Mon 23 Jun 2014
SPECIAL AGENT K-7. C.C.Burr Productions/Puritan Pictures, 1936. Walter McGrail, Queenie Smith, Irving Pichel, Donald Reed, Willy Castello, Duncan Renaldo, Joy Hodges. Director: Bernard B. Ray, as Raymond K. Johnson.
As the story goes, and forgive me if I have this wrong, this rather obscure B-movie of the detective mystery variety was to be the first of several films that were to be made featuring its star, Walter McGrail in the role of Vincent ‘Lanny’ Landers, otherwise known as Special Agent K-7, but none of the others were ever made. The film was also supposed be based on a well-known radio program of the day, according to PR releases at the time, but no one today knows what radio show they had in mind, if any.
The mystery itself isn’t all that bad. A night club owner (crooked, of course) is killed in his office soon after being the beneficiary of a hung jury (paid for, again of course). There are plenty of possible suspects, including the newly married husband of tough-as-nails female reporter Olive O’Day (with polish). Immediately on hand to offer assistance are Lanny Landers and Lester Owens (Irving Pichel) , the noted attorney who had just gotten the dead man his illicit hung jury verdict.
But even though there are any number of possible other killers, including Duncan Renaldo’s character before his Cisco Kid days, I don’t think that anyone reading this will fail to spot the real culprit long before any of the characters in the story do.
Other than that small disappointment, the movie was also hampered by a distinct lack of star power, although most of the players had long careers in making movies, and the lack of facial recognition on my part made it difficult to keep track of which player was which. Only Queenie Smith, who was still in movies as late as 1978, stands out amongst the faceless men in suits, ties and hats, even though some had mustaches and some not.
June 23rd, 2014 at 11:12 pm
I think there was a Special Agent K7 and their may even be an episode or two extant. Try Old Time Radio.
Surely Pichel and Renaldo stood out. Aside from a fine director and the narrator of How Green Was My Valley Pichel acted, the servant in Dracula’s Daughter and the Russian spy in Dick Tracy’s G-Men. And Renaldo looked much the same in his twenties as in his fifties when he was playing Cisco. Hell, when I met him in the late sixties he still looked pretty much the same.
Other than them I’d be lost too though.
June 23rd, 2014 at 11:52 pm
You’re right about the radio series, David. It just look a little more digging on my part.
Here’s one of the pages I found:
http://www.greatdetectives.net/detectives/radio-review-secret-agent-k7-returns/
There doesn’t seem to be any connection between the radio series and the movie though. Quoting from the page above:
“Secret Agent K-7 began on the radio in 1932 and made the leap into movies with Special Agent K-7. The original K-7 radio series is lost, but in 1939, a new transcribed syndicated series launched called, Secret Agent K-7 Returns.
“Secret Agent K-7 Returns was a series of seventy-eight fifteen minute spy stories. Secret Agent K-7 didn’t take part in most adventures. Rather, he introduced the stories of what other agents did. In early episodes, Secret Agent K-7 offered the stories as cautionary tales as what aggressor powers were doing to undermine peace…”
The K-7 fellow in the movie was an ordinary FBI agent who was persuaded to change his mind about retiring to tackle a case of everyday homicide.