Reporter Mike Malone (Walter Woolf King) has found out Nazi Germany is
delivering weapons to the Arabs in Libya so that they can rise against their
British oppressors, & has stolen a German gun to corroborate his
story. Unfortunately though he has to hide the weapon in Nancy Brooks' (Joan
Woodbury) hotelroom, & when he demands it back in order to show the British
consul Forbes (H.B.Warner) she denies ever having sen either the gun or Malone.
Forbes thinks him a maniac, & even secret service agent Phil Graham (Howard
Banks), who shows more symoathetic to his cause, tells him to stay out of the
whole affair.
It seems the only one who is really trying to help him is the Brooklyn-bred
fake Arab horsethief Parkyarkarkus (Harry Parker), who does offer an incredible
amount of help & advice along the way.
However, everything might be slightly different from what Malone might
think, since Nancy Brooks is actually dating Sheik David (Duncan Renaldo),
& it is thought that only thanks to her charms he hasn'T ordered an
uprising - much to the dismay of German trader Streyer (Wilhelm von Brincken),
who is of course behind the weapons deal) & David's second in command
Ibrahim (George J.Lewis), who would much rather like to be first in command.
Unrelentlessly, Malone enters sheik David's camp to find proof for his
story, but of course he is soon arrested & has to endure the torture of the
spears. Meanwhile Streyer & Ibrahim convince David that his girlfriend
Nancy is in cahoots with Malone, so he confines her to her tent, but when they
try to persuade him to start an uprising right away, he refuses, so Streyer
shoots him in cold blood.
Parkyarkarkus finally manages to free Malone, but it seems to be too late
since Ibrahim has already headed for the capital to give an inflammatory
speech.
But of course Malone has still got an ace up his sleeve: David is not really
dead, but a medallion has stopped his fatal bullet & they head for the
capital as well to stop the revolt, David with his words - & the power he
stil has over his people -, Malone with a revolver which he has to use when
Ibrahim wants to throw a knife at David.
& Streyer ?
Parkyarkarkus, who turns out to be an American secret agent, has convinced
him to committ suicide.
Oh yes, & in the end, Malone gets the girl, Nancy. Of course,
political naivité rules in this wartime effort to tell an espionage story,
& seen from the standpouint of the jaded early-21st-century urban audience,
there isn't an ounce of political correctness in this movie (starting from the
somewhat pejorative depiction of the Arabs to theglorification of Britishb
colonialism). However, this movie was not made in the eearly 21st
century, so the standards do of course not apply here. The movie as such is a
rather entertaining & lighthearted spystory - even if the attempts of
Walter Woolf King to do Groucho Marx-lines are rather second-rate - that
doesn't take its pedestrian story too seriously, moves at a relatively fast
pace &, thanks to massive use of footage from other productins, does look a
tad more polished than other comparable PRC-output.
|