Government Agents vs. Phantom Legion – Chapter 8: Sea Saboteurs

When we last looked in on Hal Duncan (Walter Reed)—Special Government Agent!—he was about to be fricasseed in a raging road fire started with the generous help of spilled gasoline and the maniacal machinations of henchman Regan (Dick Curtis).  As is so often the case in these life-and-death situations, Hal manages to avoid being cooked by simply exiting his vehicle at the right time.

Sadly, Hal pretty much incorporated this move when confronted with anything in his personal life.  For example, when his first wife demanded a divorce, Hal simply leapt from the car in which they were driving one day.

Chapter 8 kind of shakes things up because instead of the usual practice of following Duncan’s narrow escape with a spirited chinwag at the Interstate Truck Owners Association, the serial shows us the familiar Metz Building façade, indicating that Regan and his pal Cady (Fred Coby) are in conference with the criminal mastermind of this chapter play, a mysterious individual nicknamed The Voice.

REGAN: So we got away with the uranium all right…

VOICE: That’s something…but I won’t get paid for the uranium until it’s in the hands of the foreign government I’m selling it to…and exporting it may be difficult…

REGAN: Can’t you ship it out as you usually do?

VOICE: Perhaps…but Duncan is sure to be making a special effort to recover that uranium—so I don’t want to move it till I learn what his plans are…

REGAN: Well…maybe you can find out something at the Association meeting…

VOICE (holding up a device): I can’t count on that…so I’m going to plant a small radio, centered in the Association office...you stay here with your receiver open and note everything that comes over...

Genius!  And with that, we dissolve to the ITOA meeting—already in progress!  (For those of you just joining us…The Voice is one of four members of the ITOA: Armstrong (Pierce Lyden), Crandall (Arthur Space), Thompson (Mauritz Hugo) and Willard (George Meeker).  (But not Hal.  He’s the good guy.)

HAL: The loss of that uranium is very serious…the government needs it badly for the atomic bomb program…

Look!  A secret radio!  Please proceed…

CRANDALL: And some foreign country will be very glad to get it for the same purpose…

HAL: Of course…but we hope to be able to prevent that…

WILLARD: How?

HAL: Well, I’d rather not answer that now, Mr. Willard…

“I’m still waiting on the writers to finish up those pages.”

WILLARD: Yes, you’re quite right…I apologize…

ARMSTONG: Yes, it’s certainly none of our business…

So the meeting adjourns, and as Hal moves to confer privately with his gal Friday, Kay Roberts (Mary Ellen Kay)…

HAL: Oh, did you get that schedule of steamer sailings?

KAY (reaching into a drawer): Yes, here it is…

HAL: We have enough agents to cover all the ships and planes…

KAY: Won’t it be quite a job to inspect every shipment?

HAL: Well, that won’t be necessary…uranium is easily detected with a Geiger counter…so all the agent has to do is stand by with a counter while the cargo’s being loaded…

“That’s all we need to know,” bleats Regan to Cady as he switches off the receiver inside The Voice’s office.  “We’ll do our own shipping…come on!”  Back at the ITOA…

HAL: I’m going over to headquarters…I’ll check with you on the radio when I start back…

KAY: All right, Hal…

Kay says this line with a note of sadness, as if she’s grown weary of longing for Hal from afar and is upset with herself for not being more brazen in pursuing a relationship with him.  (She’s so lonely.)  Hal grabs his hat and strolls out, barely noticing the radio that’s hidden behind the objet d’art.  We then dissolve to our hero and his sidekick Sam Bradley (John Pickard) as they scope out the chickage in the Duncanmobile; they’ve put the top up this time because there’s no need in this chapter to match any automobile stock footage.  Hal then remembers he promised to check in with Kay, who’s probably bawling her eyes out right now.

HAL (to Kay): Everything okay?

KAY: Yes, all the checkpoints have checked out…

(There is suddenly just static from Kay’s end)

HAL (examining the radio): Something blew out…

SAM: Try another station!  (Hal punches buttons and random music is heard)  Our receiver’s okay…must be something wrong with Kay’s set…

HAL: Or else something happened to Kay!  Get going!

“Pedal to the metal, my good man!  That’s the woman I love and whom I plan to marry at the end of this thing!  I’ll never forgive myself if something were to happen to her!”  The two men speed down random streets until they reach the outside of the Interstate Block building, and upon entering the ITOA offices discover that…Kay’s just fine!  (“Forget about what I said in the car—okay, Sam?”)

HAL: What’s wrong, Kay?

KAY: I don’t know!  The set just cut out!

HAL: Yeah, it sounds like a loose connection…maybe it’s in the circuit…or the antenna…

“Or any of those other big radio words I memorized.”  So Hal starts snooping around the back of the radio gear to see if he can locate the trouble, and having no luck there moves over to the bookcase to check out the back…and then he spots the problem…

…hel-lo, little listening device!  Placing a finger to his lips, Hal takes the radio into the other room and closes the door behind him.  If the room he’s in now is soundproof, I’m sure those naughty bad guys will no longer be able to hear any conversations between him and Kay.

SAM: What was it, Hal?

HAL: A miniature radio transmitter…

KAY: You mean—somebody’s been overhearing everything that’s been said in here?

HAL: That’s right!

“Including an hour ago, when I was making…er, taking dictation from Mr. Armstrong?”

SAM: But how in the world did it get in here?

