Sky Bandits (1940 film)

Plot

Sergeant Renfrew (James Newill) of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Constable Kelly (Dave O'Brien) fly in search of a missing aircraft flown by Buzz Murphy (Eddie Featherston). Murphy was carrying a shipment of gold from the Yukon Mine Company. Local radio announcer Uncle Dimwittie (Dewey Robinson), has bugged the mine office, and is secretly transmitting information about gold shipments, in the guise of reading children's stories on the air.

The messages are picked up by a gang led by a crook named Morgan (William Pawley). They have forced Professor Lewis (Joe De Stefani) to work on a powerful ray gun invented by a scientist named Speavy (Dwight Frye). The radio beam the weapon sends out disables aircraft engines. Speavy is worried that his invention is being used by the crooks, and tries to warn Renfrew, but the scientist is killed by Morgan.

Madeleine (Louise Stanley), the daughter of Professor Lewis, tries to help Renfrew who finds a laboratory that Morgan is operating but it is destroyed. When no one on the force believes he has discovered the secret of the lost aircraft, Renfrew volunteers to fly the next gold shipment. Madeleine stows away on board the aircraft Renfrew is piloting. Morgan and his gang are also in the air, and while the professor can bring down Renfrew with the ray gun, but he turns it, instead on Morgan's aircraft. Constable Kelly then rides to Morgan's hideout and, with the professor's help, arrests the rest of the gang.

Production

Sergeant Renfrew of the Royal Mounted was a character created by Laurie York Erskine in 1922 and continued in books, stories and on radio for many years. Sky Bandits was the last in Monogram's Renfrew series. Some scenes were shot at Big Bear Lake, California, standing in for the Yukon. Renrew's character flies a Waco RNF (NC860V) while the crooks fly a Travel Air 4000 (c/n 868, NC9087).

Soundtrack

Reception

Sky Bandits was not reviewed in trade sources.