I doubt that any movie ever made better use of stock footage of floods than "Postal Inspector." Every time the tale sags -- or more accurately sogs -- it's back to some unfortunate town where the river is rising, the dam done burst, homes are being washed away and people are trudging through muck and mire (not to be confused with the vaudeville act of the same name,) trying to escape the deluge. The big chase scene even replaces cars and horses with speedboats. The plot centers on Bela Lugosi as a night club owner, drowning in debt, who tries to steal $3 million in old bills being transported by the US Post Office. Fortunately, Ricardo Cortez is there to sink him, aided by Patricia Ellis as a night club singer who manages to warble a few Frank Loesser tunes before the water rises. It's actually not a bad little thriller and manages to float along in a fast-moving 58 minutes.

Before seeing this the only other film I ever saw dealing with the Post Office police was a very good Alan Ladd noir film called Appointment With Danger where Ladd like Ricardo Cortez here plays a Post Office cop. Postal Inspector does not have the really good plot the Ladd film has but it's good enough and it has some nice action sequences involving a flood that spoils plans for the good guys and bad guys alike.Bela Lugosi plays a nightclub owner who doubles as the boss of a gang and he's got a pretty good scheme involving the robbery of a shipment of old and soon to be retired currency being shipped by mail. He carries it off, but the flash flood interrupts his plans.Patricia Ellis plays a nightclub singer and Michael Loring, Cortez's brother who get innocently into a jackpot in the robbery as he's suspected of being an inside man.Postal Inspector has a nice action climax involving a chase with outboard motorboats through flooded. And in the role of the nightclub racketeer owner provided a nice change of pace for Bela Lugosi not playing a mad scientist or an inhuman fiend.

Ricardo Cortez plays it totally straight as Inspector Bill Davis, the leader of a team of postal inspectors. He and his team investigate mail order rip-offs: machines that grow hair on bald people, stretching devices that increase height, any scam that involves the mail. Cortez meets singer Patricia Ellis on an airplane; the flight is bumpy and Ellis sooths a crying child by singing a happy song. This is not Ellis's only musical number: later on, in her hotel room, she sings an unpacking song, assisted by maid Hattie McDaniel, who also sings and dances a rumba and looks no more nor less silly than anyone else in the picture.Ellis's agent is Bela Lugosi, a vaguely sinister nightclub manager. We quickly learn that Lugosi is behind on a loan…and that another nightclub owner in similar circumstances was recently found dead. Lugosi needs cash. And so, when Cortez's brother (Michael Loring), who works at the treasury, mentions to Ellis that he collects worn out bills for withdrawal from circulation and that he is about to mail in three million dollars…Lugosi catches wind of the plan and makes plans of his own—thus putting to the test Cortez's boast that "A postage stamp is the best insurance in the world." Meanwhile, flood waters are rising and the entire postal service faces a major test: the mail must go through! An extended sequence (apparently featuring genuine flood footage) showcases the bravery and ingenuity of those grand postal employees who find ways to get the mail delivered against all odds.Kind of a lot of plot, and it all eventually builds up to a chase through flooded streets in motorboats….and another song or two, as well. It's all pretty ridiculous…the brother is obnoxious, Ellis is silly enough to listen to his line, and postal inspector Cortez is devoted to the noble work of the postal service to the point of fanaticism. (If Cheers mailman Cliff Klaven ever had a favorite movie, this could have been it.)Harmless enough, but that's about it….Not even Lugosi could do much with his mostly thankless role.

I saw this movie for one reason--Bela Lugosi. He was not the star of the film, but Ricardo Cortez--a man, who like Lugosi, was in a very lean time in his career--being forced to appear in lesser and lesser films. Both of the men were a long way from their glory days but both dealt with it in a very, very different way. Cortez would soon quit Hollywood and establish a very successful career on Wall Street. Lugosi, conversely, left Universal after this film and began appearing in even crappier films for smaller studios--the so-called "Poverty Row" studios such as Monogram.This film is an oddity because it's both a crime movie AND musical! Cortez investigates various scams that go through the mail. Eventually his path took him to Lugosi and a pretty young singer that works for him (Patricia Ellis). None of it was particularly great--and I found myself dozing off again and again.If you are looking for a horror film or a movie that is going to offer some thrills, try another movie. The film isn't terrible...just not all that great, either.