The Dawn Express (1942) User Reviews

Cheap and filled with plot holes.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 6 March 2014]

When "The Dawn Express" began, I assumed that It would be a pretty bad film. After all, it was made by PRC and it had a cast filled with complete unknowns. And, it turned out I was pretty much right about this one. The film is a wartime propaganda movie—meant to capitalize on the war as well as engender support at home for the war effort. Because of this, it is unabashedly patriotic and obvious. Subtle it isn't. Quickly written and often illogical it is.

The film begins with a couple workers from a chemical plant being kidnapped by Nazi spies. Then, after pumping them for information about a top secret formula, the two are murdered and their bodies dumped. Not surprisingly, US agents took notice of this—and it's odd the Nazis didn't think of this. The next guy they pump for information is different. Instead of kidnapping him, they know he's a bit of a playboy—so they send a pretty Nazi agent his way. Soon, her superiors demand he give them the formula but he refuses. They threaten to kill his family and he asks for time. Now you'd think they'd kill him or torture him….but they let him go! And, oddly, this dodo doesn't tell anyone!! What's going to happen next and how will Professor Schmidt figure into all this nonsense, find out for yourself.

Despite having many more plot holes than I mentioned above, the film has a certain silly likability. I often find these super-low budget films great fun if you don't take them seriously and they are exciting…if also quite dumb. Exciting and dumb…yep, that pretty much sums "The Dawn Express"!

Interesting tale of nazi spies

[jcholguin · 5/10 · 27 July 2001]

It is during World War II and nazi spies will stop at nothing to get a secret formula of increasing the power of gasoline. Two scientists Norton and Fielding have the information. Will Norton accept the offer of 100,000 dollars or will Fielding accept the offer of the lives of his mother and sister? What about the protection of the american intelligence team assigned to protect them? One of the agents should have watched an episode of "Get Smart" because when he gets killed he could have said "fell for the old knife hidden in the blind man's cane trick." A rather interesting film and worth the watch.

As dull as a butter knife but not nearly as sweet.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 20 November 2014]

Propopganda drama of Nazi's after two scientists involved in the creation of an explosive. Stereotypical Nazi villains burbling typically lame trite dialog, a sexy femme fatal out to seduce one of the two to get her hands on it, and quite suddenly, an action packed finale that ends with a bang while the whole film itself seems to be buried in a whimper. Michael Whelan and William Bakewell are two pals who become involved in the Nazi's quest with Bakewell the sap who falls prey to the obviously sinister Constance Worth's flirtations. Whelan is pulled in but his intentions are obviously to foil their evil plan, while Bakewell goes along with the plot simply to protect his sister (Anne Nagel) who is engaged to Whelan and their father. Excruciatingly slow pacing makes this extremely difficult to get through but that all of a sudden changes its course as the film begins to wrap up after just over an hour. Even that first 90 percent of the movie is extremely hard to get through, but there's a sense of satisfaction with a shockingly violent ending. The presence of a supposedly blind man with a knife hidden inside his cane only adds to the stereotype of brutally evil Nazi villains, and the opening scene of another professor being brutally targeted then murdered doesn't aid in any subtlety that the film might have tried for better results otherwise.

Amateurish film quickly loses interest

[SimonJack · 2/10 · 5 July 2018]

Even so-called "B" movies can be good - if they have a good plot, screenplay, sets and settings, and cast. Unfortunately, "The Dawn Express" is lacking in all of these. As much as one might want to have an interesting espionage thriller, this film just screams "amateur." The script is terrible, the plot and acting resemble the melodrama of silent films.

Most propaganda films are much better than this. The plot idea is a good one, but the story just didn't get a very good screenplay. Either that or the direction was terrible. More than likely, it was a combination of the two. Even the most die-hard war movie collectors will want to forget this poor film.

Some more zip in the gas tank

[bkoganbing · 2/10 · 9 October 2014]

It's a PRC film so start with low expectations, but The Dawn Express will not even meet those. This is a horribly dated early World War II era flag waver when we were told to be on the alert for Nazi spies everywhere.

