Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Instantly sinister, Joseph Schildkraut gives a knife throwing lesson to some underlings. Schildkraut is delightfully wicked as a shady character who manages a night club—and also runs a ship-wrecking insurance scam.Walter Pidgeon makes his second appearance as detective Nick Carter, once again exuding self-confidence; he is again joined by Donald Meek as would-be detective Bartholomew, better known as the Bee Man. Together they gradually unravel the ship-wrecking plot with the help of the usual supporting characters—including John Carroll as a shipping magnate's son, and Florence Rice, who is quite good as the requisite beautiful young woman mixed up in the case.The setting is Panama, and while the first half of the picture moves rather slowly, it features plenty of MGM-style Panama atmosphere. Eventually the plot starts to move along and builds nicely to a truly exciting climax on board ship.Nat Pendleton is amusing as a dumb henchman who is told to "Take a walk around the block" any time there is real dirty work to be done. Meek is entertaining as always, and Pidgeon handles both the detective work and the smart-alecky dialog adeptly. Schildkraut as the villain, however, has the juiciest role.The plot is nothing special but it does include a nifty surprise or two; overall, there's not much to this picture but it's plenty easy to watch.

The other two entries in the Nick Carter detective series focused on spies or Fifth Columnists; this one is about an evil insurance scam whereby cargo ships, with their crews, are blown up. Llewelyn's of London, the insurer of the ships, hires Carter to investigate. Joseph Schildkraut as the suave but vicious gangster leader behind the bombings easily outshines the rather uninspiring performance of Walter Pidgeon as Nick Carter. The most striking scene in the whole movie is the brief scene showing the crew of the cargo ship amiably chatting with one another moments before their ship is blown up. An incredible scene. As with the other two entries in the series, this one has an excellent supporting cast with Florence Rice, John Carroll, Nat Pendleton, Cecil Kellaway, and Schildkraut. Donald Meek is on hand as Carter's sidekick, the wacky Mr. Bartholomew. It's a matter of taste whether one finds the Bartholomew character annoying or welcome comedic relief. Either way, he certainly is a memorable character. I think this is the best of the Nick Carter movies and certainly worth a watch, but the series itself is not as good or entertaining as many another B detective series.

***SPOILERS*** The high flying Walter Piedgon is NYC ace detective Nick Carter who gets himself involved in an elaborate and deadly insurance fraud scheme engineered by US gangster Al Taurez, Joseph Schildkraut,south, way south, of the border in Panama.After having a number of ships's valuable cargoes, which are nothing but a bunch of sandbags, heavily insured Taruez has, from the comfort of his Colon Panama office, through high frequency radio singles set off bombs planted in the ships and have them blown up together with their crew on the high seas!It's Nick together with his side kick the Bee-Man Bartholomew, Donald Meeks, as well as his Panamanian girlfriend B-girl Delorous (Steffi Duna), who doesn't speak a word of proper English, who eventually solves the case. But not after some half dozen ships are sent to the bottom by Taurez and his hoods. Nick who at first didn't want to take on the case since he was on vacation at the time changed his mind when he spotted, after she had it out with him, pretty Cara Barnes, Florence Riuce, working at the local Morris Shipping Company. In fact it was Cora who was unknowingly used by Taurez in providing him with the information of what ships,and how heavily insured they were, were being sent out to sea. Where he then had his men plant explosives on so that he he could later,with high frequency radio waves, detonate them and collect, with an insider inside the shipping company, the insurance on them!***SPOILERS*** Nick in finding the contraption that Taurez is using to electronically blow up the targeted ships has it disarmed and tricks Taurez into getting on the one that's next to be blown up.Taurez, with Nick holding a gun on him, realizing that he's cooked if he doesn't get off the ship before midnight the time its set to explode breaks down and admits his crimes not knowing that the ship that he and Nick were on was no longer in danger of exploding! What he also should have realized is that Nick wouldn't have put his own life as well as everyone on board in danger if he knew that in fact would happen!

Phantom Raiders portrays a crime that is all to possible today, blowing up ships set off by electrical devices. However this was 1940, the era of the wisecracking detective and his sidekick neatly wrapping up the mystery in a little over an hour. What sets this film apart from other movies of the same type is its crackling good dialog, an insidious villain,(Joseph Shildkraut),the suave Nick Carter,(a clean shaven Walter Pigeon), his assistant, Mr Bartholomew (beautifully played by Donald Meek), the innocent ingénue(the captivating Florence Rice). Speaking of Florence Rice, she literally lights up the screen when she is on. At the same time vulnerable, adoring. Listen to the way she says "I love him", talking about her boyfriend, it will melt your heart. Highly recommend!