Kelly of the Secret Service (1936) User Reviews

Not My Idea Of A Good Time

[boblipton · 2/10 · 25 March 2023]

Boxer Fuzzy Knight and his manager, Syd Saylor, don't have a dime, so they answer an advertisement for guards from inventor Forrest Taylor. After he's hired them, assistant Jack Mulhall explains Taylor's invention to him; apparently it's something that can explode bombs at a distance. No sooner is this done, than a figure wearing a cloak and gas mask -- yes, looking like Darth Vader -- enters, gases them, and steals the plans. Taylor and Mulhall rush to secretary Sheila Bromley's office, where she has entered seconds before and begun typing. No, she hasn't noticed anything. The men tell her to call the Secret Service, then rush outside, to find Knight and Saylor more unconscious than usual. A cab pulls up, and out steps Lloyd Hughes, the titular fed of the movie.

There are few words better calculated to strike fear into the heart of movie lovers than "Directed by Robert Hill; Supervised by Sam Katzman" and these have already appeared. Only slightly daunted, I continued to watch, sustained, if that's the word I want, by relative amusement at the interplay between Knight and Saylor. Soon I was confronted with a creepy house riddled with secret passages, John Elliot wearing glasses with lenses so thick light couldn't get through them, a madman wandering around, hypnotizing people into shooting others, and a sinister-looking Oriental in Miki Morita. After 70 minutes of these slowly-revealed and lazily executed cliches, it was over and I was closer to death.

What can be done with bad actors and bad sreenwriters

[claudg1950 · 2/10 · 8 April 2023]

The Secret Service protects the President and combats the forgery of money. Only that. It does not protect military secrets.

I love this stories where someone has a weapon critical for national security but the government leaves it bad (or not) protected for hours on end, until the bad guys do their bad deeds. The secret being "protected" appears here as a bunch of wrinkle papers left carelessly on a desk. Invariablye in these Z quality films, the plans never look like large rolls of engineering papers but just A4 sheets. After a guy stole those plans more valuable data was kept in a desk drawer. No safe.

The acting, the slow delivery of lines, the exaggerated grimaces, combine with ridiculous lines to make this disaster of a movie. I am giving it a second point only in case this was intended as a total comedy. But the two good-for-nothing guards the doctor hired are the only element to suggest that the makers of this catastrophe were aware of how ridiculous everything is.

Poverty row produces a must-see movie!

[JohnHowardReid · 8/10 · 16 November 2017]

Lloyd Hughes (Kelly), Sheila Manors (Sally Flint), Fuzzy Knight (Lefty Hogan), Syd Saylor (Red), Jack Mulhall (Lesserman), Forrest Taylor (Dr Marston), John Elliott (Walsh), Miki Morita (Ylon), Jack Cowell (Chief Wilson).

Director: BOB HILL. Screenplay: Al Martin. Based on the story On Irish Hill by Peter B. Kyne. Photography: Bill Hyer. Film editor: Dan Milner. Art director: Fred Preble. Lighting effects: Otto H. Buhler. Production manager: Ed W. Rote. Sound recording: Hans Weeren. Producer: Sam Katzman.

Not copyrighted by Victory Pictures Corporation. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 15 June 1936. 69 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: On the eve of a practical demonstration, the inventor of a radio-controlled bomb hires two boobs to guard his laboratory. Despite their efforts, a gas-masked intruder manages to break into the lab and steal the professor's plans.

COMMENT: This little entry has many features to recommend it to the connoisseur of independent "B" movies, including Bob Hill's occasionally inventive direction, Bill Hyer's glossy photography, Fred Preble's impressive sets, and, by no means least, the cast: Forrest Taylor in one of his most charismatic performances as a crew-cut, be-monocled scientist; Sheila Manors, bringing just the right degree of insouciance to her role as a suspiciously attractive secretary; Syd Saylor and Fuzzy Knight, making a surprisingly good team as the boobs; and Miki Morita as the mysterious Oriental.

Only the heavy-handed Lloyd Hughes fails to realize any of his role's potential (at least until the nicely suspenseful climax).

Despite limited resources, both director and photographer bring off a number of successful effects. The action progresses through a couple of startling lab demonstrations to a midway car chase which ends up in one of biggest house sets ever utilized for a Poverty Row production.