Government Agents vs. Phantom Legion – Chapter 12: Blazing Retribution

Curiously, I thought with this being the final chapter in our Serial Saturdays presentation of (Big) Government Agents vs. Phantom Legion, there would be much whooping and cheering and jumping for joy.  But when I went to the space on the shelf where I keep this prime piece of chapter play fromage, fans had already started a memorial with flowers and those irresistible stuffed teddy bears.  Needless to say, I was noticeably moved.

Last week, we witnessed Hal Duncan (Walter Reed)—Special Government Agent!—plummeting from a window of the offices of The Voice, LLC…pushed out said opening by the evil henchman known as Regan (Dick Curtis) after Hal engaged Regan and his toady Cady (Fred Coby) in a spirited display of Republic fisticuffs, assisted by his sidekick Sam Bradley (John Pickard).  Since Hal cannot exercise his usual option of leaping to safety—because, technically, he’s already taken a leap—we can only wait for the eventual sickening splat of him hitting the pavement, his pointy head crushed like a ripe melon.

Hokey smoke, Bullwinkle!  Seconds before Hal is to hit the asphalt like bird droppings, a truck pulls out from the service entrance at the Metz Building and breaks his fall!  Unfortunately, those boxes contain broken glass…so Duncan will be cut to ribbons.  No, I’m just kidding about that.  Hal climbs down from the truck bed as several gawking spectators gather around—one of whom (Gene Christopher) asks “Are you hurt, Mister?”

“Well, actually...if you would say that a man with an ulcer had a nail in his shoe and a splinter in his finger, was then struck by lightning…if you could say that that man was not hurt, then yes, you would say I'm not hurt.”  Hal has emerged with nary a scratch, but he directs the concerned spectator to find a policeman and send him up to Room 511—the offices of The Voice!  Meanwhile, back in Room 511…

VOICE (over intercom): Regan!  Get out at once—the police will be here any minute!  Go to the underground warehouse and finish that hidden vault job!  Take the intercom with you!

You know, I don’t know why Hal and Sam didn’t just stake out that hidden warehouse in the first place—they know its location—and wait for the crooks to eventually return…except that I really do know; then this serial would have been twenty minutes long.  Regan and Cady do as they’re instructed and exit the office while The Voice makes tracks through his exit in the adjoining office.

A dissolve later and Hal and Sam are giving Room 511 a going-over as a policeman (Frank O’Connor) observes standing close by.

SAM: Hey, Hal… (Showing him a file thick with papers) This is all I could find…

HAL: Well, it doesn’t look like much…but I’ll take ‘em back to the office and look ‘em over… (To the policeman) You’d better stand by until the detectives get here—they’ll want to check for fingerprints…

POLICEMAN: Yes, sir!

“Guy must think he’s some sort of Special Government Agent, ordering me around like that…”  As Hal and Sam depart the crime scene, we then fade to the Interstate Block building—home of the Interstate Truck Owners Association offices.  Hal addresses the members of that august body—Armstrong (Pierce Lyden), Crandall (Arthur Space), Thompson (Mauritz Hugo) and Willard (George Meeker)…

HAL: The papers we found were just copies of shipping schedules…a few bills and receipts…mostly for car rentals and repairs…there was nothing that will be of much help except to prove that the place was headquarters for the hijacking gang…

ARMSTRONG: But you didn’t find anything to prove that the mastermind you think is running the gang had ever even been there…

HAL: No, I didn’t…

“Thanks again for reminding me what an abject failure I’ve been.”

HAL: …in fact, the place looked more like a waiting room than a regular office…the only thing that I can figure out is that Regan and Cady simply stayed in that room until they got their orders by phone or radio…

CRANDALL: So you still have no clue to who or where the real leader is…

HAL: No…

“Again—thanks for the confidence booster…dickhead.”

THOMPSON: Which means you’ve made no progress whatever…and we still don’t dare haul any critical supplies for the government…

“Look—do you want to be the Special Government Agent for a while?  Because I’m kind of fed up with having to leap from moving vehicles, if you must know…”

HAL: Well, it isn’t quite that bad…the gang has been disorganized enough that it will certainly take them some time to get into operation again…so, I think we can go on with our shipments safely…

Hal passes out the shipping orders and schedules to the owners as the meeting adjourns.  “Aren’t you being a little careless handing out these orders when you still think one of us is the master criminal?” asks Armstrong huffily.

“As long as I’m the government agent in charge, I’ll continue to handle this case in my own way, Mr. Armstrong!” retorts Hal sharply.  Temper, temper!  Fortunately, Hal’s gal Friday Kay Roberts (Mary Ellen Kay)—who pines secretly for her boss—is there with a gin-and-tonic as big as his head.

KAY: Is this thing as hopeless as it seems?

The serial, or the fact that Hal’s just not that into you…?

HAL: Well, not quite… (Removing some papers from his pocket) I didn’t mention it at the meeting, but I found this among the other papers in that office…

KAY: Why—it seems to be a diagram or some kind of construction…

HAL: That’s right…and from the outline, it’s that cave from under the warehouse where we found all that stolen equipment…

KAY: You mean they’re using it again?

HAL: Well…there was no recess like that in the wall when we were there before…they must have just put it in…

KAY: Sounds reasonable…

“And they did a little painting…got some new furniture…that rug that they bought really ties the warehouse together…”  Hal thinks it’s worth looking into—hey, he’s got to do something to justify his phony-baloney job—so he and Sam are going to mosey on over and check things out.

