Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Melanie Bouvet The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Hayleigh Joseph This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

unkadunk0801 the first time i saw this movie was when I was about 8 years old and even after all these years i still remembered the movie even though I couldn't at times remember who the stars were and it wasn't until I was looking through an old movie book that had all of the 1940s movies in it did I see a brief review and several pictures of it And found out who the stars were.And quite recently at a movie memorabilia show in NYC I asked about the movie and was able to find out that it was on DVD.But the man didn't have a copy of it but told me would bring it to the next show.And he did and of course I purchased it and watching it again made me recall how good it was.The stars were Lee Tracy,Nancy Kelly,Regis Toomey and my favorite Japanese villain of all time Richard Loo ,If you see it anywhere my advice is pick it-up regardless of the cost.

Draconis Blackthorne A compelling WW2-era propaganda film dealing with Japanese and American espionage, where a carnival showman becomes mixed up in it all, as he decides to foil Jap plans to sabotage the Panama Canal. This takes him oversees where he was to be a patsy, but ends up a hero instead. He falls for a lovely double-agent, a-la Mata Hari, as she does for him, yet their love becomes most complicated until she perishes in a tragic twist. Two times in one film! After a long and nasty fight with a Japanese military official disguised as a shipman, he becomes a rather martyred character for the glory of the stars and stripes. A special message for audiences awaits at the end.

sol ***SPOILER*** Shocking expose of an attempted Japanese take-over of the United States west-coast by a gang of Japanese spies and their American counterparts, ethnic Japanese Americans. Based on the 1943 block-buster book "Betrayal from the East" by Alan Hynd the movie shows how closed we, the USA, was in being taken over from within. Getting wind of the massive Japanese conspiracy in early 1941 US Embassy officials in Tokyo Marsden & Hildebrand, Louis James Hyde & Jason Robards Sr, try to warn Washington and the US military about it but end up dead; Marsden falling overboard on a Japanese passenger ship going back to the states and Hildebrand falling to his death from a high-rise building in Tokyo.In charge of this conspiracy back in the USA is the UCLA Football teams lead cheerleader Tani who's really Japanese Lt. Cmdr. Miyazaki, Richard Loo, and his band of Japanese agents led by Kato & Yamato, Philip Ahn & Abner Biberman. Kato gets in contact with his American friend and girlie show barker Eddie Carter, Lee Tracy, who served in the US military in the Panama Canal Zone a major target of Japanese Imperial Navy in the event of a war with the US.Eddie broke and in need of cash quirky falls for Kato's offer to pay him for information abut US defenses in the Panama Canal and even gives him the name of a friend of his Sgt. Scott, who like Eddie is broke and willing to sell out his county for a few dollars, who still stationed there for further references. Little does Kato and his boss the secretive Lt. Cmdr. Miyazki know is that there's no such person as Sgt. Scott and that Eddie is setting him and his fellow spies up to be taken out and caught by the US military and FBI.Eddie is later contacted by Peggy Harrison, Nancy Kelly, an undercover G-2, the forerunner to the CIA, agent on a train trip to L.A about the Japanses conspiracy. Told b Peggy to play along with his Japanese cohorts in order to find out what their up to she's later exposed as a G-2 undercover agent when Kato plants a hidden camera in Eddie's apartment. Peggy together with Eddie's and his Japanese house boy Omaya,Victor Sen Young, are secretly working with the G-2 US military Intelligence Agency. Grabing Omaya the Japanese spies force Eddie to witness him being tortured and murdered by them to strike home to him what's to happen to anyone who cross' them. Peggy now knowing, from Eddie, that the Japanese spies are on to her has herself run over,in a G-2 staged accident,in order to make them think that she's dead.Eddie is now given a ticket, on a Japanese freighter, to travel to the Canal Zone and get in contact with Sgt. Scott and get the vital information about US defenses there back to Lt. Cmdr. Miyazki. The whole operation is being monitored by the US military with a phony Sgt. Scott, Regis Toomey, planted there to make the Japanese spies feel that both Eddie, as an American traitor and spy for Japan, and Sgt. Scott, a real flesh and blood person, are legit.Getting in touch with his Japanese contact in the Canal Zone a Mr. Araki, Dr. Hugh Ho Chang, Eddie is told to get all the information he can from Sgt. Scott about it's, the US military in the Canal Zone, defenses. Eddie also finds out that the "dead" Peggey Harrison is very much alive vacationing there undercover as a German tourist named Sandra Borough who not only changed her name but her hair, she dyed it blond obviously to look more Aryan,and blows her cover when she foolishly rekindles her love affair with him. This leads to Peggy being caught by the Japanese spies, and together with their German allies, boiled to death in a steam or Turkish bath.Eddie has it out at the end of the movie with Lt.Cmdr. Miyazaki and even though he does the UCLA cheerleader in he ends up losing his life but eventually stops Miyazki's master plan to bring down he US with a coordinated outside Japanese military and inside Japanese sabotage assault on America.The movie "Betrayal from the East" is done in a "Now it can be told" style narrative with syndicated columnist Drew Pearson inserted into the film giving it's both prologue and epilogue. Pearson telling the audience how close we were from being taken over by the Japanese Empire really hits home.For all the Japanese meticulous planning it all in the end came apart because of the bravery and self-sacrifice of men and women like Eddie Carter and Peggy Harrison who put, and lost, their lives on the line in order to stop them.

