I'll give it a 10. If I watch a whole movie, usually I like it. Reagan, even though not my political party, I thought was an excellent actor. Witness Kings Row and Bedtime for Bonzo. Lovely to see Eddie Foy, Jr. Of course, he could sing. He came from a famous musical family, lol. All the bad guys . . . They never had a chance. The fed guy was great... John Litel. Foy was great in assisting Reagan in kapowing said bad guys. The women were good in this film, and both pretty and well-dressed. 1942 brought another movie with Foy, in Yankee Doodle Dandy (which I saw), appearing as his famous father, Eddie Foy, Sr. Loved seeing all the miniature aircraft in the skies. Also, I marveled at the obvious stuntpersons it took to make this film. No dance movie here, but I actually liked it. 10/10

Criminals bring illegal aliens into the U.S. from Mexico. Many of these illegals are criminals. When the plane is nearly captured by a Secret Service agent, the agent and the passengers are all killed.A young pilot (Ronald Reagan) is asked by the Secret Service to get in with the smuggling ring; to do so, they have to give him a criminal record. The government frames him and he spends some time in prison, and afterward, he connects with the criminals and gets into the gang.Well-paced B movie from Warners and entertaining. Reagan as always is pleasant and likable, and not yet a star. That and politics would come later.

Kind of fun, actually, with no time wasted.Reagan is a transport pilot who is recruited by the Secret Service to do some undercover work in a gang of ugly thugs who run a business transporting rich white illegals from Mexico into the United States to pick melons. Well -- not to pick melons but to find a stash of bonds or engage in some other scurrilous activity.To give the pristine Reagan the proper background, the Secret Service frames him for some outrage and puts him in a cell with a former pilot for the sneaky business. The imprisoned pilot gives Reagan the low down on the business -- "Just mention my name." But when a staged getaway is deliberately thwarted by the Secret Service, the pilot goes back to the slams and Reagan is released, now with the requisite prison record, and insinuates himself into the gang as their new pilot.The gang is suspicious of Regan for a while and they put him on probation, but eventually accept him as a really good bad guy. That's when the original pilot gets out of the slams, and when he hears that Reagan is doing the flying, he twigs to the fact that that getaway attempt was staged by the Secret Service. How? I don't know. Call it fulgurating intuition.It's a kinetic, no-nonsense movie, full of brawls in Mexican cantinas, the dumping of passengers out of a kind of bomb bay, Reagan's refulgent grin, and people sneaking around and spying on others. There's hardly a dull moment.Is it a B feature? You bet, but a good example of its kind.

Secret Service of the Air (1939) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Warner "B" flick about a pilot (Ronald Reagan) who joins the Secret Service so that he can take down some smugglers. I wasn't expecting too much out of this film but like Warner's gangster pictures, this film contains just about everything you could possibly fit into a 61-minute movie. You get a prison break, car chases, shootouts, bar fights, a silly love story, brawls, various plane chases and much more. I wouldn't exactly say Reagan gives a good performance but he is fun to watch. The film eventually runs out of steam and never gets too deep but overall this is a pretty entertaining movie.