Michael Whalen and William Bakewell are a pair of scientists working in a chemical laboratory on a formula to get a little more mileage out of the gasoline in your tank's tank. Something no doubt that General Patton will find invaluable, not to mention what it will do for the post war civilian drivers. The Nazis want it too and they're even sending one of their top scientists, flying him secretly to America to test it for himself.

It's Bakewell they get to first putting an alluring Constance Worth in his path. Bakewell does fancy himself a player. Then it's up to Whalen to keep the formula out of Nazi hands and rescue Bakewell if he can do both. In fact he's engaged to Bakewell's sister Anne Nagel.

There are about a dozen holes in this story and it looks like it was shot with an old Bell&Howell home movie camera. I just hope our post war drivers got the benefit of this research.

If Twardowski Never Makes Mistakes, What's He Doing In This Picture?

[boblipton · 3/10 · 25 May 2020]

Michael Whalen and William Bakewell are research chemists at the same factory. Whalen is engaged to Bakewell's sister, Anne Neagle, who is a secretary at the plant. The men are working on a formula to make gasoline more powerful, which the plant's manager explains to a government man twice. Bakewell picks up Constance Worth in a bar. She says she's a Polish refugee. Actually, she's part of a German spy ring run by Hans von Twardowsk trying to get the formula. When a man trailing Bakewell is killed, Whalen is told to do what he thinks best. Meanwhile, a passenger plane spends the movie showing up in flight occasionally.

If they're relying on Whalen's judgment, the first thing I wonder about is relying on the judgment of a man who agreed to be in this shoddy and dull movie.I'm sure Twardowski, whose character says several times that he never makes mistakes, wondered the same thing. He had entered the theater in Germany in 1919, and had success on stage on screen through the 1920s. When the Nazis took power, he fled; they didn't like homosexuals. Throughout the War years, he made a decent living playing Nazis on the screen, but that evaporated after the war, and he went back to the stage. He died in 1958, aged 60.

This will be a glorious day for the Fuhrer!

[kapelusznik18 · 5/10 · 9 November 2013]

***SPOILERS*** One of the very first movies out of Hollywood after the entrenches of the US into WWII the film "Dawn Express" concentrates on the Nazis effort to steal, by hook crook and pay offs, the secret formula 3-B-11 no not the ingredients of a new kind of soft drink from Coca Cola but something that has to do with doubling the mileage of your gas tank when it's dropped in the gasoline. This secret is so important to the Nazi war machine that Germany sent it's top secret agent, who has trouble hiding his very prominent German accent, to the US Captain Gemmer, Harr Hans Heinrich Von Twardowski, who never makes mistakes to get his hands on it.

It's the two US chemists Robert Norton & Tom Fielding, Michael Whalen & William Bkewell, whom Capt. Gemmer wants kidnapped and then paid off, with $100,000.00 in US currency, to give him formula 3-B-11 or else he'll not only off them but their family members as well! It's when Norton finally gives in to spill the beans or the formula to the Nazis that his good friend Tom Fielding turns traitor to his country and not only volunteers to give them the magic formula for gasoline enhancement but mix it for them as well!

***SPOILERS*** As we'll soon see Tom Fielding is no traitor to his country but a full fledged hero instead. Putting his life on the life Fielding is brought on a Nazi airplane to fly back to Germany with top Nazi chemist Karl Schmidt, George Pembroke, to check if him mixing formula 3-B-11 is on the up and up. You begin to wounder why Schmidt couldn't do it himself? It was an act of desperation by Fielding but he in the end put and end to the Nazis attempt to get their hands on secret formula 3-B-11 by putting an end to them as well as himself!

P.S What Tom Fielding did was copied in real life by the likes of Japanese kamikaze pilots as well as Al-Qeada suicide bombers who's actions in some cases were just as successful as his were!

