Bank Alarm (1937)
3/10
From Garbo to Grand National
14 August 2014
On the silent screen and the early sound era Conrad Nagel was a major star working with such people as Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer. But by 1937 he was in the minor leagues working at Grand National Studios and starring in a series where he plays G-man named Alan O'Connor.

In this film Bank Alarm Nagel is working on a series of bank robberies and since the New Deal and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation bank robbery is now a federal crime. It's what J. Edgar Hoover's agency did its best work.

But there's another wrinkle here as someone is attempting to change serial numbers to make the loot untraceable. By dumb luck he changes a bill and makes a serial number the same as one in Nagel's hands. The second wrinkle is that Nagel's sister is actually being romanced by one of the gang.

Vince Barnett plays a photographer and Nagel's sidekick. I might have shot the guy on general stupidity grounds. What was kind of touching in Scarface did not work at all in Bank Alarm for Barnett.

Conrad Nagel must have wished for the arms of Greta Garbo once more.
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