Government Agents vs. Phantom Legion – Chapter 9: Peril Underground

Last time on (Big) Government Agents vs. Phantom Legion, our hero, Hal Duncan (Walter Reed)—Special Government Agent!—was taken on a little maritime excursion over the bounding main by bad guys Regan (Dick Curtis) and Cady (Fred Coby)…with a little help from their sailor pal Payne (Eddie Parker).  Payne ends up being riddled with bullets from the gun of this slightly overzealous Coast Guard guy…

…seriously, I wasn’t aware that the Coast Guard was that gung-ho.  To avoid contracting a severe case of dead like their buddy, Regan and Cady hop off the vessel…and it naturally follows that Hal, having avoided confrontation at every turn simply by figuratively abandoning ship, would literally head for the briny deep seconds before the Coast Guard cutter rams the boat.

 

Chapter 9 is an unusual episode in that it doesn’t feature a meeting of the Interstate Truck Owners Association—instead, Hal regales ITOA secretary Kay Roberts (Mary Ellen Kay) with edge-of-your-seat details of his narrow sea escape.

HAL: The cutter picked me and we looked around for Regan and Cady…but we never found them…

KAY (looking at a newspaper on her desk): Maybe this explains why…”Two unidentified men were picked up by a fishing boat just outside the harbor last night…they refused to explain what happened to them and disappeared as soon as they were landed…”

Must not be a lot of news for the papers to cover in that town.

HAL: Well, that’s probably the answer…so we’ll be having trouble with them again…

KAY: Are there any more important shipments scheduled?

HAL: Just routine stuff…nothing the hijackers would be interested in…say…I’ve got an idea…

Hal’s cunning plan involves the listening device planted at the ITOA in Chapter 8, which has apparently been sitting in an adjoining room all this time—yet is still working away, eavesdropping on casual conversations.  I’m sure this will come as a surprise to Hal’s sidekick, Sam Bradley (John Pickard), who took one of the cleaning crew into that room for a little “what-have-you,” if you know what I mean…and I think you do.  Hal decides to give his nemeses a little something to do, and without further ado we present a little production by The Interstate Truck Owners Association Players.

HAL: Good morning, Kay…

KAY: Hello, Hal…anything important today?

“Yes, Kay…I’ve fallen in love with another secretary, so collect your two weeks’ severance and have your desk emptied by noon.”  Regan and Cady listen to the rest of this counterfeit charade via a radio in The Voice’s office.

HAL: Yes, I have to prepare shipping instructions for another consignment of uranium…

KAY: Same usual sealed orders?

HAL: No, we’re going to try something different this time…we’ve had the uranium packed in dummy boxes marked ‘soap powder’—we’re going to bring it in as ordinary cargo…

KAY: Oh, I see…and…who’s going to haul it?

HAL: Well, give it to Armstrong…just make out a regular shipping order and have him bring it in on his number seven truck over Highway 26 tomorrow morning…I’ll take the orders over myself…goodbye!

KAY: Goodbye, Hal…

Bro…ther.  As corny as this plays out, Regan and Cady take the bait.

CADY: They sure laid it on the line for us…

REGAN: Yep!  That’s all we need to know—the boss will pay plenty for that uranium!

The henchman hurry out of their office as Hal gingerly places the device back into the spare room.  “Well, I hope someone was listening in to appreciate our little act,” says Kay breathily.

“Well, if they were—they’ll certainly get a surprise when they stick up that truck tomorrow!” says Hal in a celebratory tone.  Since Regan and Cady are real rats, they’re naturally attracted to the cheese in the trap—which, in a dissolve, is in the form of a truck being driven by a nondescript guy named “Joe.”  Regan and Cady force the truck to the side of the road and order Joe at gunpoint to open up the back.

Surprise!  “This is the soap powder you’re looking for, boys,” crows Sam, “but I don’t think you want it.  It really is soap!”  Haha, it’s a joke because the two thugs are dirty.  Hal and Sam disarm Regan and Cady, and Joe is told to be on his way (he’s probably relieved that he’s not going to die in this chapter).  Hal and Sam will take charge of their prisoners in their own Bad Guy Sedan.

HAL: Hold it…well, I see that you have a radio…can you get in touch with your boss?

“And is he hiring?”

HAL: Well, think it over…you two have got an awful lot of charges against you to be taking the whole rap alone…

REGAN (after a pause): What’s the deal?

“Pretty much how all our deals operate…volume, volume, volume!”  Hal orders Regan to get on the horn and contact The Voice—to let him know they’ll meet the Head Bad Dude at the same barn from Chapter 5 (the one where Kay was kidnapped).

