Special inspector

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Special inspector
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1938
length 65 minutes
Rod
Director Leon Barsha
script Edgar Edwards
production Kenneth J. Bishop
camera George Meehan
cut William Austin
occupation

Special Inspector , also known as Across the Border , is a 1938 American crime film starring Charles Quigley and Rita Hayworth .

action

Tom Evans, a government agent, is hired to track down a dangerous gang that is wreaking havoc near the Canadian border. The gang's men steal trucks to smuggle valuable furs across the border, and they don't shy away from kidnapping and murder. When a truck driver dies in another coup, his sister Patricia Lane offers to help the federal authorities as an undercover agent. Meanwhile, Tom manages to get hired as a driver for a truck company. This is how he wants to catch the criminals in the act. Together with another driver named Bill, he is supposed to make a transport across the border. When they stop at a rest stop to strengthen themselves for the journey, Patricia joins them, who is looking for a lift while doing her research. Tom and Bill are only too happy to take lovely Patricia with them. The three of them are now on their way.

They are soon followed by the smuggling gang, who finally lures them into a trap by diversion. While Tom and Bill are caught and tied up by the men, Patricia manages to flee into the nearby forest and escape their captors. After Tom and Bill are left on the side of the road by the gang, they manage to break free from their bonds. Now they have to hitchhike back to town. There, Tom and Patricia clash again in their investigation, without realizing that they both work as government agents. Patricia then pursues a suspect and finds the gang's hiding place. There she is discovered by one of the criminals and taken prisoner. Meanwhile, with the help of the police, Tom succeeds in arresting part of the gang during a smuggling transport. He now learns where the rest of the gang are. After overpowering these gang members, he is surprised to find Patricia in hiding, who is tied up in a broom closet and waiting for rescue. He unties her and takes her in his arms with relief.

background

Filmed in Canada as early as 1937, Special Inspector was initially only released in Great Britain in 1938 and not until 1939 in the United States .

Charles Quigley was Rita Hayworth's number one screen partner in a number of Columbia Pictures B crime novels . In addition to Special Inspector , they played together in Criminals of the Air (1937), Girls Can Play (1937), The Shadow (1937), The Game That Kills (1937) and Convicted (1938). Like a short time later with Convicted , Edgar Edwards appeared on Special Inspector both as a screenwriter and as a supporting actor.

Reviews

A reviewer wrote in the Los Angeles Mirror that there was no way he could "comfort himself over the misfortune of staying wide awake while watching Special Inspector ." In his estimation, “nobody else in the cinema suffered from insomnia as badly” as he did.

Hal Erickson from All Movie Guide called Charles Quigley and Rita Hayworth in retrospect as "the William Powell and Myrna Loy of Columbia's B-movie department." What is surprising about the film is "that it contains practically no action scenes, not even a final fist fight".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ “There's no way I can think of to console myself for having had the misfortune of remaining wide awake during the unreeling of Special Inspector . Nobody else in the theater audience seemed to be so unlucky as to be suffering from insomnia. " Los Angeles Mirror quoted. after Gene Ringgold: The Films of Rita Hayworth . Citadel Press, Secaucus 1974, p. 101.
  2. ^ “Charles Quigley and Rita Hayworth, the William Powell and Myrna Loy of Columbia's B unit, star respectively as government treasury agents […]. The most surprising aspect of the film is that it contains practically no action at all, not even a climactic fistfight. " Hal Erickson , cf. omovie.com