CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

JohnHowardReid Associate producer: William Jacobs. Copyright 19 September 1942 by Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc. A Warner Brothers-First National picture. New York opening at the Palace: 24 September 1942. U.S. release: 18 August 1942. Australian release: 21 February 1946 (sic). 5,403 feet. 58 minutes.SYNOPSIS: A Nazi agent attempts to place a bomb on a bus.NOTES: Film debut of Eleanor Parker . COMMENT: It's hard to believe that this wonderfully suspenseful, well-produced "B" thriller comes from the hand of D. Ross Lederman, not exactly a giant in the art of creative film-making. However, it's been well said that even the lowliest Hollywood hack has the makings of at least one really good movie. And in point of fact, Mr. Lederman has actually brought out at least two (1943's "Adventure in Iraq" is the other contender I have in mind), maybe even three or four. Of course, for this one he did have a tautly solid script to start with, and a really professional cast to enact its interesting characters. Julie Bishop figures both most convincingly yet sympathetically in the lead as the stranded girl, whilst the support players led by Eleanor Parker, Willie Best, George Meeker and the personable Richard Travis, hover around her ingratiatingly. What's even more important is that the plot comes to an all-action climax abetted by skillful editing and first-rate special effects. This is probably a good place to answer a question some readers have been asking me: Why am I including "B" movies in my reviews on IMDb? Such films surely had no chance whatever of earning praise from critics, let alone winning any awards? Wrong! Quite a few "B" movies were nominated for awards and in 1956 "Marty" (a "B" movie if ever there was one) even won Hollywood's major awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Screenplay!

sol1218 ***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.

bkoganbing Except for the stereotypical portrayal that Willie Best does in Buses Roar of the misspelled title, the film is a typical wartime propaganda film, just some fodder for the homefront morale. This concerns a rather inept bunch of saboteurs, a joint German-Japanese operation to blow up a bus.This is not a terrorist act per se, the idea is to plant a bomb on a bus and detonate when it's near some undisclosed valuable wartime site. The passengers would be considered collateral damage in today's terms.The film marked Eleanor Parker's feature film debut though she's billed fourth in the cast as a bus ticket agent who has a couple of drivers panting hot and heavy for her. The real stars are Richard Travis and Julie Bishop as a marine on leave and a woman who's hoping to charm the price of a ticket out of San Diego.The saboteurs who are led by Peter Whitney make three different attempts to get the bomb on the bus. Law enforcement isn't to swift either in this comedy of errors.Still the film has a certain charm to it, sad it had to include Willie Best at his worst.

Lou Rugani 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.