REGAN (with mike in hand): Calling V-317…calling V-317…

VOICE: Come in, Regan…

REGAN: We got the uranium but…it doesn’t look like the real stuff…

“Looks more like solium—it could be Rinso, for all I know…”

REGAN: …you better come out and look it over…

VOICE: You want me to come out from here?

REGAN: Yeah, you’d better…this is very important…

VOICE: Very well…where will I meet you?

The Voice is given instructions to head out to The Barn, and no sooner does he over-and-out with Regan than he contacts another one of his men, Barnett.  Barnett is played by Eddie Dew, a B-western veteran who also appeared in such serials as King of the Texas Rangers (1941) and G-Men vs. the Black Dragon (1943).

VOICE: Calling R-46…calling R-46…

BARNETT: Barnett speaking…come in…

VOICE: Regan’s in trouble…I don’t know just what’s wrong…but he asked me to meet him at the old barn on Oak Mountain Road…he knows I never allow myself to be seen, so he must have been forced to call…

“I never venture out in the daylight.  I freckle easily, you understand.”  Barnett is ordered to drive out to the barn and investigate.  A dissolve finds Barnett arriving near the barn, where he quickly spots the Duncanmobile—meanwhile, our heroes are holding the other two goons captive inside.  Upon reaching Hal’s car, Barnett pulls out his gun and fires one shot into the air.  Hal runs to a window in the barn to investigate.

SAM: What’s up?

HAL: I don’t know…I can’t see from here…I’m going out the back door—watch ‘em…

Doubling back to the front of the barn, Hal spots Barnett and orders him to come out in the open.  Barnett responds by shooting at Hal, and an outbreak of gunfire commences.  Inside the barn, Sam goes over to the window to get a better look.  As Hal manages to kill Barnett, the unsuspecting Sam is hit with something Regan found on the floor of the barn, and the useless Bradley falls to the floor unconscious.  Grabbing Sam’s gun, Regan and Cady wait for Hal to return by hiding behind the barn door.  Hal enters and is immediately disarmed.

REGAN: Okay, copper…we’re taking over…

“I’m no flatfoot—I’m a Special Government Agent, and don’t you forget it!”

REGAN: Now you’re gonna get a chance to meet our real boss…he’ll be glad to get some information about your government shipping schedules…get goin’!

HAL: What about my friend?

REGAN: He can take care of himself when he comes to…

“I got news for you—he can’t take care of himself when he’s conscious!”  This development of the henchies taking Hal to meet the REAL boss is sort of interesting, however, because you’d think they could have done this earlier instead of waiting until the ninth chapter.  Think of all the time this would have saved.  We could have had a nice dinner, maybe take in a movie…

So having put the snatch on Hal, the baddies are forcing him at gunpoint to drive their sedan…and here’s where things get a little odd.  (Clearly, screenwriter Ronald Davidson was at a loss as to how to bridge the new material with the stock footage at the end of this one.)  Looking around, Duncan puts pedal to metal and begins driving like a drunken maniac, terrifying the sh*t out of Regan and Cady in the back seat.

REGAN: Slow down, Duncan—you’ll kill us all!

HAL: Why not?  I’m a dead duck anyway, so I might as well take you along with me!

Yikes!  The pressures of being a Special Government Agent! have clearly got to Hal, and in his suicidal state he enacts such darn fool craziness as driving up this embankment…

…and then down the other side…

He’s a wild man, I tell you!

CADY: What’s the deal?

HAL: Drop your guns here in the front seat!

So they…drop their guns in the front seat.  (I swear I’m not making this up.)  Hal does a bit more crazy driving, with the sound of squealing tires being drowned out by the rolling of the audience’s eyeballs.  He eventually comes to a stop, and directing Regan and Cady to get out of the car, the two goons will now be taking in some fresh air with a brisk hike…with Hal following close behind in the car.

They go a-walkin’ a little ways, and then Regan shouts out “Now!”  The two bad guys run down an embankment into the woods, with Hal apparently deciding not to shoot them right in that instant (even though he had his pistola drawn) because it wouldn’t be sporting, old sock.

Regan and Cady run through scenery we’ve seen in a hundred serials, and luckily stumble onto a cave.  They duck inside, and with more idiotic scripting from Davidson more fool luck, find that it’s actually an ore mine.

REGAN (coming to a stop): Wait…

REGAN: …the doors are closed—that means the ore dump’s loaded…we’ll fix Duncan…here…let’s dump this car over and block the tunnel…

Tipping over a mine car, the two men then attach a handy rope (hell, everything in this serial has been handy) to the lever that opens the ore dump’s doors…and then lie in wait for Hal to come blundering in.  He does not disappoint them, having to use stock footage from King of the Forest Rangers (1946) (Chapter 4, “Deluge of Destruction”).