Murder in the Air (1940)

The fourth in the "Brass Bancroft" series is the best. Once again, RONALD REAGAN plays the confident government man whose job it is to expose spies led by JAMES STEPHENSON, the accented villain. It has the flavor of an extended Saturday afternoon serial, the kind that movie fans came to expect as a steady diet during the '30s and '40s.All the ingredients for such an adventurous tale are here--a mysterious man with a tattoo on his arm; a ring of spies; good guys putting themselves into dangerous positions by posing as gangsters; and the inevitable conclusion with the spies efficiently disposed of by U.S. agents on their trail.And once again, one gets the impression that Ronald Reagan was indeed being groomed for stardom as an Errol Flynn type of action star in his early days. He once described himself as the "Errol Flynn of the B-films" and it's an apt description.Simplistic spy story made a year before Pearl Harbor, has its best moments when it uses actual footage from a dirigible disaster at sea with the footage blended evenly with studio scenes aboard the dirigible before it crashes. It's the last twenty minutes or so that makes the whole thing worth watching.Fortunately for Reagan, it wasn't long after this one that the studio began putting him in A-films where he eventually earned his leading man status and became a dependable fixture throughout the forties.

"B" as in "basic" and "B" as in "Brass Bancroft," this B-movie series was fairly typical of the fare turned out by studios, partly to give training and a build-up to new actors or directors or writers, and partly just to pump out product to fill the bills at theaters."B" movie didn't mean "bad": It just meant lower -- or low -- budget.Even in his obituaries, less-than-knowledgeable, or less-than-honest, writers kept calling Ronald Reagan "a B movie actor," continuing to carp probably because they didn't agree with what they understood his political philosophy to be. (For people who don't know the history, let me add this word: Being anti-communist was an unforgivable sin in many segments of the media, including even motion pictures.) Many, if not most, actors began their careers making B movies. Reagan graduated to A features, apparently right after making "Murder in the Air." And his performance in this film was one reason: He was likable, good looking (though kinda skinny without his shirt), and believable in the action scenes.John Litel was a superlative actor, keeping busy for nearly 40 years, and giving good performances always.Others in the cast did a good job, some were even great, but most stayed unknown and viewers today might, mistakenly, judge a film by the names connected thereto.Instead, they should suspend their disbelief, remember the context, and sit back and enjoy.

SYNOPSIS: Ronald Reagan, G-Men, Espionage, Airplanes....that about sums it up.CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER: American Government = Good / Foreigners = Bad. An entertaining propaganda film for its day. Supposedly, the 3rd in a series of G-Men pictures that Ronald Regan stared in. His character is named Brass Bancroft (Hollywood just doesn't use names like this anymore). Written and filmed during a time when the U.S. Government was never questioned and Communism was considered a mental plague and not a political view. It is easy to tell who the good guys are and you know the bad guys will be defeated in the end.PROS AND CONS: I have a soft spot for the old days. Back in the day when even second rate B-Movies had some art and talent to them. These films reflected the audience that they were marketed toward which was middle class white Americans before World War II. The concept of ethnicity hadn't yet come to light, segregation was the norm. The government was a benevolent autocratic entity that could do no wrong. The film centers around science aviation and espionage, which back in the day was about as gee-wiz as you could get. There are shades of the Movie-Serials of the 40s as well as the coming paranoia of the communist conspiracy. If you want to see the roots of Star Wars and the Indiana Jones films, see pictures such as this.One of the first things that was evident is that this film was produced on the studio lot. There is no location shooting and everything is shot on sound stage sets. What gives this away is the the lack of any ceiling on the interior shots and the shadows cast by the lighting. This gives the illusion that each room has 20 foot high ceilings that go up forever. This is pretty basic entertainment, meant to satisfy a pretty simple audience that didn't question much. Now, it is almost more entertaining for its simplicity and gullibility than anything else....and of course that the lead actor becomes president of the United States.

This movie is notable for what it wrought 40 years later. In the film, Reagan's character -- Brass Bancroft -- is a government "T"-man who is tasked to protect a new secret weapon called the Inertia Protector, which can destroy all incoming bombs before they hit the US. Total nonsense, of course, but it does explain, years later, why Reagan really believed in Star Wars. He had already seen it work in a movie.