Ghost Patrol
Ghost Patrol
NR | 02 August 1936 (USA)
Ghost Patrol Trailers

A Professor has an invention that will bring down planes causing them to crash and Dawson is forcing him to use it on those carrying money. When Tim arrives to investigate he is mistaken for a noted outlaw. So he assumes that identity to force Dawson to make him a partner. But just as a plane bringing Tim help is arriving, his true identity is revealed and while he is a prisoner, Dawson forces the Professor to start his machine.

Reviews
JohnHowardReid

Multi-talented Wyndham Gittens wrote some good scripts, but this is not one of them. Mind you, it does show promise here and there. We like the scene when our heroine positions herself on a rock and gives her face a thorough dusting, but after this wonderful introduction, she has little else of interest to say or do. The rest of the players also seem to be struggling to make something out of a movie that was so conspicuously filmed on the cheap. The introductory scenes with the plane are so obviously lensed against a process screen, they carry no weight at all. The good old process screen also comes into its own in other scenes including a long time-waster when our hero picks up our heroine in his wagon. Neither the director nor his producer make any attempts whatever to disguise these blatant meanwhile-back-in-the-studio or time-for-some-more-stock-footage effects. Oddly, Tim McCoy seems to be unfazed by all these cheap stunts. He just keeps on enunciating his lines, no matter how corny or overly fulsome they are. He also just goes on wearing his over-sized hat, although it too looks way out of place. The other players seem unperturbed by the whole ridiculous plot. Only Lloyd Ingraham has the grace to look more than a trifle embarrassed from time to time. But I must admit it's good to see Jimmy Burtis in a decent-sized role for once. The picture is almost worth seeing just for his clowning alone. And I strongly suspect that our director, his producer-brother and maybe other members of the behind-the-camera crew make up the numbers in the airplane-to-the-rescue at the climax. They all look surprisingly ill-at-ease and they sure don't act like extras from Central Casting. They don't look like G-men either, but that, as I say, is another story.

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Paularoc

I actually like Westerns set in contemporary times and find the added science fiction elements kinda interesting. While I consider Tim McCoy to be a somewhat lackluster personality, this outing was good enough that I watched it to the end. When movies include newspaper shots, I always quickly scan adjoining articles just for the fun of it. I was thus intrigued when the kidnapped scientist Professor Brant's daughter compares two newspaper articles, the articles were on screen for so long, that it was possible to scan other article headlines, one of which had the title "100,000 Chinese live in trees after flood." Just out of curiosity, I did a quick search and learned that there was indeed a major flood of the Yangtze River in 1935. There were a number of major floods in China in the early 30s so it's not unlikely that sadly someone was having a bit of fun with the "living in trees" business. The best thing about watching this movie was then being able to understand how funny the review of the movie by Spuzzlightyear was – I shall long remember "Will McCoy ever aim his gun"?

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Spuzzlightyear

When a woman finds out that a plane which has crashed in the forests in Shiloh, she immediately pulls out another clipping about her father inventing a new ray (but not a new Bob) and immediately, not really too sure how, puts the two together that they're related. And she's right! Bag guys have kidnapped her father so that the ray machine (which makes a LOT of noise) can bring planes carrying loot down from the sky (you know this is happening when the plane sound effects go off and on). FORTUNATELY, Tim Mccoy, still wearing the biggest cowboy hat ever known to man, is also going to Shiloh to check things out! Will they figure out the mystery of why planes are going down in the area before the plane full of G.I.'s to help Mccoy in the mystery is affected by the ray? (why would they take a plane in the first place?), will Dad and Daughter reunite? Will Mccoy ever aim his gun? Tune in to find out. Well, you don't have to. It's not much of a movie, lots of implausibilities. Fortunately, Mccoy is always a hoot, and the hybrid of Western / Sci Fi is always interesting.

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dbborroughs

Tim McCoy is a government agent looking into how various mail planes are being knocked out of the sky. Pretending to be an outlaw, he and his buddy end up battling crooks with a spectacular ray that shorts out engines.This brief little western is an okay time killer. It would be better if it didn't have as many stretches of watching the planes falter in the air or guys riding horses. Its an odd mix of "now" and old west with radios, planes, and the typical western stuff so that it some who seems anachronistic. The acting is good, especially when it comes to Tim Mc Coy's hat which is so huge that it borders on parody (If most hats are ten gallon, this is 100). Actually the cast is pretty good since its packed with character actors from top to bottom.If you run across I'd give it a shot on a slow night. If nothing else its a movie to pick apart for numerous continuity errors and weird shifts in logic.(for example- why do they keep flying over the same place when planes are always crashing there?)And while you're at it see if you can make sense of the title when compared to the actual content of the film.

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