Adeel Hail
Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.
utgard14
B movie from Universal starring Ricardo Cortez as a US Postal Inspector fighting to keep the mail safe and on time for all of us. But none of you are going to watch this for Cortez. I would bet my stamp collection everyone who sees this today does so because it features horror legend Bela Lugosi as the villain. Bela plays a nightclub owner who resorts to robbing a mail truck to pay off his debts. Ricardo will have none of that. Too bad Bela didn't know the USPS motto: "Neither snow nor rain nor Hungarian thespians will stay these couriers from their appointed rounds." An enjoyable little programmer with some interesting "window into the times" elements. I liked seeing how the postal inspector's office worked, taking complaints about various cons, including showing a couple of gadgets that were used to fleece people. Also seeing planes, radios, etc. in older films always pleases me. I like the simple things. Sue me. Cortez is good. Lugosi is fun playing a different kind of character than I'm used to seeing him as. He's a criminal but a nervous, frightened one. Patricia Ellis has a rather risqué scene where we can see her body thru a shower door. Surprised that made it past the censors. Hattie McDaniel has a couple of funny lines. Some songs are shoved in because why not. Written by the author of "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" Not kidding.
zardoz-13
Bela Lugosi made many unusual movies during his career. Otto Brower's "Postal Inspector" was the last film that Lugosi made on contract with Universal Pictures. Clocking in at a mere 58 minutes, this contrived but entertaining cinematic tribute to the U.S. Postal Service looks rather nondescript. Indeed, "Postal Inspector" could serve as a prototype for everything that "Dragnet" creator Jack Webb ever created. For the record, Lugosi doesn't take top billing. Suave Ricardo Cortez has that distinction. He played the original Samuel Spade in the 1931 version of "The Maltese Falcon" before Humphrey Bogart recreated Spade in his own image. Lugosi took fourth billing after Patricia Ellis and Michael Loring. Brower and "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" scenarist Horace McCoy have forged themselves a genuine hybrid with an array of characters. "Postal Inspector" consists of one third crime thriller, one third musical, and one third disaster epic. At every opportunity, our hero reminds us that the best insurance in the world is a postage stamp. Moreover, the message that citizens must be protected from fraudulent practices drives the Postal Service. The comic relief consists of episodes about fraudulent gadgets sold via the mail to naïve citizens. "There's one born every minute, " laments our hero. Cortez looks like he would be the wrong man with which to tangle. Sadly, Lugosi languished in a lackluster role as a shifty nightclub owner in trouble with the mob. During the first scene, our hero and his fellow postal inspectors receive praise from none other than President Franklin D. Roosevelt over a speaker phone for their "fine work" moving the gold reserves of the United States to the inland cities. Clearly, the producers must have approved of FDR's policies. You should have no trouble spotting African-American actress Hattie McDaniel in a supporting role as the heroine's maid.Richard Cortez is Inspector Bill Davis. Not only does Davis take everything seriously but he is also the epitome of efficiency. Davis is pretty unflappable, and he always has a reassuring line for anybody who has a problem with the postal service. Davis manages to sort out all the problems that citizens have without losing his cool. Patrick Ellis plays vocalist Connie Larrimore. She meets Davis aboard a flight from Washington, D.C. to Milltown, during stormy weather. The pilots are trying to land, but they cannot see anything because they are surrounded by the equivalent of pea soup. Ground Control struggles to talk the pilots safely down. Our heroine uses her vocal chords to soothe some frightened passengers, with a youngster providing accompaniment on his harmonica. The press plasters Connie's commendable singing exploits across the front page story. She warbled to calm the nerves of the passengers. Bela Lugosi makes his first appearance as Gregory Benez, a natty nightclub owner who has Connie under contract to sing in his nightclub The Golden Eagle, at the airport. Later, we learn Benez has shady dealings with the mob. He owes Alfred Carter, 'known to have financed many nightclubs, $50-thousand and he is two weeks tardy on his payment. At the airport, Connie gets reacquainted with an old friend from her past in Milltown. The friend turns out to be Bill's younger brother Charlie (Michael Loring) and Charlie wants to rekindle the flame. Seven years have elapsed since they went their separate ways. Our hero's introduction to Connie has a memorable moment. Charlie points out his brother works for the post office. Slyly, Connie reminds Charlie that it has been a long time since they played post office. Brower and McCoy exploit this moment again later in the action for dramatic emphasis. Connie learns that Charlie works for the Federal Reserve Bank. He is in charge of all the money that the Federal Reserve wants to take out of circulation. He tells Connie about a shipment of used bills, approximately $3-million worth of bills . Later, Benez and his accomplices knock over the armored car, kill a postal employee, and steal the millions. Of course, Davis is not happy.Initially, Charlie assures his brother Bill that he had nothing to do with the robbery. It looks like Charlie and Connie are to be implicated until Connie agrees to flush out Benez. Lugosi plays Benez with considerable restraint. About 31 minutes into the action, our handsome hero catches a plane to Yarborough where heavy rains have washed out a bridge and cut off the town. The stock footage of the flood scenes is impressive. One desperate African-American scrambles to seize a chicken. Meantime, Davis relocates the post office to higher ground.Altogether, "Postal Inspector" is a routine potboiler about the Postal Inspectors and their jobs. The joke about the elderly woman who solicits proposals of marriage through the mail with a photography of a young, beautiful woman is hilarious. The villains use a boat to elude the authorities, but they don't lose them entirely. Newspaper headline state that the mail robbers are scheduled to serve 10 years to life.
Michael_Elliott
Postal Inspector (1936) *** (out of 4)A city is being ravished by a flood when a group of criminals (including Bela Lugosi) decide to steal three million from the post office, which gets the postal inspector (Richard Cortez) involved. I was really shocked to see how much I liked this little film that has some wonderful comic moments dealing with various ways people get ripped off and the ending was full of great action. The special effects of the city being ripped apart by water were all very well done, although some stock footage was used. An interesting note was that this was Lugosi's final film for Universal under his Dracula contract.
dbborroughs
I kept singing "You've never seen anything like it" from Doctor Dolittle as I watched this because I hadn't seen anything like it.Ricardo Cortez plays a postal inspector who meets up with a nightclub singer on a plane having trouble landing. The singer sings a song to help calm everyone. The plane lands and we find that the singers manager is Bela Lugosi a Mexican business man in deep with the mob. After several scenes of Cortez showing what a postal inspector does the singer takes a shower and sings. A friend of Cortez is actually wooing the singer and everyone ends up at a night club where we get another song. Lugosi finds out that the younger inspector is going to be moving some old currency so he plots to steal it so he can get out of debt. A flood happens as the robbery goes down. There's another song before Cortez springs into action.All that and more in an hour.As odd mixes of genre's go I'd be hard pressed to come up with one as loopy as this.I have no idea if I liked it, but I do know its a unique viewing experience. If you want to see how to put mutually exclusive genres together and make it kind of work this is the movie for you. See it and you too can sing that you've never seen anything like it...
