Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

mark.waltz It seems like all James Newill has to do is break into song to try and get the audience to forget how ultimately ludicrous this film is, but all he does is remind them even more. It's not the main plot of an attempt to steal gold and the killing of the pilots who seem to know too much. An opening scene of the boss of this mail service business is truly chilling as the bound pilot heads to certain death and the fear in his eyes explodes. Then along comes Renfrew, the singing Mountie, and definitely no rival to Nelson Eddy. He's suspicious that something's up but every time he gets a clue, he breaks into song. Even the old children's song "Go tell Aunt Rhoadie" gets a re-writing here, becoming just preposterous with each verse. The third of a 5 feature series, the "Sergeant Renfrew" films were obviously cheaply made, written rather quickly, and even more quickly, forgotten. Newill's basically a clown in mounties' clothing, and that makes him rather forgettable as a hero. Louise Stanley is an adequate heroine, while the group of villains have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Basically, the whole story is a big joke and the punchline ain't all that funny.

MartinHafer "Yukon Flight" is a very forgettable and often silly little B-movie from Monogram Studios. It's even sillier than their normal fare—very silly indeed. It's a Renfrew of the Royal Mounted film (the last of three) starring James Newell—a handsome actor who seemed incapable of going very long without breaking into song! As for the plot, it's an escapist mystery film—common for this studio.The film, not surprisingly, is set in the Canadian wilderness. Along with Renfrew, he has a very dim assistant and together (but mostly due to Renfrew), they manage to bring a gang to justice that is stealing gold shipments and claiming the planes were lost. What they really were doing was deliberately crashing their planes (along with the pilots) and substituting sand in the bags intended for gold. This IS odd, as gold would NOT be burned up in the crash, it would just melt and it would become obvious the switch was made.Overall, this is a silly and tedious film. Tedious because the characters are all very one-dimensional and the plot isn't particularly engaging—especially since Renfrew keeps insisting on serenading everyone—even in the most ridiculous situations. Odd and forgettable.

guguwich-74-51579 A fun little romp in the tradition of B-westerns, but with a Canadian spin. My copy is the same source as above, but they seemed to have addressed the dark spots (guess they check IMDb). Don't want to spoil it for anyone, but definitely worth a look for "old movie" buffs. I'm glad to have it in my permanent collection, because I will watch it again, just don't know when...but its good to know I can.The RCMP uniforms are accurate for the day. Also, the bi-planes were state of the art at the time. For any film history buff, my opinion is this is a must see.While I am more familiar with Sgt Preston, it is nice to see the base from which he "sprung."

Michael Morrison This is an exciting blend of cowboy and pilot, of horse and airplane.Tex O'Brien is in it and that would be enough for me, but in fact there is an exceptional cast, with some colorfully named characters who add some weight and who flesh out the story.My copy of "Yukon Flight" is pretty bad, with some godawful dark scenes that make it hard to follow. As a result of the poor quality picture, I have had to extrapolate a bit, and I still loved this movie.It is part of the Great American Western series from Echo Bridge Entertainment, Volume 35 of "over 30 Volumes," as it says on the case and "over 40" as it says on the other case in the box.James Newill is the nominal star and is the title character, Sergeant Renfrew, who also sings. He is more Nelson Eddy than Gene Autry in style, so anyone who doesn't like operetta might feel like fast-forwarding. That's not a problem for me, though.Roy Barcroft is one of the minor bad guys, in a different kind of role for him.Jack Clifford plays a character named "Whispering Smith," but he has no resemblance to any other "Whispering Smith," such as that of Alan Ladd, Richard Carlson, or Audie Murphy. Apparently his character shows up in two other Renfrew films.This is fun. I only hope you find a better copy than mine, which is still fun.Added 17 January 2015: There is a copy at YouTube that seems to be much better.