Tonight's Movie: Society Smugglers (1939)

SOCIETY SMUGGLERS (1939), a 70-minute Universal "B" film, is just the type of Preston Foster movie I really enjoy.

Foster, Regis Toomey, and Irene Hervey play federal agents on the trail of a diamond smuggling ring. Hervey works undercover as a secretary for a luggage company suspected of smuggling diamonds. Foster is her boyfriend who's conflicted about her job; he wants her to marry him and stay safely at home, out of danger, but he also admires her abilities.

When the luggage company sponsors a contest and sends the five winners to Europe, Toomey buys off one of the winners with a Hawaiian vacation and takes his place, hoping to catch the smugglers in the act. All too soon both he and Hervey will be in great danger.

This is simply a fun and entertaining crime adventure, nothing more, nothing less. It's also interesting to observe ideas on working women as of 1939; given the very real threats Hervey's character faces, I must say it's hard to blame Foster for preferring that she be out of harm's way!

Regular readers know I'm a fan of both Foster and Toomey, so I had a nice time watching this film and their interactions, such as a scene where they simultaneously descend on Hervey's apartment for dinner.

Hervey is fine as the spunky agent who thinks quickly on her feet. Hervey and Foster also costarred that year in MISSING EVIDENCE (1939); I wish they had played the same characters in that film, as SOCIETY SMUGGLERS was an enjoyable concept. One of the SOCIETY SMUGGLERS screenwriters, Arthur T. Horman, also worked on MISSING EVIDENCE.

The cast also includes Frank Jenks, Walter Woolf King, Fred Keating, Frances Robinson, Milburn Stone, and Mary Field.

SOCIETY SMUGGLERS was directed by Joe May and filmed by John W. Boyle.

At the current time SOCIETY SMUGGLERS is not available on DVD.