neroville This is without a doubt the worst Lee Tracy movie I have ever seen, and that is saying a lot because his movies tend to be of a consistently high quality. This movie verges on being MST3K fodder, and if you're familiar with that show, you can easily imagine Crow, Tom Servo, and Joel (or Mike) wisecracking their way through this dopey, racist, tedious, half-baked war-era nonsense. Okay, I know the historical context in which it was made, it was well-meaning propaganda from 1945; but no matter how many times I told myself this during the course of the movie, it didn't improve it any, or make it any more entertaining. The plot is typical double-agent fluff, about some seemingly amoral carnival barker, who, when paid a pile by the perfidious Japanese to spy against the good ol' U.S. of A., shows himself to be a True Blue Patriot and ends up giving his all for the cause. There's badly staged fight scenes, corny torture scenes, plenty of inscrutable villains staring meaningfully at each other, and a couple of love scenes which were blatant- and badly done- ripoffs of "Casablanca." Most annoying is the narration by journalist Drew Pearson at the beginning and end of the film. Evidently the director had such a low opinion of his audience's IQ, he felt the need to need to hammer in his message more with stentorian sermonizing acting as bookends. It wasn't enough to show us the Japanese were our enemies; did they have to tell us too? Was the director so afraid that we would just not get it otherwise?Lee Tracy plays the carnival barker in question (shades of his earlier, and much better film, the "Half Naked Truth"). What is remarkable is how grim and stoic he appears throughout the entire film; much different from his customary ebullience, rapid-fire wisecracking and handwaving. His boredom and weary indifference virtually radiate from every frame of this misbegotten motion picture, as if he knew how this whole enterprise was imminently undeserving of his talents. He keeps repeating, "I'm just doin' this for the dough," as if it were his own personal mantra, and it leaves one to think that that was his main reason behind this picture as well. His attentions to Nancy Kelly, his alleged love interest, are lacking in any conviction whatsoever, and for the most part he seems more excited by the thought of his paycheck. As for Nancy Kelly, she provides a good argument against child stardom; although 24 at the time this film was made, this former child star appears a good 10 to 15 years older, and her strained posture and exaggerated, flutey voice don't help her. She does however provide one of the most amusing moments of the film, when (**SPOILER**) the bad guys steam her to death in a sauna.Good propaganda gets its point by showing, not telling; and by providing its audience with a fun, compelling and interesting story. "Betrayal from the East" does neither. Recommended only for students of the period or die-hard Lee Tracy fans.