Panama Patrol (20 March 1939)
IMDb metadata is runtime of 1 hour and 7 minutes, rated 5.1/10.0 by 49 cinematizens
Genre: mystery
Verdict: Oh hum
Stanley Banks before he retired and became the Father of the Bride heads the code breakers in DC whose main interest seems to be lunch. Everyone has military ranks apart from the secretary whom Stanley aims to make Mother of the Bride just as soon as this case is over. (Psst! Though a Mrs Ames is already on the scene.) Wait, what case is that? The Coors Silver Bullets? No, then the fraternity brothers lost intent in right there.
Some Asians are up to no good. Before the code can be broken it has to be translated from the Kanji characters into Indiana English. Every time the code breakers get a break the Asians get a fast-break ahead again. How do the devils do it?
Spoiler. No red blooded, white skinned code breaker can read those chicken scratches so they hire off the street a translator named Arlie. He comes and goes as he pleases in their top secret super hush-hush headquarters guarded by a watchman who cannot see over his open mouth on the rare occasions when he is awake. It turns out Arlie is one of the code makers and he doctors his translations to throw off the code breakers! He disguises himself by wearing glasses. What a devil!
It takes the top notch code breakers an hour and several deaths to figure out that someone — who could it be? — is reading their mail even before they do: They of unmatched wisdom.
What is interesting is the romance between Arlie and fellow conspirator Lia (who is played by the aforementioned Mrs Ames). The scenes between these two are genuinely touching and played superbly in this otherwise bland production from the brothers Warner. I wanted to know more about Arlie and Lia, where they came from, how they met, what motivated them, what they hoped to achieve, where would they go in the future, what cellphone plan did they have? So many questions. Gerald Mohr also does a nice turn as the traitorous Republican pilot.
No such interest was sparked by Stanley and his crew. There are, by the way, no scenes in Panama. In contrast see Charlie Chan in Panama (1942).
Some of the simis on the IMDb suppose the villains are Chinese. Oh hum. Japan had invaded China in 1937 and many Chinese got help and encouragement from Americans. Much more likely the intention was to make the audience, if such there was, think they were Japanese, but nothing explicit was noticed by this auditor during occasional periods of attention.