FOREWORD:
A diabolical organization of conspirators, the FLAMING TORCH, seeks to kidnap youthful delinquent BILLY BARTON (Billy Halop) as a bargaining chip to convince his scientist father to reveal his almighty MacGuffin “formula.” And then…
That’s pretty much it. The Junior G-Men narrative has been in a holding pattern of random chases, fistfights and cliffhangers. That’s the thing with movie serials. As long as the premise can perpetuate events for long enough, that’s all ya need. But the finale nears, and at last our Little Tough Guy heroes can begin to close in on the Flaming Torch’s headquarters. But first…
Billy has just plummeted from a fire escape!
CHAPTER NINE: THE PLUNGE OF PERIL
But it turns out he broke his fall on a storefront shade.
This once again puts us at the starting gate, where we’ve been idling for seven chapters or so. It’s amazing what a world of endless hazards the Little Tough Guys live in. It’s even more amazing how non-fatal this world is, as survival always comes about as though engineered by an omniscient narrator. I kind of love the serial format.
Various goons (the only type of person in this universe who does die) report back their daily failure to their master Brand (Cy Kendall). No matter, this is well before the Darth Vader era of minion murdering, so all Brand can do is assign his flunkies a new task. As kidnapping the Barton boy never works, instead they’ll be doing something easy: Kidnapping a grown man, a scientist, Professor Faraday, creator of an aerial torpedo. Just something else for the Torches’ little Invasion U.S.A.
While the actual FBI agents remain woefully incompetent (or at least totally unwilling to engage in their own plotline), Billy and his fellow Little Tough Guys (and Junior G-Men, as led by Kenneth Howell’s Harry Trent) have already pieced together this latest plot – for you see, info on Prof. Faraday was in one of the goon’s wallets, as if it was just waiting for some protagonists to find.
Billy and Harry, our two leads, make their way to the airport, where Faraday is scheduled for his weekly “Hey, kidnap me right now!” airplane flight. And that’s exactly what’s about to happen, as the lads stow themselves upon Faraday’s biplane moments before the Flaming Torches replace their pilot with one of their own. And so Faraday is kidnapped, but our heroes remain low, in hopes the plane shall take Faraday faraway to Torch central.
Instead, it descends for a desert landing strip, where further goons have manifested with a car to take Faraday the rest of the way. It’s now or never! Billy and Harry tussle with the goon pilot, sending the plane into a deadly tailspin!
How will they get out of this one? Tune in next week – or just read the next paragraph.
CHAPTER TEN: THE TOLL OF TREASON
After enough entertaining stunt, model and blue screen footage plays out, Faraday comes to his professor senses and helpfully grants the goon a mighty head-clonk. Then it turns out (underage) Harry is able to fly a plane, just as he owns his own car, etc. Considering the propagandistic intent of Junior G-Men, a long-form advertisement for all the Junior G-Men could be expected to do, it figures Harry displays a precocity which would be the envy of Huey, Dewey and Louie.
The goons on the ground realize something is amiss, as Harry more or less tries decapitating them with the plane’s wings. Like the dimwits they are, their first response is to drive right back to Torch HQ, so…Our heroes know where it is!
Now all parties can start to act! The Little Tough Guys, perched in their junkyard hideout, contemplate a preteen invasion, while Harry does the rather more sane thing and informs Bradford (Philip Terry) and the FBI.
Meanwhile, at least Brand is clever enough to realize their cover is blown, as he initiates evacuation proceedings to the Torches’ next illicit hideout - # 11. (It is implied they have a whole network of lairs-in-waiting, as that imploded block house from…checking my former write-up…Chapter Five was “# 8.”)
The Little Tough Guys, all six of ‘em, easily make their way past the compound walls – amazing how simple things get when there’s an ending approaching! They bumble along into the mansion’s ground floor, and because it’s been a while since some nonsensical action, they have a [rotating the Wheel o’ Matinees] fistfight with goons. It occurs all these fistfights are pure visual pandemonium, unchoreographed free-for-alls performed before a disinterested camera. One really sees how essential the Asian influence was to future action cinema.
Reel end nearing, there is a mad rush to force Billy (and Harry) into a sudden death situation they shall go on to easily survive (spoilers). So various goons capture them. The FBI cars near, and a car chase erupts – utilizing the same damn footage used at least twice already in this serial. Even the cliffhanger is the same! That is, the goon car hurtles off a cliff!
[Taking a brief cigarette break before returning to my stories…]
Okay, I’m back!
CHAPTER ELEVEN: DESCENDING DOOM
Even Billy’s (and Harry’s) survival is the same as before – creative ennui! The boys are inexplicably, beyond all known laws of physics (for the second time) thrown clear of the car, even while the half dozen goons surrounding them all plunge to a watery grave.
