User Reviews

Not that anything in Radar Secret Service will tell you this is a futuristic drama because everybody drives cars and dresses in fashions of the present day of 1950, but the fact is even the movie-going public was aware that radar did not have the capabilities so described in that time. It still doesn't. But the premise around the film that radar was an all purpose crime fighting and detecting tool was way in the future.

Two futuristic cops, John Howard and Ralph Byrd, ride around in a car equipped with radar detection and they're on a case involving some stolen uranium. The gang has all kinds of layers within it with your typical gangster's moll Adele Jergens supposedly gunman Tom Neal's woman, but really two timing him with mastermind Tris Coffin. In fact this whole film is proof positive of the premise there is definitely no honor among thieves.

Something tells me that the Radar Secret Service was not used in tracking down two bit stickup men and that the public was supposed to feel good about radar keeping us safe. This film really plays to Cold War paranoia.

On the plus side Adele Jergens and Myrna Dell playing a waitress are always good to look at and perennial Lippert Pictures regular Sid Melton is once again in this for comic relief. Sid was really needed here.

This film must be the most radar friendly film ever made with "The Deadly Mantis" being a close second. Yes, this film seems almost to be an advertisement for the wonders of radar and chances are if you have seen this obscure flick, you watched it on the riff show, Mystery Science Theater 3000. I could not imagine seeing it any other way, just as I cannot see this film having all that many actual fans. Seriously, the film plays out like an advertisement for something and in the case of radar it is not as if one can actually purchase it or needs it. Well, I guess someone fishing could use it, but aside from that, most people just do not really need it. It is like the film had to stress upon us the importance of it because if we are not interested it will no longer be used!

The story has a special department that uses radar to solve crimes. At the beginning two guys are using it to find a gun tossed out of a car or something. That is spectacular! Why it is so easy, I do not understand why they don't use radar for things like that now! Oh yeah, that is not how radar works! Well, at a diner we have some people starting a caper that involves radioactive substances and they actually do manage to get it! What amazes me is that for some reason the radar can find a buried gun, but not a radioactive substance! That should be relatively simple for the all powerful radar to pick up! You would think anyway, but no, they have to do a lot of actual police work until the end when they put radar into a chopper to find the stolen merchandise!

This made for a pretty good episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The mads kept acting like this one was going to be torturous to watch as it would eclipse 'Deep Hurting' and 'Sandstorm' as one of the more painful experiences yet. However, I do believe the rock climbing scene from "The Lost Continent" and the Hercules 'Sandstorm' were much more dragging. No wonder Mike made it through this relatively unscathed. Funny episode, the the best part about this one was the short preceding it.

So the film was like an advertisement...to much so. It actually detracted from the film. Any time the criminals would get serious someone would pop up talking about how wonderful radar was and all that. It simply makes any suspense completely and utterly disappear. Not that there was much suspense to begin with. The film is better than say, "Rocket Attack U.S.A" as it does have a semblance of a plot going on, but on the whole a very badly done film. The makers of this one were just too enamored with radar, I'm afraid.

Maybe I've gotten to the point where I've seen so many movies I have a hard time telling them apart, but this movie was extremely dull. It was about a bunch of people who were committing crimes like murder and I guess radar was being used to find them. This film mostly suffers from being boring. It's sad to see a film so old that's so dull. I guess these times weren't necessarily the golden age of movies. At least this one didn't have giant animals or killer animals like every other bad movie released in the 1950's.

The worst part is how I simply didn't care about what was going on. The characters had no depth at all. When you have a story where everyone looks the same, that's a huge problem. I understand why people had a hard time telling the good guys apart from the bad guys. This whole thing is pointless and adds absolutely nothing unique to the wide variety of movies in existence. It was hard to tell what was going on and I didn't care. *1/2

My rating would be zero as a movie, but ten as an MST3K show. It's so dull that your attention wanders, and you can sort of get the plot after you watch the bots go after it a couple of times. These movies do have have a certain fascination, and I'd like to know more about the bland, bland cinematic world of Robert Lippert. The lives of people who went to Lippert films must have tasted like stale wheat. You can't help but wonder if the relationship of Blackie and his gal had a least some spark. While the damned "Pillbox" (Melton, dear God, it's Melton) is in a hell of his own partaking. Note the cameo of Ed Wood actor at the end. I could look up his name, but, ah... it's just too boring.

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.

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.

You see, Bulldog Drummond and Dick Tracy (actually two aging actors who at one time or another played those roles) are working as "Radar Agents" of the government. I wonder if they had badges that said "Radar Agent"?

