The 1940 film The Flying Squad is the third adaptation of the Edgar Wallace novel, there were films in 1929 and 1932. The British Film series has a fair number of Edgar Wallace films in their collection. The screenplay was written by Doreen Montgomery and the director is Herbert Brenon.
Doreen Montgomery wrote a good number of films, sadly I'm not familiar with them, on the other hand, I'm sort of familiar with some of her TV work. She wrote scripts for Hawkeye And The Last Of The Mohicans, William Tell, HG Wells' The Invisible Man, Danger Man, Sir Frances Drake and The Avengers. I hope to run into more of her films.
This was the last film for Herbert Brenon, he mostly directed silent films, over 50 shorts and over 50 features. The Wikipedia tells me that he directed the first adaptations of Peter Pan and Beau Geste. He directed Sorrell And Son and got an Oscar nomination at the first Oscars. Of his 120 plus films all I've seen is the 1928 Lon Chaney film Laugh, Clown, Laugh. Good film but not something I'm likely to get back to any time soon.
Sebastian Shaw is Inspector Bradley, Jack Hawkins is Mark McGill, Phyllis Brooks is Ann Perryman. Those are the main three characters. Mark runs smuggling ring and he killed Ann's brother. The brother had been in the ring but he's been having second thoughts and wanted to leave. Mark killed him and tossed him in the river. Mark also killed an old man who saw him killing the brother.
The Inspector want to catch the crooks but he's having a hard time getting any solid evidence. Ann comes to town and Mark convinces her that her brother was killed by the police. She quickly joins the gang for her own mad reasons. She's not a clever girl, easily swayed by a scumbag. On her first run she has a car accident, the Inspector helps her out without telling her he's on her case, he lets her go to see who she contacts.
It's a fair decent story, the film is only 59 minutes, sometimes it seems like it's missing scenes. It does move along nice and briskly, I like that. It's got a nice sense of humor too. My favorite scene is one where the Inspector introduces Mark to a man at the courthouse, he tells Mark he'll be meeting the man again sometime. The other detective tells Mark that he'll be meeting him "professionally." Marks asks if the man is a policeman and the Inspector says "No, he's the public hangman." Made me laugh out loud. What a guy, that Inspector. Glad to have seen it, I'll watch it again someday, I'll bet I laugh when the hangman shows up.
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