CHAPTER FOUR: BLAZING DANGER
Previously on Junior G-Men…
The Little Tough Guys, in their combined littleness and toughness (and guyness – ha ha, spell-check thinks that should be “gayness”), had been randomly informed by the FBI that their gang leader Billy Barton (Billy Halop) was the son of noted WWII mad scientist Robert Barton. This Barton, presumed dead, was rather kidnapped by the dastardly Flaming Torches, a sort of bargain basement Illuminati with aims for world domination through use of Barton’s largest explosive in the whole wide world. But they needed Billy as leverage. Hence Billy was kidnapped – accidentally. What followed was a heady, pulpy mélange of exploding sheds, car crashes, then car chases. Then more car crashes.
This final car crash is where we last left Billy and his “gal Friday” Gyp (Huntz Hall), plummeting to almost certain doom off a tall, tall Los Angeles cliff (just outside of New York’s slums)!
…Except it turns out they were thrown clear at the last minute. The evil goon survived too, because why the hell not.
The FBI is immediately on hand for this car crash, as they are for all car crashes. Sadly, the surviving goon has flagged down his fellow goons, who proceed to goon up on the Feds. Billy holds these machine gun-toting mercenaries at bay with rocks of all things, as we grow dangerously close to 3 Ninjas territory. Then cops’ sirens are heard nearby, and the half dozen anonymous goons (so fearless when it come to attempted FBI murder) instantly flee from the local sheriff. (This allows a repurposing of the same car chase footage from Chapter Three.)
And with that we’re back where we started with this serial, as FBI agent Jim Bradford (Phillip Terry) once again exposits the entire scenario to Billy & Co. Billy is not eager to be Bradford’s “Junior G-Man,” so…
Eh, the Little Tough Guys simply go straight back to a life on the streets, as though nothing had ever happened. I understand these things have to stretch themselves out to 12 entries, but the stall tactics are becoming ever clearer.
So…the Feds still don’t know where the Flaming Torches’ lair is, and the Flaming Torches (and seemingly immobile, chair-bound # 1 Brand – Cy Kendall) don’t know where Billy is – and their nefarious scheme remains simply the kidnapping of Billy. (Masterminds!) Here’s Brand’s latest plan: Several semi-competent goons (a few entries in, you gotta slightly raise their competence level) shall rent a room out in Billy’s supposed neighborhood. The act of goons securing an apartment is seemingly a very complex act, as it takes a very long time to depict. We even get to see the landlady doing her laundry in real time, in a very useless scene.
But goons cannot pass through the tenements without the Little Tough Guys getting wise to it. They effortlessly tail the goons back to their villainous condo. Billy, desirous of smacking about the Flaming Torches in a rather unclear way, simply leads his gang straight in for a FISTFIGHT!
As this goes on, the whole apartment block just up and catches fire – no plot-based reason, it’s simply a much more dangerous world when the reel starts running out. (It’s like how events only happen on the hour mark in “24.”) (Oh, it seems this is why that laundry scene – hot iron = raging inferno.)
Most of the Little Tough Guys, who are glorified headlining extras, make it safely out of the building (so do the goons), but Billy is unconscious amidst the flames, because he’s the character we “care” about. But thank Allah, Bradford is here, having been tipped off by tattletale Junior G-Man Harry Trent (Kenneth Howell). Bradford collects Billy, climbs out the window, and –
CHAPTER FIVE: TRAPPED BY TRAITORS
It turns out there were firefighters waiting below to catch their tumbling husks. Betcha thought our main characters were dead 1/3rd of the way through, huh?
This latest half-assed effort to nab Billy a failure, again we are at square one, Little Tough Guys loitering, Bradford enveloping his thumb with his butt back at FBI headquarters, and Brand scrambling to devise another ploy for his goons to fail at. With things as they are, this mess could go on zero sum forever. This’ll require an outside event.
That’ll be Doctor Mattstone, the latest tinkerer made prisoner by the Flaming Torches. Under his unseen and off screen aid, Brand’s band can soon start constructing “a fleet of super-speed bombers.” These, “to be ready next Spring,” coupled with Barton’s to-be-made ultra-bomb, will allow the “Torchies” (all quotes directly from the movie) to…well, they never outright say “world domination,” which is a bummer. Anyway, there’s only one thing standing in Brand’s way now: a deficit of blueprint paper. So his goons’ task – go into town, and buy paper. Can’t wait to see ‘em screw this up!
Well, the goons are instantly IDed by the Little Tough Guys, and that’s without then even seeing their telltale tattoos. God these guys are conspicuous!