"Our beams have all the roads covered" the head agent says, so we are reassured that radar can solve any crime. Everybody knows that radar beams aimed at all the streets catches criminals, right? So, ordinary crimes that would have been solved by regular means are solved by radar machines instead, presumably at a great waste of taxpayer dollars. And a black Chevrolet runs around town with a silly metal dome bolted to its roof.

The director of this movie really did a lousy job, and the acting is poor except for Tom Neal who is convincing as a bad guy. Buxom Adele Jergens has the role of a blonde gang moll, but I still haven't figured out why her character is in the script at all. John Howard, as Radar Agent Travis, has exactly the same expression on his face throughout the whole film. I guess he thought "why bother" to smile, frown or emote at all. Absolutely nobody involved seems to care that they are in this film, but all they are asked to do is just read their lines and get in and out of cars.

If you are a fan of any of the actors involved, or even a fan of Lippert Pictures (which made some far better movies than this), you should just skip "Radar Secret Service".

Once you see Lippert, you know you're in for a slab of cinematic torture.

Radar is your friend. It is responsible for everything good and sacred in society. No evil intentions can be hidden from the pervasive eyes of the almighty radar.

RADAR THIS!!!

Instead of a story, you get lots of black and white shots of guys standing around, inane conversations, bleak settings and even bleaker faces. You can't even tell the good guys from the baddies....oh wait, EVERYBODY was bad in this one. I knew my eyes were viewing this horrific monstrosity despite the periods of coma induced blackouts and the experience can be compared to vacationing on the sun without SPF 5,000,000. Why the pointless scenes of helicopters flying over open roads? I cannot recall one character from this poopiefest except for inappropriately named Blackie. Oh, remember that hilarious comedian guy, Sid Melton? Because I DON'T!! Instead, his attempts at humor left scarring impressions and hopes of his quick sniper death.

You see, this one just hurts...on so many levels. Nothing happens, there's no interesting story so the useless dialogue serves no purpose. This was only an hour long! I swear Father Time was yawning during this drivel. Even Mike and the bots reel from the effects of this one. Damn that Hypno Helio Static Stasis!

Movies in the Post-WWII Years were Increasingly Used as Propaganda Backing the Government and Law Enforcement Forcing the "Big Brother" is Looking Out for You Scenario on the Public.

By 1950 that Format Changed "Film-Noir" and the Dark-Side of American Life into 'Police Procedurals" and the Tide was Tsunami by the Mid-to-Late 50's that Coincided with the Conservative Decade.

This Particular 1950 Low-Budget Plot is an Example of it Going Over the Top and Unrealistic to a Fault.

Turning Anti-Crime Techniques from Science to Science-Fiction.

Here Using "Radar", that Did Help Win the War into an Omnipresent Super-Weapon with Capabilities from Buck Rogers that Were Not and Ever Will Be a Reality.

Now, Completely Embarrassing and Glaring in its Manipulation of the Facts to Ensure All that We, the USA, are an Unbeatable Presence with God & Science On Our Side. So Communist Beware.

While Most Movies that Adopted the Government-Friendly Attitude were More Realistic, to the Point, and Didn't Overstate the Obvious, but Instead Used "Authority" Figures for Introductions, Voice-Over, and Epilogues Cheer-Leading the Procedurals.

But Here, it is Hopelessly and Laughable Throughout and the Movie Becomes Nothing More than a Plead for More Funding for Radar.

It's so Far-Out it is Watchable for its Over-Baked Tone.

The Show is Ridiculous, Over-the-Top, and Beyond Belief so Much, it's

Worth a Watch

Note...there is an In-Joke Moment when Ralph Byrd, who Played "Dick Tracy" more than once, Commented About Tracy's Gadgets, that took the Movie Out of its Skin for an Instance.

As a former radar technician in the US Military I found this movie to be laughably bad. Why would people who (obviously) knew nothing about electronics technology make a movie about "radar?" I guess the 1950 audience knew even less, so they got away with it. I saw the MST 3K version, but it was not one of their best shows, as the movie is not just stupid: it's boring. 1945 - 1960 was the era of classic "Film Noir" when many truly great low-budget black and white films were made. But you had to be intelligent and possess an artistic sensibility to make a Film Noir, and the producers of "Radar Secret Service" had neither of these qualities.

This is a Dragnet style show of cops and robbers, in this case G Men vs Dick Tacy style crooks who steal a radioactive element used for high tech energy or for warfare.

"Radar" is very overrated in its properties here. People from this era, that I knew of, never spoke this highly of Radar in its properties, so I don't think it was ever really as overrated as this movie makes it look.

