Poor John Howard - once Bulldog Drummond, once a supporting actor in The Philadelphia Story, now starring in a Kit Parker film with a budget of 50 cents - about the power of radar.He's not alone. Tom Neal, Adele Jergens, Myrna Dell, and Sid Melton join him in this Mystery Science Theater travesty.I was no science whiz, but so far as I know, radar could never do any of the things shown in the film - find guns, fight crime - why, the police department has a Radar Division.Some crooks steal radioactive substance, why I don't know, and it's up to those g-men to track them down. Someone described this as futuristic - there actually was one futuristic thing in it and it was called a telemeter, which worked like a minicam. Of course it was run by radar (I guess). To me it's always interesting to see things like that in old films, such as what was basically a fax machine in Call Northside 777.This film was done so cheaply that they would show a guy driving a car who momentarily would look up at a helicopter, for instance, and five minutes later you would see the same identical clip again. Ditto two guys riding in a car. This is the kind of film where if it made $10 it made a profit.John Howard smartly moved into television where he had an extremely prolific career until he retired. Adele Jergens did TV but kept her hand in B movies, as well as the rest of her. Sid Melton, whom I now find annoying since watching these films, had a successful TV career, and Myrna Dell worked in TV.And Tom Neal? Well, he beat Franchot Tone to a pulp and put him in the hospital, then he went on trial for the murder of his wife. And his life was much more interesting than this film.

The film begins with a long-winded discussion about the wonderful miracle of radar and all the wonderful ways it makes like better for government agents. Unfortunately, most of the information is false, as radar was old hat by the time this film came out and had very little to do with spies. For example, you can see people at great distances like TV--and without even a camera--all thanks to this 'radar'!! Whatever. I personally think the film makers just happened to come up with some stock footage of radar operators and equipment and that is THE reason for the film's title! The film is about g-men and I was amazed that such a subject was so boring and poorly written. The dialog was often pretty lame and I loved how they had a character named 'Blackie'--and he was a g-man actually working on the side of evil--what a HUGE surprise!! Who'd have thought that a guy named Blackie would be bad?! Well, that's the sort of lame writing this film had throughout.I also knew it would be a bad film because Sid Melton is in it. While today he's most likely to be recognized as 'Al Monroe' from "Green Acres", Sid was a terrible comedian. And, every time I have seen him in a B-movie, the film has been just awful. I am sure he was a lovely person in real life, but on film....yuck--a sure sign of a crappy film!Overall, the film is dull and stupid. And those are only some of the GOOD qualities!

I can definitely understand why MST3K chose this film to mock. It seems it was aimed at kiddy matinees back in the 1950s. The dialog seems as if it was written by an eighth grader back then. This film along with 8 others is included in a set titled Forgotten Noir Vol. 4. Now I realize why that title! The second film in the set is "Counterspy Meets Scotland Yard" and this one is a few notches better and has a more familiar cast including Amanda 'Miss Kitty' Blake. As historical film documents of a simpler era they make sense. However, it is pretty difficult to keep a straight face while watching this film. I never watched ST3K but I can imagine they had a "field day" with this one. I will be reviewing more from this series as I view them.

This movie seems to think radar is some super weapon that can do absolutely anything. I mean, it begins with quick scene on how radar was important in World War II. While this might seem fair enough, the movie takes radar's importance to ludicrous levels. When a truck is hijacked, the government uses radar to track it down. Radar mounted on a vehicle can apparently deliver TV quality images that follow the truck like a camera (I wonder why?). You can't say a bad thing about radar in this film. Don't worry, though. The guys from MST3K came to the rescue, and made it quite enjoyable (like they always do with bad movies) with their running commentary.