kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS**** Hot shot pilot for the China Clipper co. Lt. "Bras-Balls" Bancroft played by future US President and leader of the free world Ronald Wilson Reagan is recruited by his good friend Tom Saxby, John Litel, as an undercover agent for the US Secret Service. Brsss' job is to stop a ruthless gang smuggling aliens of all types and from all nations illegally into the United States.Using the cover of a convicted counterfeiter Brass is sent to federal prison and made Earl "Ace" Hemrich's played by Bernard Nedall,who was convicted of flying illegal aliens into the country, cell-mate. With "Ace" letting Brass in on a prison break the next day Brass goes along with him only to later, after crashing out of jail, getting re-captured and sent to do hard time on the notorious "Rock" Alcatraz. But instead of being sent to the "Rock" Brass is released and given clearance by his boss Saxby to get a job as a pilot for the L.A Taxi co. that Ace used to fly in illegal aliens for.****SPOILERS**** Things get very "bally" for Brass-Balls when Ace escapes from prison and gets back to see his boss of the air freight company Jim Cameron, James Stephenson, that Brass is working for. At first talking his way out of trouble in him convincing Cameron that he made a deal with the government to get out of prison and later slugging it out with a number of his goons-including Ace- to show that he's all right Brass ends up getting Cameron together with a number of illegal aliens on his plane to fly back, from Mexico, to the states. Where unknown to Cameron the Feds as well as FBI Agents are waiting to arrest him when the plane lands.

gkeith_1 I'll give it a 10. If I watch a whole movie, usually I like it. Reagan, even though not my political party, I thought was an excellent actor. Witness Kings Row and Bedtime for Bonzo. Lovely to see Eddie Foy, Jr. Of course, he could sing. He came from a famous musical family, lol. All the bad guys . . . They never had a chance. The fed guy was great... John Litel. Foy was great in assisting Reagan in kapowing said bad guys. The women were good in this film, and both pretty and well-dressed. 1942 brought another movie with Foy, in Yankee Doodle Dandy (which I saw), appearing as his famous father, Eddie Foy, Sr. Loved seeing all the miniature aircraft in the skies. Also, I marveled at the obvious stuntpersons it took to make this film. No dance movie here, but I actually liked it. 10/10

Robert J. Maxwell Kind of fun, actually, with no time wasted.Reagan is a transport pilot who is recruited by the Secret Service to do some undercover work in a gang of ugly thugs who run a business transporting rich white illegals from Mexico into the United States to pick melons. Well -- not to pick melons but to find a stash of bonds or engage in some other scurrilous activity.To give the pristine Reagan the proper background, the Secret Service frames him for some outrage and puts him in a cell with a former pilot for the sneaky business. The imprisoned pilot gives Reagan the low down on the business -- "Just mention my name." But when a staged getaway is deliberately thwarted by the Secret Service, the pilot goes back to the slams and Reagan is released, now with the requisite prison record, and insinuates himself into the gang as their new pilot.The gang is suspicious of Regan for a while and they put him on probation, but eventually accept him as a really good bad guy. That's when the original pilot gets out of the slams, and when he hears that Reagan is doing the flying, he twigs to the fact that that getaway attempt was staged by the Secret Service. How? I don't know. Call it fulgurating intuition.It's a kinetic, no-nonsense movie, full of brawls in Mexican cantinas, the dumping of passengers out of a kind of bomb bay, Reagan's refulgent grin, and people sneaking around and spying on others. There's hardly a dull moment.Is it a B feature? You bet, but a good example of its kind.

bkoganbing According to Secret Service Of The Air Ronald Reagan as Brass Bancroft was brought into the service because of his skills as a pilot flying the Trans-Pacific run. Later on in the four film series his pilot skills were not necessarily needed, but this was a B picture series and back then who cared.An Treasury man on a counterfeiting case got wind of an illegal immigrant smuggling racket and pays with his life in a particularly nasty way being thrown out of an airplane along with the other illegals on that flight. After that the Treasury Department takes the lead on the case and you can see why Reagan is recruited into the Secret Service.This film introduced Reagan in the role of Brass Bancroft and by the time he had finished his fourth film he was doing other and better things with films like Dark Victory and Santa Fe Trail under his belt and Knute Rockne and Kings Row to come. John Litel as his supervisor and Eddie Foy, Jr. as his sidekick were also introduced.James Stephenson is the villain here, a really smooth and deadly piece of work. He did a really good job here, almost like he'd come down from another classier film to appear here.Reagan is breezy, credible, and likable as a fast talking, fast thinking undercover hero. Some of the other Brass Bancroft films were infinitely worse, this one is all right.