So many of these Monogram horror movies I'm watching get off to a flying start then become bogged down, lacking complications and/or progression. There's a lot of fun still to be had in this WW2 potboiler, with Bela Lugosi having a great old time as a German who goes around knocking off industrialists. It turns out he's a plastic surgeon who turned Japanese agents into industrialists but we don't find that out until the very end.
Maybe this film would have worked more told in a linear fashion - we could have enjoyed the bonkers plot more being part of it. There was more fun to be had with Japanese masquerading as American agents. It's very silly and doesn't make sense if you think hard (or, rather, all) about it.
But there are pleasures. Lugosi, of course, hypnotising people and running riot - and as a bonus his character has a look a like. Clayton Moore is obnoxious but at least virile as the hero - who seems to have a lot of help but they keep being killed. Joan Barclay is a pretty heroine. And most of all there's the full blown wackiness of the concept.
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