Navy Secrets

Navy Secrets is an illustration of how low certain players can fall in terms of box office draw. At one time at the beginning of sound both Grant Withers and Fay Wray were featured in A films. Of course everyone knows that Fay Wray reached the heights in King Kong's gigantic paw in 1933. Now six years later she and Grant are starring in a C picture film for Monogram as a pair of naval intelligence agents trying to break up a spy ring.

According to this story the Navy in its infinite wisdom decides not to tell each other that the person they are working with is also an agent. The bad guys are after some new Naval sounding device and they are certainly Teutonic enough in keeping with the times. The spy ring operates out of Dewey Robinson's waterfront café.

Years ago Huntz Hall told a story that at Monogram when Sam Katzman needed to get a film under budget he just randomly ripped out a few pages from the script and the director just shot what was left. I got that impression watching Naval Secrets, I had to make many connections in my mind to follow the story and in some cases just gave up trying.

There is one funny scene where Withers and Wray keep trying to get rid of this annoying kid who is riding his bicycle and won't give them any privacy. It looked like it was grafted in from another film. I think I would like to have seen that film instead.