

“If that’s the case…why the hell are you still on the government agent payroll?”  Armstrong, who always seems a bit too eager to sign onto Hal’s latest hair-brained scheme, announces he’s in and the others reluctantly follow suit.  Naturally, it does not take long before news of these developments wafts its way to the Metz Building…the home office of The Voice, who is in conference with his henchmen Regan (Dick Curtis) and Cady (Fred Coby)…

VOICE: …as long as Duncan’s system of sealed orders is in operation, it will be very difficult for me to learn when any of the cargos we want are being shipped by any of the other companies…

REGAN: Can’t you lift stuff from some of your own trucks?

VOICE: Occasionally…but I wouldn’t dare do it too often…and, if I’m to keep filling my foreign orders, I must have a steady supply of critical materials from the government stockpile…

CADY: Looks like we’d better get rid of Duncan…

VOICE: We will…and at the same time, secure a supply of refined uranium which I need…one of Thompson’s drivers is on my payroll—he’ll let me know when the uranium is being shipped…you’ll have no trouble taking over the truck…but Duncan is sure to be keeping a check on it…

Zut alors!  This serial just got more…okay, it’s still as dull as dishwater.  We fade in on the familiar sedan of Regan and Cady’s accompanying a delivery truck as the two vehicles meander down a road, stopping when they reach a station wagon where another henchman in The Voice’s employ, Kirk (Duke Taylor), has apparently been waiting.  The driver of the truck answers to “Brice,” and is played by veteran stuntman Dale Van Sickel, whose resume of serials, B-Westerns and other Hollywood movies would consume more than the amount of bandwidth allotted for us here at Rancho Yesteryear.  Van Sickel, born in Eatonton, GA (a leisurely drive up the road from our present location here in Athens, and at one time home to sister Kat during her 4-H camp days at Camp Rock Eagle), was one of the founding members of the Motion Pictures Stuntmen’s Association and served as its first president; because Dale was capable of stringing a few words together in their proper sequence he also had a number of acting parts in Republic serials, thus allowing the studio to save a few bucks by combining the jobs of both actor and stuntman.

BRICE: Okay…she’s all yours…

REGAN: Good…but we’re not through with you yet…where’s the stuff?

BRICE: Right on the back of the load…

REGAN: Uh…give us a hand with it…

The four men reconnoiter to the back of the truck, which is opened up and boxes plainly marked “Uranium” are carried to the station wagon.  Regan then tells Kirk to “get movin’” with the wagon.

REGAN (to Brice): Now you’ll start pulling out and pull over onto 29…if nobody stops ya, go right on in to the Third Street warehouse…

BRICE: Look…I don’t want to get into this too deep…I can say I was just hijacked and stay in the clear—but if I start…

REGAN (interrupting): You’ll do what you’re told!  Now we’ll trail along behind you just in case you do get into any trouble…get goin’…

Brice gives both thugs an “I’m-not-going-to-make-it-out-of-this-chapter-alive” look, and the three men get into their assigned vehicles.  “That guy’s liable to make trouble,” observes Cady.

“So what?” answers Regan.  “We don’t need him anymore—if he wants to start anything, we’ll finish it.”  Blind loyalty is clearly a highly-prized attribute at Voice Ltd.

A screen wipe reveals Hal and his useless flunky Sam Bradley (John Pickard) tooling around in the Duncanmobile…curiously, the top is down on the vehicle—which suggests that either it’s a nice day (“Let’s go on a picnic!” Sam suggested) or it’s necessary to match the stock footage used later in the chapter.  As the two men make like Tod and Buz, they get a call over the office radio from dutiful Kay, probably suicidal about not being invited to the picnic.

KAY: Thompson’s Number Six is fifteen minutes overdue at Bentley’s checking station…

HAL: Right, Kay…we’ll look into it…

SAM: Maybe he just blew a tire…

Never lose that cheery optimism, Samuel.

HAL: Maybe…but that truck was carrying a lot of dollars of refined uranium…so we gotta be sure…

SAM: Okay…where to?

HAL: Well, if the hijackers try to run it into town, 29 is the only turn-off they could have made…

SAM: We’re on our way…

If Hal’s so freaking smart, how come he hasn’t put the hammer down on The Voice’s operation by now?  It’s not like he’s dealing with mental giants here.  A dissolve brings us back to the bad guys’ sedan, and looking back, Regan observes that “Here comes somebody burnin’ up the road.”  There’s an amusing moment as both he and Cady kind of scrunch down in their seats to keep from being noticed by Hal and Sam until they drive past.

