Memorable, crazy movie

Good movie but grossly overrated

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

Blistering performances.

Roy Chanslor's screenplay of the John and Ward Hawkins story, "The Saboteurs", is, as we might expect, war-time propaganda concerned with the enemy's attempts to sabotage Californian shipyards. It's now somewhat dated. Worse still, the script is inclined to be too talkative, even though producer Phil Ryan has tried to offset this problem by engaging a first-class cast, including always reliable Pat O'Brien, plus two lovelies in the form of Carole Landis and Ruth Warrick, to do most of the talking. Alas, generally speaking, both Eddie Sutherland's direction and Franz Planer's cinematography are undistinguished. But fortunately, the action scenes have a fair amount of credibility, and there is an adequate climax.

The Secret Command made it into Oscar contention with a nomination for Best Special Effects. Still this World War II flag waver has not worn well over the years.Pat O'Brien who was a former war correspondent and now secret government agent takes a job at a shipyard where his brother Chester Morris is now the hiring boss. O'Brien seems changed to both Morris and Ruth Warrick a girl both of them courted back in the day. Biggest change of all is that O'Brien is married to Carole Landis and has two kids. That does not sound like the rollicking hell raising brother Morris knew back in the day.It's suspected that the Nazis have planted saboteurs at the shipyard and O'Brien's mission is to find out who they are and most important who the ringleader is. He's also getting used to home life with Carole Landis and who wouldn't have a hard time keeping his mind on the mission.A few familiar faces are in the cast in roles suitably comfortable for them. I do confess that the ringleader does turn out to be a surprise.Still the subject of sabotage was covered far better in the Alfred Hitchcock classic Saboteur. It holds up where this one does not.

These things generally are more interesting for their social history than the cinematic experience. But that history is hot and heavy here.Its a strange thing to witness, how Hollywood toes the line on perceived social needs, sometimes taking the lead from Washington.The US entered the war with a strategy not based on valor, or military prowess. It was simply based on outproducing the bad guys. We could make stuff faster than they could blow it up. So industrial sabotage was a real worry. We weren't worried about the Japanese because we simply locked up anyone who looked Japanese.It was the Germans who "looked like us," that were the worry.So Hollywod ginned up some stories to fit, and this is probably the best of the bunch. The interesting thing here is how far the Irish had come as the prototype American. Only a few decades before, Irish (with Jews) were considered slime. They were quite literally the "other," the non-American. Its anyone's guess why they rose so quickly. The common theories don't hold much water because we see other groups who behaved much the same way and never achieved the exalted status of the Irish as movie icons. But here we have it in spades: brawling is an honorable, friendly thing. Booze is never mentioned. All the hard working, patriotic, tough souls here are Irish. They win the war with pluck and expect no reward or recognition.Now, that's a story. Incidentally, though the story, sets and action are pure hokum, that acting here is pretty modern and realistic. I think that's related to the Irish story.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

World War II spy thriller, taking place in a ship-building plant, with Pat OBrien, who made a whole lotta movies, mostly war times. Carol Landis, who made a good number of movies, but committed suicide at an early age, shortly after making, ironically, "The Noose". Secret Command was nominated for an Oscar, but was up against "30 seconds over Tokyo" (S Tracy, V Johnson,R Mitchum), so of course, it didn't have a chance. I thought the suspense-full high crane scenes were actually pretty good, considering when this was made, in spite of the liberal use of back-mats throughout the film. The sound also cuts out several times, and I wondered if it was dialogue editing, poor recording quality, or the fault of my local cable company. (was shown on Turner Classic Movies in June 2007). see my entry in message boards for this film for additional observations and shortcomings in the script.