520-Radar Secret Service

Film Year:  1950
Genre:  Spy, Action
Director:  Sam Newfield
Starring:  John Howard, Adele Jergens, and RADAR!
MST Season:  5
Featured Short:  "Last Clear Chance"

The Short

This traffic safety short was filmed in Meridian, Idaho, not too far from where I currently live.  In fact, I drive by many of its shooting locations just about every day.  And yes, I do look both ways before crossing the Railroad, in loving memory of young Frank Dixon.

Fairly persistent and undeniably effective in getting its point across, Last Clear Chance tells the story of a police officer stopping by a local farm to give newly-licensed Alan Dixon some helpful tips about driving, and how important it is to pay attention to the road.  In a hackneyed bit of irony, Alan’s brother Frank is killed in an accident for that very reason at the end of the short.

Undoubtedly shown to people trying to acquire (or re-acquire, just as likely) their driver’s license, this particular short is one of those important “Or ELSE” shorts that isn’t afraid to show the consequences of one’s actions.  They’re fairly important to their own cause, though Last Clear Chance probably isn’t one of the better ones.  The story hinges on the idea that despite going through driver’s education and having already been approved for a driver’s license, Alan Dixon listens with rapt attention to stories about street signs and traffic as if he has never heard of them before, even though he should have learned all of this while working to get a driver’s license.

The finale which hammers home its point drains all brain matter from our characters and has them doing the strangest and moronic behavior possible in order to make death inevitable.  We’re supposed to go “Oh my god, that could be me!” but in reality our reaction is more in tune with us shrugging our shoulders and saying “Well, they were going to die soon enough anyway.”  And instead of feeling any sort of sympathy, I find comfort in the fact that Frank Dixon won’t breed his stupidity to future generations.

The Movie

Monotonous spy caper has a group of radar-lovin’ G-Men hunting down a mob and enlisting the boss’s girlfriend as a mole.  But forget putting one’s self in harm’s way to bring down the bad guys, the real hero of the story is RADAR!

It’s hard to say much about this movie because it’s barely a movie at all.  Padded exponentially with establishing shots and laughable boasting about the wonders of the title-technology, Radar Secret Service feels like a 25-minute pilot movie for a TV series that has been expanded to feature length.  Characterization is non-existent, story is cookie-cutter, and excitement is a rarity.  There’s honestly more meat on the short than there is on this movie.

What amusement factor that is held is at the expense of the movie.  Every once in a while an unintentional laugh is to be had.  The maid who discovers a corpse is a delightful highlight, and one of the funniest moments in movie history.

The Episode

One of my fondest MST memories was during high school where I had an art teacher who was very much an admirer of the series, and every once in a while we would watch episodes during lunch.  I brought in Shorts Volume 2 one day and we laughed like crazy during Last Clear Chance.  Finally as the short was ending he took a sip of coffee and suddenly Tom Servo started singing “They’re dead, they’re dead, they’re diddly-eye-de-dead, diddle-de-de-dead” to the pleasant music that closed the short and he spit his coffee out all over his desk laughing.  I had never seen someone do a spit take laugh before that day, and every time I watch this short the memory of it just makes it even sweeter.

As such the short is my pick for greatest short of the series.  The short is full of on-point quips that finish off the narration with just the perfect jab, with glorious observations on traffic portrayal, and definitely a more twisted spin on the darkest aspects of the short.  It’s little wonder that the movie portion doesn’t keep pace with the opening short, because very few episodes do.

That said, Radar Secret Service is an odd pairing with Last Clear Chance.  The film is so slow and it doesn’t really push the riffers to deliver such snap they had been pushing during the first half hour.  What energy they do bring to it is probably due to the energy they’ve already been injected with due to the short subject though, and without it this movie might have killed them.  Despite host segment statements to the contrary, Mike and the bots are in a pretty good mood for this movie.  They take aim at the easiest of targets:  the monotony of the film and the flattery of radar.  Hell, when the film starts to drag they just break out a “RADAR!”  riff to crack up the room.  They also take aim at 50’s styles, especially mocking vintage motor vehicles.  One of my favorite riffs of the episode compares a car to Moby Dick.

This episode marks the end of an era, as it’s the first episode since KTMA that doesn’t feature an Invention Exchange.  The segment had always seemed to be on the way out since Mike took over, so this is nothing of a surprise.  In its place, the Mads introduce the concept of Hypno-Helio-Static-Stasis, which is presented as the latest version of “Rock Climbing” and “Deep Hurting.”  Mike and the bots spend a bit of the remainder of the episode fighting the concept off with a goofy, faux high school reunion and an odd segment about a Quinn Martin Nature Preserve.  They finally fight it off with Ecstato-Euphoro-Fun.  But the highlights of these segments have nothing to do with Hypno-Helio-Static-Stasis, with top prize going to the opening where Mike does his best to repair Crow to disastrous results (I do love these “Mike is not Joel” sketches that they came up with post-Joel).  Not far behind it is the Last Clear Chance parody.

The appetizer is better than the main course this week, but that doesn’t mean the main course isn’t worth the time it takes to digest it.  Radar Secret Service is a slow movie given just the right oomph from the riffing to make it watchable.  Which is good, because this movie could have easily been a bigger car wreck than anything featured in the short.

Good

The DVD

Radar Secret Service was released by Shout Factory as a part of their Volume XXXII collection, with wonderful audio and video.  Included is an introduction by Frank Conniff, who reflects on Robert Lippert films in general, the spy genre, and an amusing story about acquiring the rights to this film.  Also included is a feature called MST-UK, which chronicles Frank and Trace Beaulieu being flown to England by British fans of the series.

Many years before Shout released the entire episode, the short Last Clear Chance brought us to hysterics as a part of Shorts Volume 2, which was featured in Rhino’s Volume 3 collection.  There were no extras.  This set was later re-released by Shout Factory, also without extras.