Well, for all that climax-building in Chapter Ten, Chapter Eleven goes appropriately bankrupt. For the Flaming Torches have mostly eluded attention, including Brand. And Dr. Barton is still his captive. And while the FBI continues its policy of uninvolvement, again the Junior G-Men use their street smarts and knowhow to discover the Torches – simply by knowing how to spot them. That’s nothing more complicated than just aimlessly patrolling the streets – at least it’s really easy to film – in a sort of glorified neighborhood watch.
It is Gyp (Huntz Hall) who first fistfights a goon, so omnipresent are they. All he gets is the man’s shoe (!), but that is enough! For here they outline another of the Junior G-Men’s astounding crime-solving skills. To the Crime Lab™!
There is rice on the goon’s shoe. Therefore, Q.E.D., the baddies must be holed up in a rice warehouse (!). Quick forensics investigation of all the city’s rice (!) leads them straight to # 11 itself, almost as though the Torches hadn’t escaped in the first place.
Rather than alert the FBI (yeah right!), Billy and Harry simply go alone straight into the warehouse. Ah, tactics! (Actually, Gyp has been sent to go phone the Feds – while the remaining Little Tough Guys simply gather dust – only he does not succeed, as he is hit by a car. Just like that! A world of danger, man, a world of danger!)
Billy and Harry are in the warehouse long enough to pinpoint where Billy’s father is being held, and to encounter, right on schedule, some goons. That means fistfight! This time, the goons win, and Billy at long last is Brand’s prisoner. Finally Dr. Barton will comply with Brand’s demands, ostensibly, Billy the lynchpin to his whole world domination plot. Only…Barton refuses to help, because here at the end this Junior G-Man propaganda has turned simple, basic patriotism propaganda. (If only they’d assigned the Flaming Torches a nation.)
Well, that’s the closest these bad guys are gonna get to winning. But that time over, they simply dump Billy (and Harry) down in some dungeon, with starvation the intent. That’s not gonna happen, not when the boys have escaped through the “dungeon’s” air vents in under a minute. (And I thought Dr. No had an easy-to-escape cell.) This air vent leads right along to the bottom of the warehouse’s elevator shaft…
Just as the elevator is descending!
CHAPTER TWELVE: THE POWER OF PATRIOTISM (See? Pure nationalistic propaganda now!)
But the shaft’s door opens just in time, allowing a narrow escape. Now that was a well-done cliffhanger, allowing a clever escape instead of mere, because-we-said-so survival!
A serial’s twelfth chapter is always its last chapter, for reasons I am not yet aware of. That means there are no more cliffhangers forthcoming, merely resolution and epilogue. That means that now it’s time for Gyp to up and recover from that left field hit-and-run, then go ahead and call in the Feds. (Well, there’s a little more complication – involving a goon, natch – but let’s not belabor things now.)
The filmmakers squeeze what little excitement they can in the form of some desultory climactic fistfights, but the FBI’s arrival marks the conclusion of the tale – ‘bout time they got off their duffs. (Really, this final chapter is pretty ceremonial, and half as long as the others.) Brand and his band of baddies branded, the Little Tough Guys and Junior G-Men hold a Star Wars-esque medal (read: coronation) ceremony, and that is that.
Junior G-Men being the first movie serial I’ve seen, most of my feelings at this point are more to do with the format at large, and not on this specific example. It is at times simultaneously thrilling and stagnant, fast-paced and boring. There is guaranteed spectacle at all times, what with cliffhangers and all, but there is also only so much plot allowable – with the demand for twelve chapters, and the brief length of individual chapters. The focus here is almost entirely on adventure, pure and simple. Moments of potential drama, such as Billy’s tearful reunion with his father, are glanced over as quickly as possible to get to the next car chase or fistfight. The story only calms for exposition, most often reiterations of what we already saw. That becomes tiresome when watching a serial in a concentrated sitting, which is hard to fault these multi-month movies for.
As an entry in the Little Tough Guys franchise (let us not forget), Junior G-Men is interesting for how it diverges from the franchise standard. By 1940, the Little Tough Guys movies were mostly melodramas (a modification on the Dead End Kids’ dramas), with some gangster thriller thrown in. Necessitated by the serial format, Junior G-Men is an action-adventure, pure and simple. And yet the boys’ personas remain essentially the same, even while they are quicker to fistfight than ever. This malleability is what accounts for the troupe’s longevity, through four franchises, with Little Tough Guys simply the second stop on that journey.
Related posts:
• No. 1 Little Tough Guy (1938)
• Nos. 2 - 15 (1938 - 1943)
• No. 7 Junior G-Men (1940) Chapters One - Three
Chapters Four - Eight
• No. 10 Sea Raiders (1941) Chapters One - Six
Chapters Seven - Twelve
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