KAY: If they’re using that place—it’s sure to be guarded…

HAL: So we’ll sneak in the back way through that tunnel from the waterfront…

KAY: Be careful, Hal…

“’Careful’ is my middle name, sweetcheeks.”  And with a dissolve, we find our heroes tooling along the streets of the city on their way to the waterfront…then another dissolve puts them in the underground tunnel.  In an adjacent area, Regan and Cady stop to admire their handiwork.

REGAN: Well, that looks okay—nobody will ever suspect there’s a vault in back of that wall…now let’s get this land mine hooked up again…

Explosives!  A sure sign that something is going to blow up real good soon, I’ll bet.  “You sure this mine isn’t too strong?” Cady questions his partner.  “Could blow up the whole place.”  (That’s why Howard and Theodore Lydecker are on the payroll, numbnuts.)  “Nah, but it will sure take care of anyone who comes prowling around the vault,” assures Regan.

As Hal and Sam continue down the tunnel for the eventual showdown with the big, bad henchmen…there’s a cut to the office formerly used by The Voice in the Metz Building (Room 511-B, let’s call it).  Regan and Cady continue their deviltry, then they hear their boss over the shortwave.

VOICE: Calling R-37…calling R-37…

REGAN: Come in…

VOICE: Is the concealed vault ready?

REGAN: Yeah…it’s all set…

VOICE: Good…the police have finally left here…I’ve called Daly to come over and help me pack the papers…they’ll be ready by the time you and Cady get here and you can take them back to the vault…

REGAN: Good—we’ll leave right away!

“Not so fast, my fine feathered friend!” Hal doesn’t say as he and Sam emerge from the tunnel.  From that moment on, it’s standard Republic protocol—hands in the air, Regan and Cady wait for an unguarded moment by Hal to start a fistfight…

Saracen pig!

Spartan dog!

Anglo-Saxon Hun!

…but during the melee, Regan forgets about the trip wire to the mine and the explosion brings a large heavy crate down on him.  RIP, Regan…you were a goon among goons.

HAL: You okay?

SAM: Yeah…I guess so…

HAL (referring to an unconscious Cady): Then cuff this one up and call the police—Regan’s finished…from what we heard on the radio, the big boss is up in that office and I’m goin’ after him!

“I’ll teach those I.T.O.A. bozos to make fun of my investigative skills!”  With four minutes left in the serial, Hal races across town to the Metz Building—where The Voice is in his private office, gathering files.  Henchman Daly (George Volk) enters the adjoining “waiting room,” and The Voice lets him know that he’ll pass the important papers to him through some sort of night deposit slot.  Do I need to point out that in all previous scenes in the “waiting room,” this slot has been nonexistent?  No, I do not.  Outside the building, Hal pulls up in his Duncanmobile and sh*t’s about to get real.

“That’s all the important ones,” The Voice instructs Daly.  “I’m going to burn the rest of them.”  As The Voice makes plans to torch the paperwork, Hal bursts into the waiting room, gun drawn.  “All right, drop that bag and get those hands up,” he barks at Daly.  Looking through his one-way mirror, The Voice fires at Hal through the night deposit, and the following shootout results in the death of Daly.  Out of ammo, Hal picks up a chair and heaves it through the mirror to discover the office next door.  He leaps up and through where the mirror was just in time to learn the identity of the criminal mastermind…

…Armstrong!  That vichyssoise…  As the inferno rages on inside the office (that’s the “blazing retribution” referred to in the chapter title) Hal and Armstrong fight to the death.  Director Fred C. Brannon (“Fred C. Brannon don’t show nothin’ he don’t mean…”) zooms in on a close-up of this…

…a shard of broken mirror, telegraphing that it will trigger the demise of the master villain.  He does not disappoint.

With the death of Armstrong, the implication is that his little band of crooks have been degraded and destroyed…though I have my doubts about this; there always seemed to be a stray henchman running around, so do they file for unemployment or what?  Government Agents vs. Phantom Legion wraps up in the usual Republic fashion with its main characters laughing at something that’s not the slightest bit funny: here it’s Hal, Sam and Kay all seated together in the cab of one of Hal’s trucks (yes, there’s some disturbing implications that I’ll refrain from exploring because this is a family blog)—Sam is driving, and after a near collision with another car on the highway Hal suggests his sidekick “pull up and let me drive.”  “Oh no, Hal,” protests Sam.  “You’re still a government agent—you shouldn’t be driving a truck.”  (I think that may be my favorite line of dialogue in the entire serial, btw.)

Then Hal notices that a motorcycle cop is following Sam, and decides that maybe his pal is doing fine behind the wheel after all.  Sam sees the fuzz, too: “Thanks…thanks a lot!”  The three of them laugh like hyenas, and the curtain comes down on our little serial adventure.

A good cast is worth repeating…

I’m going to take a break from Serial Saturdays next week (Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s guest reviewer Phil Schweier will substitute in the interim with a look at a chapter play he’s recently watched) but the following week the batteries will be recharged and we’ll have fun with another serial.  It’s one that I discussed at the old Salon Blogs site of TDOY, though not on a chapter-by-chapter basis—and it’s just so irresistibly goofy that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to revisit it.  So join me two weeks from now for the first installment of a brand-new edition of Serial Saturdays: The Black Widow (1947)!