Danger on the Air
Danger on the Air
NR | 30 June 1938 (USA)
Danger on the Air Trailers

Trouble begins when a hated cad of a sponsor is found murdered during the climax of a live radio show. A radio engineer then tries to solve the murder.

Reviews
Scanialara

You won't be disappointed!

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FeistyUpper

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

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Lumsdal

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

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Ezmae Chang

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

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utgard14

Another in Universal's Crime Club series. This one is about a murder at a radio station, a fairly popular plot for murder mysteries back then. Donald Woods stars as a radio engineer turned amateur detective who sets out to nab the killer with help from pretty Nan Grey. Woods spouts off scientific lingo and is distracted by engineering issues with the radio broadcasts. That's different enough to make this a little more interesting than the average B mystery film. Nice cast backing up Woods and Grey includes Berton Churchill, Edward Van Sloan, and William Lundigan. Lee J. Cobb appears in one of his Mario Bros. exaggerated accent roles he did early in his career. Peter Lind Hayes is annoying as a guy wanting to break into radio by doing impressions. His impressions suck. Worth a look if you enjoy B mysteries from this period, which can kind of bleed together after you've seen enough of them.

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MartinHafer

In the 1930s and 40s, Hollywood made a ton of B-mystery movies. Some (such as most of the Charlie Chan flicks) were very good--many were, at best average. Among all these movies were also a series of so-called 'Crime Club Films' and "Danger on the Air" is the 4th of 11 in the series. While I haven't seen the others in the series, I'd place "Danger on the Air" in the category of below average--mostly because the premise is 100% illogical.The film is set at a radio station. One of the sponsors, Mr. Cluck (Berton Churchill), is a real jerk. Because of this, you know he'll be the one to be killed--and he soon was. Normally, when a murder is committed you'd contact the police or possibly the District Attorney's office. However, inexplicably, one of the network's radio engineers (Donald Woods) decides to investigate--and no one bothers to contact the police. Even odder, the newspapers hear about it and publish information about the death--yet still no cops appear!! Odder yet, someone tries to shoot a lady (Nan Grey)--yet it is never reported either!! Even more illogical is the very, very, very fanciful and silly means by which the murders were committed--so fanciful that it defied all logic.While the interplay between Woods and Nan Grey is nice, there really isn't a lot to recommend this Universal film. Logical errors abound and the film just made me annoyed that the writing was so sloppy.

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gridoon2018

This is a likable little murder mystery - and I mean that literally: even counting a trigger-happy gangster and a loudmouthed boss, the murder victim is still by far the most unlikable person in the film (and, needless to say, gets an early exit)! There are so many characters in this dense mystery that you may need to watch it twice to get it all straight in your head, but even that won't take up too much of your time, as the film is barely over an hour long and moves quickly enough. And there are at least three fairly unique elements in it: 1) The killing method (which I don't want to spoil here), 2) The fact that, when our amateur detective assembles all the suspects in one room at the end he does NOT know who the murderer is, he only knows how he did it, and how to expose him, and 3) Nan Grey deals with the unwanted advances of a much older man in a way that you very rarely see in such an early film: by a strong punch to his gut! (though the actual contact happens off-screen). **1/2 out of 4.

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csteidler

Nan Grey and Donald Woods banter appealingly, and the unique personalities of an excellent range of suspects contribute strongly to this really fun mystery. Wit, characters, a clever murder—all tucked into a tidy hour.Berton Churchill, as radio sponsor and cola magnate Caesar Kluck, spends the first fifteen minutes of the picture insulting virtually everyone in this large metropolitan radio studio; it is no surprise when he is found dead. But who is responsible? Motives, opportunities and suspects abound.Churchill is wonderfully bad and blustery in his brief role. A young Lee J. Cobb is a lot of fun playing an aged maintenance man in a mustache and a thick immigrant's accent.However, Grey and Woods are the two who really make this show, with their confident performances and quick exchanges of snappy back-and-forth dialog. "Did you really find her fingerprints on it?" she asks at one point. "No," he replies, "but I could see she was lying and I wanted to trip her up." "Boy, are you some tripper-upper!"Seventy minutes and not a dull moment.

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