Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Robert J. Maxwell Kind of fun, actually, with no time wasted.Reagan is a transport pilot who is recruited by the Secret Service to do some undercover work in a gang of ugly thugs who run a business transporting rich white illegals from Mexico into the United States to pick melons. Well -- not to pick melons but to find a stash of bonds or engage in some other scurrilous activity.To give the pristine Reagan the proper background, the Secret Service frames him for some outrage and puts him in a cell with a former pilot for the sneaky business. The imprisoned pilot gives Reagan the low down on the business -- "Just mention my name." But when a staged getaway is deliberately thwarted by the Secret Service, the pilot goes back to the slams and Reagan is released, now with the requisite prison record, and insinuates himself into the gang as their new pilot.The gang is suspicious of Regan for a while and they put him on probation, but eventually accept him as a really good bad guy. That's when the original pilot gets out of the slams, and when he hears that Reagan is doing the flying, he twigs to the fact that that getaway attempt was staged by the Secret Service. How? I don't know. Call it fulgurating intuition.It's a kinetic, no-nonsense movie, full of brawls in Mexican cantinas, the dumping of passengers out of a kind of bomb bay, Reagan's refulgent grin, and people sneaking around and spying on others. There's hardly a dull moment.Is it a B feature? You bet, but a good example of its kind.

Neil Doyle Warner Bros. used their B-films as a training ground for their new contract players and this time it's RONALD REAGAN's turn to take his place as leading man in an action-filled melodrama about the Secret Service and a plan to trap criminals who are responsible for bringing illegal aliens into the U.S. from Mexico via plane.JOHN RIDGELY is an airline pilot at the controls when he has to dispose of the illegals when the feds are closing in on them. The shocking moment has him flipping a switch so the passenger compartment opens up, ridding him of all the illegals in flight.But the rest of the story is routine stuff, with JAMES STEPHENSON as the man heading the ring who at first trusts that Reagan (who has joined the illegals under pretext of being a criminal) is okay to be one of his pilots. It's swiftly paced and the only drawback is the comedy relief supplied by EDDIE FOY, JR. in the kind of role Frank McHugh usually played in Warner flicks.Reagan acquits himself well as the 20-year-old newcomer and has a couple of fight scenes that look as though the stunt men got quite a workout.Summing up: Not bad for a B-film that played the lower half of double bills.

Michael_Elliott Secret Service of the Air (1939) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Warner "B" flick about a pilot (Ronald Reagan) who joins the Secret Service so that he can take down some smugglers. I wasn't expecting too much out of this film but like Warner's gangster pictures, this film contains just about everything you could possibly fit into a 61-minute movie. You get a prison break, car chases, shootouts, bar fights, a silly love story, brawls, various plane chases and much more. I wouldn't exactly say Reagan gives a good performance but he is fun to watch. The film eventually runs out of steam and never gets too deep but overall this is a pretty entertaining movie.

MartinHafer The film begins with some criminals transporting illegal aliens into the US from Mexico. However, this is NOT the typical group of illegals--many are criminals and those running the business are evil scum. This becomes apparent when the plane is almost captured by a Secret Service agent. How he and the rest of the passengers were done away with in an early scene was truly horrifying and shocked me.Later, airline pilot Ronald Reagan is approached by the Secret Service and asked to join. The problem is, they need to ruin his clean reputation so that the mob will believe he is their kind of person, so government frames Reagan and sends him for a short stint in prison--after which time he makes contact with the crooks and infiltrates the gang.This was an obvious B-movie from Warner Brothers due to the style of film (emphasizing action and a very fast pace), the fact that the movie is filled with unknown actors (even star Ronald Reagan was a definite newcomer to the screen) and its short length (at just over one hour). Often, over the years' "B" has come to mean bad or second-rate, though this movie is pretty good considering that it was meant to be a lesser film in a double-feature. Sure, you can't compare it to the very best films of the time, but this breezy little film is a good showcase for Reagan and helps to hide his relatively wooden screen persona. I liked Reagan but gotta admit he wasn't the most charismatic actor of his age. About the only other negatives are common in B's and these are plot holes--little inconsistencies or logical errors that were never effectively dealt with, such as how easy it was for Reagan's cover to get blown--but what do you expect for 63 minutes?!