Movie Review: The Green Hornet Strikes Again! (1940) directed by Ford Beebe
A little background first. The Green Hornet was created for radio in 1936 by Fran Striker, who had also created the Lone Ranger. In the backstory, Dan Reid, nephew of the Lone Ranger, eventually grew up to become a newspaper publisher in an unnamed big city, putting out The Sentinel. He married relatively late in life, and had one son, Brit Reid. In the present day, Dan is quite elderly, and is thinking of turning over his newspaper to Brit, but worries that Brit is a lazy playboy who won’t be able to handle the responsibility. Brit and his East Asian servant Kato have been working on an advanced experimental automobile to show that Brit isn’t useless. Meanwhile, the city is overrun with racketeers. A chance remark that what the city needs is a “modern day Robin Hood” convinces Brit to try fighting crime as the Green Hornet.
The Green Hornet’s modus operandi relied on people’s natural suspicion of masked weirdos. He pretended to be a criminal himself, cutting in on the rackets of other organized crime gangs. But in reality, he was fully on the side of justice and avoided hurting police officers or innocent bystanders. Brit Reid, meanwhile, took a strong stance against racketeers and the Green Hornet in editorials, convincing Dan that he would be a good head for the Sentinel.
The Green Hornet is on the lower end of the scale of what would soon become known as superheroes. He’s an ordinary man who uses a few gadgets and his fists to fight relatively normal criminals. His partner Kato is an inventor who came up with the Black Beauty’s silent-running engine that can move the car at 200 mph (the car is also bulletproofed) and the gas gun that stuns opponents rather than killing them. Brit Reid also relies on the reporters at the Sentinel to bring him information on events that he can then use as the Green Hornet.
On to the current story. After his successful campaign against crime in the first movie serial, The Green Hornet, Brit Reid (Warren Hull) recuperates by taking a few weeks to vacation in Hawaii with Kato (Keye Luke). Unfortunately, while he’s been away, a man named Crogan (Pierre Watkin) has managed to become head of the Syndicate, a coalition of racketeers. Crogan’s got his fingers in many pies, including working with foreign interests, but knows that the Sentinel’s anti-racketeering crusades could do considerable damage. Thus, he’s planted his own man Frederick Harper (William Forrest) on the paper with forged credentials. Apparently Harper was a legitimate newspaperman long ago, the forged background just makes it look like he still is. Harper’s managed to get the editor in chief out of the way temporarily so he can squash anti-racket stories, but that’s raising the suspicions of the staff.
Important members of the staff include Lenore “Casey” Case (Anne Nagel), Brit Reid’s secretary, who thinks that the Green Hornet isn’t as crooked as he pretends; Lowery (Eddie Acuff), a fast-talking, cynical reporter who loves wisecracks; and Michael Axford (Wade Boteler), a retired Irish-American cop who is officially Brit’s bodyguard but works as a crime beat reporter thanks to his connections on the force, and is the main comic relief. They send a telegram hinting that Brit should come back from his vacation early.
An attempt to kill Brit in Hawaii fails, but does make him miss his plane, forcing him to take a slower ship. Also aboard is one of Crogan’s chief henchmen, Bordine (James Seay). Thanks to Kato’s foresight, Brit dons the garb of the Green Hornet to extract a confession from Bordine, but by complete coincidence, the ship catches on fire and Bordine disappears, presumed dead. Brit arrives back in the big city (which appears to be on the West Coast for purposes of the story) and exposes Harper, but the crooked newspaperman is silenced before he can give the name of the man in charge, leaving only a notebook of cryptic references.
Between Harper’s notes, clues from the reporters, good instincts, and a healthy amount of coincidence, the Green Hornet is remarkably able to thwart each racketeer plot as it is happening. Crogan gets increasingly desperate as the Syndicate bleeds money, and his greed leads to the Syndicate’s ultimate downfall.
This was the second 15-episode movie serial created for the popular character by Universal Studios. The modest budget is well-used so that it never looks cheap. The acting is good to adequate, and the racketeers’ plots varied enough to keep up interest. The characters are fun to watch, and the dialogue is decent.
As this was planned to be shown once a week at movie theaters, there are some weaknesses when seen all at once. Taking its cue from the radio show, the film’s soundtrack is almost exclusively classical music, “The Flight of the Bumblebee” and bits of Swan Lake over and over. They are fine pieces, but lose something when repeated constantly. The serial’s “cliffhanger copouts” aren’t as egregious as some other serials’ were, but you can spot a couple of “that could not have happened based on what we saw last episode” moments.
Kato’s role is pretty good for an Asian character in 1940s Hollywood. He may be Brit Reid’s servant, but the Green Hornet treats him as a full partner. Kato is more technically trained than Brit, and when a scientist’s notes need to be deciphered, it’s Kato that does it. It feels like the only reason he’s the sidekick is a certain lack of initiative which makes it easier for him to follow instructions than make plans himself. While Keye Luke plays him with an accent, Kato’s ethnic background is never discussed or an issue.
There’s an episode where a young woman, Frances Grayson (Dorothy Lovett), inherits a controlling interest in an aluminum company, and the men are worried that she will actually try to use that control because she’s…”inexperienced”, yeah, that’s the ticket. It’s a fun role for Ms. Lovett though, as she gets to play both the heiress and a criminal actress that impersonates her.
Another bit that’s interesting is that the Green Hornet tends to underuse his gas gun, as he keeps trying to get information from criminals that they can’t give while unconscious. This backfires on him multiple times. While the Hornet scrupulously does not kill people himself, he’s not too concerned if criminals die as a result of trying to kill him, which happens a few times.
You might want to spread viewing this serial over several weeks, as the makers intended, having it be the short in front of your main feature for movie night. Recommended for fans of old-school masked heroes.
