A Major Disappointment

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

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.

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 kept singing "You've never seen anything like it" from Doctor Dolittle as I watched this because I hadn't seen anything like it.Ricardo Cortez plays a postal inspector who meets up with a nightclub singer on a plane having trouble landing. The singer sings a song to help calm everyone. The plane lands and we find that the singers manager is Bela Lugosi a Mexican business man in deep with the mob. After several scenes of Cortez showing what a postal inspector does the singer takes a shower and sings. A friend of Cortez is actually wooing the singer and everyone ends up at a night club where we get another song. Lugosi finds out that the younger inspector is going to be moving some old currency so he plots to steal it so he can get out of debt. A flood happens as the robbery goes down. There's another song before Cortez springs into action.All that and more in an hour.As odd mixes of genre's go I'd be hard pressed to come up with one as loopy as this.I have no idea if I liked it, but I do know its a unique viewing experience. If you want to see how to put mutually exclusive genres together and make it kind of work this is the movie for you. See it and you too can sing that you've never seen anything like it...

***SPOILERS*** Strange movie, even for one with Bela Lugosi in it,thats a combination of a crime/drama & musical/comedy with a bit of a disaster movie thrown in for good measures. Ricardo Cortez plays Gung-Ho Postal Inspector Bill Davis who's so off-the-wall that in one of the scenes that he's in he jumps from something like a 100 foot plank, minus his well-pressed suit, into the flooded streets below. In doing that Davis risks a broken neck in order to save a postal crook who was no more then a few yards away from a police speed-boat that was just about to rescue and arrest him anyway, without Inspector Davis foolishly risking his life. There's a number of songs sung in the movie by nightclub singer Connie Larrimore, Patricia Ellis, and a duet at the end of the film with Connie and her fiancé and brother of Postal Inspector Davis Charlie, Michael Loring, who's also a Federal Treasury Agent. The "Golden Eagle" nightclub owner Greg Benez, Bela Lugosi, is in big trouble with the local mob loan shark when he gets a telegram that another nightclub owner, Fred Commings owner of the Jack-O'-Lantern, was gunned down for not paying back his load from the mob. Benez is out $50,000.00 to the mob and is two weeks behind in his payments. "Golden Eagle" singer Connie Larrimore talking to both Postal Inspector and Federal Agent Bill & Charlie Davis get some inside information from big-mouth Charlie that he's going to send through the US mail $3,000,000.00 of used ten dollar bills to the Washington D.C Treasuary Dept. The bills are to be put out of circulation by having them incinerated. Later Connie talking to her boss Mr.Benez unwittingly tells him about the cash transaction through the local mail and Benez sees an out in getting the money that he owes the mob as well as pocketing the rest, $2.950 Million, for himself. The Benez gang steals Charlies car and uses it to corrals and rob the mail truck with the 3 million dollars in cash going back to the Treasuary Department and also shoots and kills the driver. This all happens as the town of Yarborough, where the movie takes place, is being flooded by a heavy downpour with the local river overflowing its banks. When the police and Postal Inspector Davis find the car belonging to Charlie at the crime scene they feel that he committed the crime but his brother Bill gives him two hours to come up with who really did it feeling that he's innocent. Later Benez and his gang kidnap both Charlie and his girlfriend Connie who went to Benez's place in order to find out who in the club took Charlie's car. This later leads to the exciting final speed-boat chase scene through the flooded streets of Yarborough with Charlie & Connie ramming a platform from where Benez and his hoods are trying to escape from the police knocking them all down and into the floodwater's below. Bela Lugosi is very subdued and, uncharacteristically, dull as the nightclub owner and mobster Greg Benez and has a supporting, but not his usual leading, role in the film. Which didn't give him that much screen time to really do "His Thing".Both Patricia Ellis and Michael Loring were adequate as the singer and Fed Agent, as well as lovers, in the movie but Ricardo Cortez was really over-the-top as Postal Inspector Bill Davis. Davis spouting platitudes about the wonderful US Post Office in almost every scene he's in that you for a moment thought you were watching a commercial for the USPS. Even though he tried to play his part as seriously as possible Inspector Davis did have a very strange sense of humor in the film. Postal Inspector Davis almost hanged and electrocuted, this was supposed to be his idea of comedy relief, a fellow postal worker in his office with gadgets that were illegally sent through the US Mail.Inspector Davis also seemed to be more worried about the mail of the Yarborough Post Office getting soaked by the raging floodwater's engulfing the town then he was worried about the lives and safety of the postal workers working there.