HAL: I don’t know…someone could have broken in last night and planted it…well, the important thing is that the crooks must have heard that we’re gonna check all foreign cargos with Geiger counters…

KAY: So what will they do about it?

HAL: Well, they’ll know they can’t get the uranium out through any regular shipping channels…they’ll have to try some other way…about the only other way they could do it would be to charter a private plane or boat and smuggle it off to some foreign steamer offshore…come on, Sam!

So Hal and Sam leap into action by checking all the boat and plane charter services, suggested in some footage featuring the two men visiting various points throughout the city.  They eventually wind up at a boat yard, where they encounter this individual, who answers to “Payne”:

The gentleman is Eddie Parker, a preeminent stuntman who—like the previously discussed Dale Van Sickel in Chapter 7—was often called upon to play small parts in serials so the filmmakers could save a nickel or two and not have to hire an additional actor.  Parker was the stunt double for Lewis Wilson in the 1943 chapter play Batman while playing a henchman named Holt in the 1949 “sequel,” Batman and Robin; he also turns up in two Bud & Lou films, Abbott & Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1953; he plays Hyde while Boris Karloff is Jekyll) and Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy (1955).  (He’s Costello in that one.  No, I’m kidding—he’s the Mummy.)  That's Eddie on the left, by the way, in Tarantula (1955).

HAL: You in charge here?

PAYNE: Yes…what can I do for you?

HAL (flashing his badge): Government Agent…

“So whaddya want, a cookie?”

HAL: We’re trying to check up on some smugglers…you do much chartering?

PAYNE: Some…mostly fishing parties…I gotta couple out today…I’m sure they’re okay…however, you can check ‘em when they come in…

HAL: I’m more interested in night trips…

PAYNE: Oh, there’s never anything doing around here at nights…

Yoo hoo!  Mr. Payne!  There’s a chalkboard behind you that reads “No. 3 – 9 P.M.”!  That’s nighttime, big fella!  And as might be guessed, it didn’t escape the notice of Government Agent Duncan, who remarks upon it to Sam once the two of them have completed the interview and headed back to their car.  “We’ll pick up your car and you can go out to the airport,” Hal explains to Sam.  “I’ll come back here and check up on this place tonight.”

Nightfall, and Hal has returned to the charter service.  (Not affiliated with the cable company of the same name, by the way.)  He observes from a distance that two greasy hoods have joined up with Sailor Payne, and they answer to “Regan” and “Cady.”

PAYNE: Got the stuff?

REGAN: Yeah, it’s in the station wagon…

PAYNE: Well, you might as well get it aboard…

HAL: Get your hands up and turn around!

And that’s the signal for The Republic Slugfest™, which gets off to an interesting start because Payne pulls on something that resembles a rug (I couldn’t make out the details of what it was), sending Hal flat on his ass…

…and here we see Regan throwing a stick of furniture that could be an end table—did they bring in a decorator or something?  (“Just because this is a boatyard doesn’t mean it has to look tacky!”)

Hal puts up a good struggle but since he’s taking on three guys—and this is a Republic serial, not Columbia—he will eventually be subdued in the ass-kicking.

REGAN: Gimme that knife!

PAYNE: Wait a minute…I don’t want any killings around here…if you want to get rid of him, you can dump him when we get out to sea…

REGAN: All right…gimme a hand with him…

So the villains take the unconscious Hal onto their boat, and a scene dissolve finds the Lydecker brothers earning their keep with a model of a boat streaking across the water (Hal, tied up, has finally comes to).  Payne informs Regan and Cady that the steamer that will meet up with them is twelve miles offshore, so he switches on the radio to see what the Coast Guard has to say.  “Attention, all Coast Guard patrols,” intones a dispatcher.  “An unidentified steamer is reported standing by twelve miles off the breakwater…be on the lookout for any shore craft trying to contact her.”  (The voice of the dispatcher, in case it sounds familiar, belongs to none other than The Baddest Serial Villain of Them All: Mr. Roy Barcroft.)

REGAN: Hey, that could be a bad break for us…

PAYNE: Yeah…they catch up with us, we could be outta luck…

Surprise!  You’re on Coast Guard Camera!  Caught in the Coast Guard’s searchlight, Payne opens up the throttle and attempts to pull away while the men on board the ship start firing at the bad guys’ vessel.  Payne orders Cady to grab a nearby rifle so he can shoot out the light—and Cady hands it to Regan because apparently Mr. R is a better shot.

Regan succeeds in shooting out the searchlight, but has failed to reckon with the dogged determination of Government Agent Duncan to loosen his bonds; Hal gets free and seizes the right moment to go after Regan and his weapon…

…a skirmish breaks out on the boat, and again Hal is pummeled senseless.  “Tie him up again and put him over the side before that cutter picks us up,” Regan orders Cady.  But the fog that was helping to camouflage their craft is thinning out, allowing the Coast Guard to fire on the boat and killing Payne in the process…

…the steering wheel starts spinning out of control, and if you listen closely, you can hear someone humming the theme to Gilligan’s Island.  Okay, I’m just jinkin’ ya…but no one to man the helm and the Guard getting their shooting on, it looks as if Regan and Cady will have to swim for it.  They go over the side, leaving the unconscious Hal Duncan to his own devices!

Hal!  Look out for that stock footage from Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. (1941)!  (Chapter 7 – “Sea Racketeers.”)