Absolutely Fantastic

A Masterpiece!

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

***SPOILERS*** Like a number of previous reviewers stated the film "Busses Roar" very likely inspired the plot for the blockbuster 1994 film "Speed" some 60 years later but despite it's low budget it just if not more entertaining. The Nazis and their Japanese allies are planning to blow up a number of oil instillation's along the Pacific Coast Highway and plan to use a passenger bus-The San Diego to San Francisco Line-to do it. With American traitor Jerry Silva, Rex Williams, given the task by his Nazi controller Hoff, Peter Whitney, to plant the explosive, that looks like a thermos bottle, on the bus he finds his what at first seemed simple task far more difficult that what he first thought it would be.***SPOILER*** One of the reasons is that the local bus terminal annoying moocher or panhandler, Bill Kennedy, is really an undercover Government Secret Agent who's on to what he's up to."Busses Roar" starts out like a 1970's disaster movie with all the characters in it introduced to the audience with us watching trying t figure out just who will end up alive or dead as well as the, what turned out be, unlikely hero or heroine in it is by the time the movie is over. The heroics comes late in the film with pretty Reba Richards, Julie Bishop, who at first didn't have the money, $5.40, for a bus ticket commandeering the runaway bus, who's brakes were cut by Silva, and keeping it together with it's some dozen passengers from crashing into an oil rig with time bomb planted on it detonating blowing the whole place to kingdom come!***SPOILERS*** There's also the elderly couple Mr & Mrs Dipper, Harry E. Bradey & Vera Lewis, who are on their way to SF to see their daughter with a box of oranges from their orchid. Unknown to them Silva planted the bomb together with the oranges where It was set to go off. It's old man Dipper, known to his family and friends as "The Big Dipper", who in finding the bomb among his oranges coolly disarmed it and prevented it from going off! As it turned out that the meek henpecked and grandfatherly looking Dipper was a top explosive expert with the US Army back in WWI! It was in fact African/Amerian actor Willie Best as the bus baggage handler "Sunshine" who got all the best lines and scenes in the film. Best who you would have expected to be the least heroic person in the cast ended up foiling the Nazi and Japaneses plans to blow up the bus by him bravely and mindlessly overreacting, instead of turning white with fright, to it!P.S The movie "Busses Roar" was 19 year old actress Elenore Parker who played bus ticket girl Norma first talking and credited film role.

(How could they get this all the way out without someone realizing they had misspelled "Buses"?)I loved this movie. You need to remember that in 1942, panic and hysteria were the order of the day along the West Coast, and in fact a Japanese submarine surfaced and shelled the Ellwood Oil Field off Santa Barbara on the night of 23 February. The next night, there was a mysterious episode in which gunners fired antiaircraft guns into the skies over LA, thinking there were unseen Japanese aircraft attacking them.Even tho there were none, this came to be called The Battle of Los Angeles. Given the times, this movie is perfect."Busses (sic) Roar" is richly laced with fascinating characters, and as the movie unfolds, you begin to wonder where they are all going to come together.The film succeeds in loading the bus with believable, identifiable people, and when peril ensues, you fear for them.I caught this on TCM on 03 June 2013, and if it comes on again, I'll make it a point to watch.

This is a most enjoyable movie,catching the spirit of the enemy as depicted by Hollywood in early WWII. Such a movie would be "politically incorrect" these days, as would "Outrages of the Orient" which I recently purchased. I remembered it from childhood, but found it now to be trashy compared to "Buses Roar".

This Warners programmer is rarely seen today, and that's a pity. It does show up occasionally on DVD, and I found a 16mm copy in the Wisconsin State Historical Society. I enjoyed the entertaining World War II-based storyline with its loose-lips-sink-ships propaganda. Warners didn't miss adding a plug for Victory Bonds, either. (Good for them.) It's set mostly within a large bus terminal along the California coast on one dark night shortly after the onset of the War. Within the spacious interior, civilians and military personnel intermingle around the big waiting-room and its ticket counters, the news-stand, cocktail lounge and restaurant, and also eventually in the rear service areas. This interplay allows the opportunity for the human drama to unfold.At the time of production, there was a real-life submarine sighting along the West Coast, and in "Busses Roar" we see Axis spies and saboteurs scheme to plant a bomb on a coastline bus to create a target beacon for an offshore sub. That plot device pales, though, in comparison to the interesting characters who pass in and through the ornate bus station, each with his/her own traveler's tale to tell."Busses Roar" has a multi-personal, kaleidoscopic plot that you'll like, and another terrific plus is the great background music score by William Lava, Howard M. Jackson and Max Steiner. Today's expensive films should have such talent.The second half of the film has road action on the pre-Interstate nighttime coastline highways, within those long, low-slung, almost sinister-looking front-engine buses with rooftop luggage racks that predate today's boring cruiser-coaches. (Interestingly, they're equipped with radios for background music and war news.)As the spy plot thickens, there is a chase, failed brakes, and a runaway bus. (The buses do indeed roar as their headlights sweep the night and dramatic camera angles emphasize looming fenders, wheels and grilles. Great stuff.)The Warners cast pulls it off gracefully with humor and without heavy-handed tactics. Willie Best, of course, steals every scene.If you like the great 1940s Warner Brothers "look", or wartime-themed films, or great little programmers, or train/bus/plane/ship action films, seek out "Busses Roar". It's high entertainment that deserves being seen.