Don't Let Title Fool You

[tlkiefner · 6/10 · 16 January 2017]

While there is an airplane at the end of the film this film really has nothing to do with the cover artwork. This film deals with synthetic fuel (formula 311) developed by two scientists apart from each other as security measures. A love interest between the two stars adds to the story and intrigue. This is a slower paced film but I like the plot and the conclusion is surprising. The good news is it is available for free on the internet archive and their copy is watchable. The score by Lee Zahler is passable. Nothing stands out but it is passable. The number of people who were watching Norton was hilarious. The German Captain Gemmler in the picture somewhat reminds me Col. Klink in the television show "Hogan Heroes." I give this film a #100 ranking.

Good enough consider the time it was made

[jordondave-28085 · 6/10 · 16 September 2023]

(1942) Dawn Express ESPIONAGE/ WAR DRAMA/ SUSPENSE

Super low budget anti- Nazi movie has set up during WWII, Nazis discovering about a secret formula that can enable them win the war against the US sought to go after some of the gov'ts finest chemists of Robert Norton (Michael Whalen) and Tom Fielding (William Bakewell). They do this by sending over to them Linda Pavlo (Constance Worth).

Routine with some mediocre acting, but at the same time, you first have to consider the time it was made, during WWII. And before the first atomic bomb that was dropped to Hiroshima which was in August 6, 1945. I also thought it was good enough for a movie that has a running time limit of 1 hour and 7 minutes.

Worth is worth attention!

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 13 November 2017]

Michael Whalen (Robert Norton), Anne Nagel (Nancy Fielding), William Bakewell (Tom Fielding), Constance Worth (Linda Pavlo), Hans Von Twardowski (Captain Gremmler), Jack Mulhall (Curtis), Kenneth Harlan (Brown), Crane Whitley (Ed), Frank Mayo (the FBI agent who shadows Tom), George Pembroke (Professor Schmidt), Robert Frazer (John Oliver), Hans Von Morhart (Heinrich), Michael Vallin (Argus), Montague Shaw (Prescott), William Costello (Otto), William Yetter (Wolf), George Morrell, Milburn Morante (waiters), Jack Gardner (spy with paper), Ted Adams (Sullivan, the night guard).

Director: ALBERT HERMAN. Original screenplay: Arthur St Claire. Photography: Eddie Linden. Film editor: Leete R. Brown. Art director: James Altwies. Music director: Lee Zahler. Assistant director: Seymour Roth. Sound recording: Corson Jowett. Associate producer: Arthur Alexander. Producers: Max Alexander, George M. Merrick. Executive producer: George R. Batcheller.

Copyright 20 February 1942 by Producers Releasing Corporation. The movie did open in New York in 1942, but the actual date was not recorded. U.S. release: 27 March 1942. No theatrical release in Australia. 66 minutes.

Alternative title: NAZI SPY RING.

SYNOPSIS: Nazi agents will stop at nothing to gain the secret of a chemical formula which will enhance the power of gasoline.

COMMENT: Here's the lovely Constance Worth from "Criminals Within", again at her villainous best. This time she has another sympathetic director in Albert Herman who, in collaboration with photographer Eddie Linden, has contrived lots of spooky close-ups of all the heavies (even the minor ones) which are somewhat arbitrarily edited into the action.

Nonetheless, it's all moderately exciting by Poverty Row standards, even if the rather routine story does come to a foregone conclusion which will only surprise those callous but stupid Nazi spies.

So bad it's mesmerising

[pauldeadman · 6/10 · 20 May 2020]

This film is SO bad I couldn't stop watching. If you watch it with this in mind you could be smiling and chuckling for an hour.

WW II storyline

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 9 November 2018]

Stars Michael Whalen and Anne Nagel. Picture quality is pretty terrible, but the acting is so lame, it's unlikely this one will be restored anytime soon. The usual wartime flick, with the Nazi's of germany trying to steal the formula from workers who get knocked off one by one. The story line is actually pretty good, if formulaic. Acting and production values are pretty cardboard and stilted, but easy to follow. Written by Arthur St. Claire, who wrote a ton of stuff in the 1940s. Directed by Albert Herman... looks like he directed many, many shorties from the early days of silents, and jumped right in with full length features when the studios began with talkies. An M&A Production, which seems to stand for Merrick and Alexander, the producers.