Smashing the Money Ring (1939)

In 1939 and 1940 Ronald Reagan starred in the four Brass Bancroft thrillers for Warner Brothers. These were enjoyable B-feature crime thrillers retailing the exploits of Secret Service agent Lieutenant “Brass” Bancroft. Smashing the Money Ring was the third film in the series.

Bancroft and his partner “Gabby” Watters (Eddie Foy Jr) are on the trail of counterfeiters. A rather nasty hoodlum named Dice Matthews (Joe Downing) is running the racket and the phony money is being printed inside the state penitentiary. Dice figures it would be a swell idea to use the gambling ship operated by former mobster Steve Parker as a venue in which to pass the counterfeit greenbacks. Parker is all through with the rackets (the gambling ship is legitimate) and wants no part of it. The difficulty is that Dice Matthews is a vicious thug and his usual response to being thwarted is to have somebody rubbed out.

Parker comes up with a brilliant plan. He’ll squeal to the cops and he’ll avoid Dice’s vengeance by hiding out somewhere real safe for a month. And what could be a safer place than the state prison? Of course first he has to get himself into the prison but that’s easy - he’ll just slug a copper and get himself 30 days in the clink. The bonus here is that he’s always wanted to punch a policeman.

It all gets complicated and Brass himself has to go undercover as a convict to get himself into the penitentiary as well. Gabby is supposed to follow up leads involving the gambling ship but he spends more time pursuing Steve Parker’s attractive young daughter Peggy (Margot Stevenson). While Gabby is chasing skirt things start to get rough at the prison. More than just rough - people start getting shot which is not supposed to happen in jail.

The idea of a counterfeit racket operating inside a prison has been used in crime movies a number of times but it’s a good idea and in this case the script provides more than enough interest to maintain the viewer’s interest for the film’s very modest 57-minute running time. 

Director Terry O. Morse does a workmanlike job. He knows it’s a B-picture and his task is to get it done on time and on budget and to keep the action moving along. And there’s actually quite a lot action.

Brass Bancroft was an ideal role for the young Ronald Reagan. In this film he gets to be mostly likeable and heroic but then in the prison scenes he gets to do hardbitten tough guy stuff. And he manages it all with a certain aplomb.

The one great weakness of this series is that Eddie Foy Jr is a particularly lame and annoying comic relief actor. Luckily he gets less screen time than usual in this movie, and he’s less irritating than usual.

The supporting cast is competent and Joe Downing brings a nice mix of craziness and sadism to his role as Dice Matthews. Margot Stevenson is an adequate heroine.

One minor disappointment is that this film does not make use of the fact that Brass Bancroft is an aviator. A couple of the other Brass Bancroft films (Secret Service of the Air and Murder in the Air) feature airborne adventures.

The four Brass Bancroft movies are available on made-on-demand DVDs in the Warner Archive series in a two-disc pack. The transfers are excellent. There are no extras. All four movies are good solid crime thrillers making this pack a very worthwhile purchase for B-movie fans.

This is a better than average (and quite exciting) little programmer and Reagan gives his best performance of the series here. Smashing the Money Ring is certainly worth your time. Highly recommended.