So much for the bad Science being a product of its generation. It was Mickey Mouse Science then, as well as today.

However, since there are at least two heavily used comic relief characters in this movie, it isn't likely that it was ever meant to be "realistic". This was meant to be tongue in cheek, and a good time.

The comedy would be better if the writing was better. The actors are actually pretty good, especially the comic relief ones, but their lines are not good, even for 1950.

Still, this movie flows very well, and is easy to follow, making it much more entertaining than most modern action movies.

One can look at it as "equal time" as well, a polar opposite of what the industry tries to use for propaganda today.

Today, propaganda is very Republican, it's "don't mess with the mob" that makes most movies today, "unless you're Rambo". Most people don't have any illusions about being Rambo, so the modern movie is propaganda to keep organized and disorganized crime safe. Today's movie is meant to show that the mob is perfect.

So, it's good to have "equal time" for a change, even if one has to go back over half a century, to find equal propaganda against mobs. It certainly is more interesting this way.

The only reason I even made it through this movie was because it was on MST3K why do they need radar when apparently someone has a camera on every car being chased because they can see them on a TV screen! One of the dumbest movies I've ever seen if you like watching cars drive very slowly you'll love it!

Radar Secret Service is a service to nobody unless watched with MST. Wow what a film, slightly more action than Starfighters but not by much. More script than action here, men in gray suits and hats stand around and talk about what they are A: Going to do, and B: What they plan to do. In between there's a couple of gals who look exactly alike yet are different characters who are somehow involved and a boss who talks to the main radar operations guy on how wonderful radar is. Nothing really is accomplished even though the movie claims something did happen. Mike and the bots make this film enjoyable. Oh yes, Sid Melton is thrown in for comedy relief, but this is not apparent. Enjoy!!

Thou shalt not steal. A fun film mixing atomic crime with sci-fi and slapstick. It would have been very exciting when first shown, as the outrageous sci-fi could have passed for science. As a lite flick I enjoyed it.

A Uranium 238 shipment is stolen, quite easily, it seems, and then the hunt is on. There's double crossing between thieves and buyer and body counts, as much goes on below the radar. The Feds slowly catch up and clock on to what's going down, and a girlfriend to a criminal must choose sides, for there is little love between thieves. But the clock is ticking. Will atomic material get into foreign hands?

As Pierre Watkins explains in the plain office where all his scenes are shot, the possibilities of radar are endless. Apparently it can locate guns thrown out of car windows, find schools of fish deep in the ocean, and produces images of the vehicles carrying the radar units that trundle along behind them.

All of which is largely useless when a bunch of crooks steal U-238, which Watkins explains can be used in power plants. I imagine the possibilities are endless. So Ralph Byrd and his cohort head off in their car capped with a giant aluminum globe to track down the baddies, which they can't. Instead, they have to walk into houses and be beaten up by the bad guys.

It's a very poor script that Beryl Sachs -- who also penned MR. MUGGS STEPS OUT -- has written, for Sam Newfield to direct for Lippert. "Radar" is mentioned constantly and serves no purpose at all in the story, and it's clear that no one involved in this production had any idea what it is. A decent cast, including John Howard, Adele Jergens, and Tom Neal are wasted here. Sid Melton also appears.

At least the copy I looked at was from a good print, showing off B-Western cinematographer Ernest Miller's flair with moving shots. Usually the prints of his work are so awful, I can't make much of them except that the guy on the horse went thataway.

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.

Please, before being harsh with this Lippert production, don't forget that the director is no one else than Sam Newfield, the pope of the grade Z movie, a chain film maker, as many others of this era, forties and fifties, before the raging wave of TV industry, the tsunami that occured on the big screen business. For me, this is a pretty good, agreeable little thriller, fun and enjoyable to watch. And for fifty-seven minutes, you can't argue to have lost much time. Espionage Z flick, it is fast paced, pulled by a rather good directing, at the level of an Edward L Cahn's movie, the equivalent of a Sam Newfield.

Ok, I admit I first saw this on MST3K.

But I find it hilarious without their help. As someone who has worked on RADAR software, I guess it cracks me up more than other people. It's totes ridiculous what they say RADAR can do in this movie.

I also love a lot of B cops and robbers movies in general. So I have a weird view of this given my joy at laughing at all the things that RADAR cannot do, that it does in this movie.

This movie reminds me of why science education is important. It doesn't take much knowledge to realize RADAR could not do these things. Did the writers of this movie lack science knowledge, were the 1950s science classes behind the times, or did they simply not care. Did they not care and, think the public would not know better?

Kids, study some science, then you won't be a fool like these writers :)