Panama Patrol (1939)

Director: CHARLES LAMONT. Screenplay: Arthur Hoerl. Based on characters created by Arthur Hoerl and Monroe Shaff. Photography: Arthur Martinelli. Film editor: Bernard Loftus. Art director: Ralph Berger. Set decorator: Glenn Thompson. Costumes: W.H. McCrary. Production manager: Irene Schreck. Music director: David Chudnow. Assistant director: V.O. Smith. Sound recording: Hal Bumbaugh. Production executive: J. Samuel Berkowitz. Associate producer: Charles Lamont. Executive producer: Franklyn Warner. A Fine Arts Production. Copyright 20 May 1939 by Fine Arts Pictures. Released in the U.S.A. through Grand National: 20 May 1939. No New York opening. Never theatrically released in Australia. 69 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Major Philip Waring (Leon Ames) is an Army Intelligence officer, stationed at the Washington cipher bureau. He is about to marry his secretary (Charlotte Wynters), but is forced to postpone the ceremony in order to track down a nest of Oriental spies who are plotting the destruction of the Panama Canal. An interpreter for Army Intelligence (Abner Biberman) puts him on the trail of an Oriental femme fatale (Adrienne Ames). NOTES: Sequel to Cipher Bureau (1938) which has the same stars and many of the same technicians, including photographer Martinelli and associate producer/director Charles Lamont.Leon Ames is not related to Adrienne Ames. His real name is Leon Wycoff (under which name he was once billed). Miss Ames (her birth name) was Mrs Bruce Cabot off-screen. COMMENT: Despite the credits, this is actor Abner Biberman's picture - and a grand job he makes of it too, ably assisted by Charles Lamont's obviously sympathetic direction. Notice that Biberman receives as many, if not more close-ups than Leon Ames, despite the fact that his role is smaller. And, though her part is brief, Adrienne (the spelling of her name in the credit titles is incorrect) Ames also scores strongly with both director and audience. Whilst Biberman is allowed by both director and script to give a portrait in depth, the same cannot be said for Leon Ames and the lovely Charlotte Wynters. Both are personable, but rather bland. Of the support players, it's odd to say that Mickey Rooney's perennial mascot, Sidney Miller, provides the most ingratiating performance. The script has its share of excitement, is skillfully photographed by Arthur Martinelli and directed with more style than we expect of Charles Lamont. An insistent music score sometimes helps with atmosphere, sometimes not, but always lends a bit of class.

The Cipher Bureau is a government agency in charge of decoding messages traded between enemy nations of America. Code decipher Major Philip Waring(Leon Ames)stationed at the Washington bureau is about to marry his secretary(Charlotte Wynters), when he is put into action tracking down a nest of Oriental spies. Destruction of the Panama Canal is subject to be destroyed for whatever reason. An Army Intelligence interpreter(Abner Biberman)puts Waring on the trail of a female operative of the Oriental spy ring. The decipher team must beat the clock to solve the codes of a very clever enemy to save the canal's important activities.Other players: Adrienne Ames, Philip Ahn, Hugh McArthur, Richard Loo and Sidney Miller.

Based on a series of books about a code breaker, this film begins as our hero is trying to get a license to get married. Called back to the office before he can actually get the piece of paper he dives into work on breaking a diplomatic code that may have something to do with an Asian power. Things heat up as a suspicious Asian is seen coming out of a government car. Soon bodies begin to pile up and it isn't long before it looks like our hero will end up dead before he can tie the knot. Okay program drama is more a time killer then something that one will put on for enjoyment. The film isn't bad, its just not exciting enough or compelling enough to be much of anything thing. I was half way into this hour long film and all I could think was with all the movies I own I was stuck watching this. I liked it to a point, but at the same time there are so many other better movies one could be watching. I'd take a pass if given a choice

**SPOILERS** Pre-Pearl Harbor depiction of the danger from the east that threatened America represented as a very militaristic Chinese regime that also seems to be allied at the time with Hitler's Germany. With one of the bad guys being a very German looking, with a thick German accent, Wihelm Von Brickner playing one of the Chinese espionage rings henchmen Marlin.In just two years after "Panama Patrol" was released the roles of the bad guys from the Orient were completely reversed with the Chinese being our friends and comrades in arms instead of our deadly enemies. There's also the fact that Chinese-American actor Richard Loo is in the movie portraying for once in a film a Chinese, who he is, instead of a Japanese, who he isn't.Going down to the Marriage Licenses Bureau to get hitched Maj.Leon Waring,Leon Ames,gets an emergency phone call to report to the State Department's Cipher Bureau. Waring leaving his bride Helen Lane, Charlotte Wynters,who's also a government decoding specialist, making her very angry to say the least on both her future husband and his boss.The D.C police Picking up this Chinese embassy worker Tommy Young, Richard Loo, who's been seen handing papers that he snuck out of the State Department. The D.C police have trouble getting him to talk about his covert activities. Young refuses to cooperate with his American captors by not speaking any English or handing over to them his passport. Chinese-speaking and also encrypted specialist Arlie Johnson, Abner Biberman, is then called in to get the closed-mouth Young to open up. As Johnson finally starts getting something out of the Chinese embassy worker in Chinese he's shot from behind from a hidden peephole in the wall by Marlin a German thug working for the Chinese government.Later we see Johnson as well as Marlin together at this New York Curiso Shop run by one of the heads of the Chinese spy-ring the half American half Chinese Eli Ming, John Smart! Johnson it turns out is a spy who infiltrated the US Government Chipher Bureau and has been handing over sensitive information to the Chinese Government concerning the Panama Canal. The Chinese are planning, possibly with their future German allies, to blow up the canal locks and bottle up the US Pacific Fleet keeping it from being reinforced after a Pearl Harbor-like attack! this is two years before such an event did in fact happen, on America!Lame action sequences with Maj. Waring getting captured at least twice by the fumbling and butterfingered Chinese spies and all but walking away from them to freedom. There's a really insane scene later in the movie with Maj. Waring having it out with his kidnappers in a plane at 6,000 feet and after quickly dispatching the bad guys. It's then that the Major takes the controls and lands the aircraft as easy as Charles Linberg did in landing the St.Louis in Paris back in 1927.The film is very interesting when it come to the art of decoding secret massages without the help of super computers, which weren't invented at the time, that shows how much brain power and hard work coupled with old fashion luck it took to break then Chinese secret code.Helen also gets into the act by getting herself kidnapped by Johnson as his spy girlfriend Lia, Adrenne Ames, the exotically beautiful daughter of Chinese spy-master Eli Ming. In the end Helen saves the day by leaving a trail of clues that leads her boyfriend Maj. Waring together with the local police and FBI to the Chinese spy's secret headquarters. It's then that the spy ring that included Johnson Lia and the big boss of the whole operation Suri, Philip Ahn, end up getting arrested after a brief struggle and shootout.In the end both Maj. Warnig and his finance Helen Lang drive down to Elton Md. where they'll be in the middle of nowhere and not be disturbed, like at the beginning of the movie, to finally get married.