CADY: That was Duncan, all right…

REGAN: Yeah…this is workin’ out fine…just trail along easy till we see what happens…

Hal and Sam eventually spot Brice’s truck on one of the turns ahead, and Sam is all for stopping him—but super smart Government Brain Hal suggests that they hold back: “This is our chance to find out where there taking the stolen stuff.”  They elect to “trail along easy” as well.

“What if he trails him to the warehouse?” asks Cady in the other car.  “That’s all right, too,” says Regan with finality.  “We can take care of them there the same as any place.”  A bit more footage of the three vehicles and some dramatic music eventually results in another dissolve that finds Brice’s truck reaching its Third Street Warehouse destination, and he eases the truck inside.  Hal and Sam arrive on the scene shortly thereafter, and make their way to the inside of the building with guns at the ready.

HAL (yelling at Brice): Take it easy!  (Brice puts his hands up) What’d you come in here for?  Is that uranium still in your truck?

BRICE: No…I was hijacked…

HAL: Hijacked?  Well, why didn’t you report it to the police?

BRICE: Because I’m in a jam…I got tangled up with…

Shots ring out, and Brice slumps to the warehouse floor, dead.  During their brief conversation, Regan and Cady stealthily made their way to the warehouse, too, and have plugged the driver to keep him from revealing any information.  There is then some extended gunplay between the good guys and bad guys, both of whom are apparently hiding behind bulletproof boxes.  One of them falls and hits Sam on the head, sending him to the floor, at the exact same moment Regan’s gun is shot out of his hand.  With Cady out of ammo, a tactical retreat is quickly brought to the floor for a vote and passed with unanimous consent.

“I’m okay,” Sam assures Hal, who lets his buddy know that he’s going after The Voice’s goons.  He manages to fire off a couple of shots at the fleeing vehicle, one of which pierces the car’s gas tank, sending a torrent of gas flooding to the ground and providing an ideal trail for Hal to follow.

Honestly, the hole he made in that gas tank—you would have thought he was packing a Howitzer.  Here’s another unintentionally funny development:

Yes, Hal loses his hat driving after the two henchies.  Since Republic was known far and wide for the ability of its characters to engage in fistfights without losing their fedoras (a bit of movie magic accomplished by an elastic strap on the hats that were undetectable under their chins), Hal’s hat loss seems to suggest that it was no mere coincidence: we’ve got stock footage to match.

During their flight, the villains’ car begins to sputter…and realizing they’re running out of gas, Regan orders Cady to pull into a Teasdale Brothers for some fuel.  (Probably because they give out green stamps.)  A helpful station attendant (Richard Grant) points out the hole in their tank, and quickly sizing up the situation, Regan and Cady decree that they’ll commandeer a nearby fuel truck.

“You can’t do that!” protests the attendant, but Regan assures him that they’ll-do-whatever-they-damn-well-please-thank-you-very-much.  They speed off with their ill-gotten vehicle, and seconds later Hal pulls in after spotting the sedan by the pumps.

HAL: Hey—what happened to the men in that car?

ATTENDANT: They took my gas truck and pulled out!

HAL (speeding off): Thanks!

A dissolve finds Regan and Cady moseying along a mountain road…but the size of their vehicle is a slight hindrance in getting up anything resembling speed.  Matters are further complicated when Cady looks back to see that Hal has not given up on the chase.

CADY: He’s still after us…we can’t outrun him with this load…

REGAN: Here…I’ll fix that…you take the wheel…

Regan scampers up on top of the fuel truck and makes his way to the back of the moving vehicle.  He opens a valve on the back of the tank, allowing the precious contents (average price: $3.65 a gallon as of this writing) to spill on the highway below.  He then grabs a rag (conveniently on the back of the truck) and lights it up with his trusty Zippo—then drops it onto the highway where it lights up like my mother’s face during a visit with the grandkids.  (He does have the good sense to turn off the gas spigot—though I’m curious as to why the lighted rag bit didn’t boomerang back on him like Wile E. Coyote.)

As Hal rounds a turn, he sees a wall of flame headed right for him.  His last thoughts are no doubt: “I recognize this from Chapter Four of Mysterious Dr. Satan (“The Human Bomb”)!”