What happens next is…confused. The Little Tough Guys, with no knowledge of where the goons have gooned off to, set a goon ambush in an alley. But no, wait, that’s not a goon they’re cruelly assaulting! It seems for Billy to disguise himself as a delivery boy, they captured a delivery boy. Looking like a delivery boy in the delivery boy’s delivery boy uniform, Billy delivers a…thing to a man at a place. See, it isn’t very clear. This man has a Flaming Torch tattoo – ye gods! Delivery done, Billy releases the delivery boy, done acting as a delivery boy.
This delivery has apparently tipped the Little Tough Guys off to the Torches’ latest one-off city lair – a condemned shell of a high rise. Rather than go right over there, they lunch with Harry and his upstanding straight arrow compatriots in the Junior G-Men for a bit. (Because, you know, this movie is simply pure propaganda for the Junior G-Men organization.) Done feasting aimlessly, they use Harry’s radio equipment technobabble to hone in on the goons’ hideout – the same hideout they were just at. I’m confused, I am.
Okay, so…Ah, that was all time wasting! But now, that precious second reel is running out, and things can happen again. Harry, having gypped Gyp’s spot from Gyp, accompanies Billy sneaking into the lair. Upstairs, they encounter the expected goons, and – FISTFIGHT! One good thing about Junior G-Men is that the kids aren’t always the best fighters. Billy and Harry are tied up.
But Bradford has tracked them to this location, because he is relying on children to do his FBI investigation for him! So Bradford and his unnamed lackey head up to encounter the goons, meaning – FISTFIGHT!
Okay, so now the kids are freed and the goons bound. Heh heh, goons. (How’s a cliffhanger gonna evolve out of this?!) Some blueprints are acquired, but a goon groans about more in a “vault.” This proves instead to be a secret passage the goon rather obviously escapes through. D’oh! Methinks Bradford nearly as incompetent as the Torches – maybe it’s the old “adults are useless in a kids’ film” thing.
Anyway, this emancipated henchman goons on down to the local diner, to inform Brand of his latest triumph/failure/whatever that was. Realizing their moronic downtown cover has been blown, Brand resolves to explode the building. Which he’ll do with a great big bleeping whatzit machine doohickey right there in his lair – at least this allows Brand to stand up, something I’d assumed him incapable of. And this machine, with its lightning and gewgaws and all, looks like the danged “Billion Bubble Machine” in Robot Monster.
I’m not sure how that device is supposed to function, but – Ker-implode! Explosions distract my brain!
CHAPTER SIX: TRAITORS’ TREACHERY
A pause before we learn how our heroes survive building demolition stock footage: The forward text scroll (you know, Star Wars-like) spells “clue” as “clew,” and “blueprint” as “blew-print.” I’m not sure what to make of that.
Okay, so about that survival. Bradford, Billy and Harry survive the implosion by…surviving. Really, there’s no explanation, they just do. Man, the fun of a film serial is to learn how, which this denies. It’s stupidness Raiders of the Lost Ark definitely wouldn’t succumb to (and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull would).
For the third episode in a row, the post-cliffhanger section is a return to stagnation, with no characters having any solid ideas. That means it’s back to a tried and true standard, Brand’s goons aimlessly tailing Billy through the streets – again. Again they stand out like dinosaurs, and the Little Tough Guys manage to trail the trailers – again. Billy even leads this mass of massive mercs down to the docks, where an ambush is set. And that ambush?
FISTFIGHT!
Around here, my mighty online resource for public domain movies goes all wonky, the remainder of Chapter Six unavailable. In your mind, picture instead the film reel coming unspooled in the projector, like the middle of Gremlins 2. Or like Grindhouse, really, for this is something akin to their “Missing reels.” The outcome of this latest face-punching shall remain a mystery, Chapter Six forever cut short.
CHAPTER SEVEN: FLAMING DEATH
[Reel missing]
CHAPTER EIGHT: HURLED THROUGH SPACE
We rejoin Junior G-Men just as Chapter Eight is wrapping up, meaning we’re just in time for a –
FISTFIGHT!
This time, the Little Tough Guys are fighting those very same goons in an apartment, suggesting not much of importance took place in between. As usual, Billy has decided upon the single most dangerous spot possible – the fire escape!
Like something out of Safety Last!, the fire escape plummets (in a “plunge of peril”), both Billy and goons in freefall. How shall Billy escape this time? Firefighters waiting below? Sudden UFO swoops him up? It turns out he simply wasn’t on the fire escape? By fiat? Don’t miss the next exciting write-up of Junior G-Men!
Related posts:
• No. 1 Little Tough Guy (1938)
• Nos. 2 - 15 (1938 - 1943)
• No. 7 Junior G-Men (1940) Chapters One - Three
Chapters Nine - Twelve
• No. 10 Sea Raiders (1941) Chapters One - Six
Chapters Seven - Twelve
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