Crashing Thru (1939) User Reviews (5)

Renfrew is off to the rescue in one of the great unheralded movies from Hollywood's golden era.

[dbborroughs · 9/10 · 12 May 2006]

Renfrew of the Mounties and Constable Kelly are on a riverboat in the Canadian wilderness. As they attempt to woo a young lady they meet they are unaware of plans to rob the boat of a shipment of gold secreted below deck. Worse the young lady they are attempting to make time with is involved with the plot. The Mounties are tricked into being locked in the hold of the ship and the gold is stolen. Renfrew and Kelly then have to race to recover the gold before they appear to be too big a pair of idiots.

This is a damn fine B-movie. It moves like the wind and has more than its share of double and triple crosses, not to mention plot lines. Frankly many bigger budgeted films don't have this much action and detailed plotting. This is a movie that never stops from the minute it starts until the very end. Its a nifty little action adventure film. I really like this movie a great deal. Amazingly I even like the songs in this movie. Songs you say? Yes songs, for what ever reason Renfrew is a singing Mountie so in all of his films there are times when our hero will burst into song. Most times they are annoying but harmless, here however they actually work well being integrated into the plot.

This is one of those movies you'll want to make an effort to keep an eye out for, since its a great way to spend an hour of your time.

More Than Enough Action for Six Cliffhangers!

[JohnHowardReid · 8/10 · 21 May 2008]

This entry, the fourth of eight in the Renfrew series (all starring the personable James Newill as the singing Mountie), marks a stunning return to form for director Elmer Clifton whose spectacular "Down to the Sea in Ships" (1922) rates as one of the highlights of silent movie-making. True, the budget here is not a twentieth as extensive, but nonetheless the script is packed with virtually non-stop action and Clifton handles it masterfully. Our only complaint is that the film moves so fast, there's time for only ten or twelve great close-ups of super-attractive Jean Carmen who has a decent role for once. Mind you, even hero Newill has to share his screen time with partner Warren Hull and a first-rate gallery of villains. But Newill is also indulged with a couple of songs; yet, with his voice, who's complaining?

Another welcome aspect of this entry centers on the humor front. Although there's a fair amount of agreeably friendly, comic by-play between Renfrew and Kelly, there's no tedious "comedy" relief at all like the exasperating Benny Rubin in the third Renfrew entry, "Fighting Mad". As said, this one concentrates on action. There's more than enough for six cliffhangers.

Not paying attention

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 16 May 2018]

In the last of the Renfrew Of The Royal Mounted series, Jim Newill is taking a steamship with new Mountie trainee Warren Hull. Both are captivated by pretty Jean Carmen the only female passenger on the ship. So much so that they are tricked into being locked in the boiler room while a gang of thieves robs a gold shipment.

But then the thieves fall out with each other and after Hull is wounded Newill has to go after all of them. There's a bit more plot than normal in one of these poverty row films.

Dave O'Brien who partnered with Newill in the Texas Ranger series plays Carmen's airplane pilot brother. Milburn Stone and Roy Barcroft are a pair of the heavies. Not bad a series finale.

Shows even cowboy heroes occasionally think with the male member.

Too much singing. Not enough crime fighting.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 26 June 2022]

James Newell and Warren Hull have their hands full trying to figure out which side of the law that Jean Carmen is on. The friendly woman they met aboard a boat taking them back to their post seems to be involved with a group of thieves who are plotting to steal the gold off the ship. When all of a sudden the ship is robbed (and Newell and Hull defenseless and unable to do anything), it seems indeed that she is guilty and involved. For some reason, she's always on the radio, calling for a particular plane in code, but there's always a possibility that she has other motives that all of the parties are unaware of.

The seventh of eight Renfrew of the Royal Mounted films, this is a passable action crime drama that has Newell singing far too much, thinking that he's Nelson Eddy to Carmen's Jeanette MacDonald. There is one amusing sequence where he's playing his own band on her ship's cabin door, not realizing that Carmen and Hull are standing directly behind him. Plenty of action and location footage from Big Bear Lake, a predicable programmer that fortunately doesn't waste a lot of the viewer's time.

"Mmm..., me lookum through that many times. No findum nothing."

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 4 April 2012]

First of all, it should have been against the law to ever film a Mountie picture in black and white. With those dynamic red uniforms against the backdrop of gorgeous Northwest scenery (actually California's Big Bear Valley), a flick like this just begs for the full color treatment. Granted, this was 1939, but hey, "The Adventures of Robin Hood" came out the year before, and that was quite the spectacle.

"Crashing Thru" was the fourth in a series of James Newill films in which he portrayed Renfrew of the Royal Mounted, the first of which went by that same name. You really have to catch that flick for the story line, it's unbelievable. A counterfeiting ring goes to the trouble of smuggling forged bills inside the body cavities of rainbow trout that are frozen in blocks of ice! This one's not as over the top, but it still has it's moments, particularly when the picture earns it's title in a scene at the finale. You'll just have to see it for yourself.

I don't want to give away too much of the story, but suffice it to say that the good guys (Newill and Warren Hull as Constable Kelly) solve a gold heist aboard a riverboat after the villains have a falling out with each other. The theft was masterminded by a brother and sister team (Jean Carmen and Dave O'Brien), who felt they had a duty to recoup the investment of their father's partners who believed they bought a mine from Delos Herrington.

Long time Western fans just may recognize a young Milburn Stone as the owner of the Herrington Mining Company, but for this viewer, the real treat was catching my favorite Native American actor in an uncredited role as Indian Joe. That would be Iron Eyes Cody, you know, the Indian that shed a tear for the environment in those ubiquitous TV commercials of the Seventies. You'll probably hate me for this, but I was just as shocked to learn that Cody was the son of first generation Italian immigrants, but I'll keep it under my hat if you will.

Anyway, whenever you need a break from your typical B Western, a good alternative is one of these Mountie pictures. Beside Newill in his series for Criterion, you had Charles Starrett in 1934's "Undercover Men", and Gene Autry in 1951's appropriately titled "Gene Autry and The Mounties". Keep your expectations in check though, those were done in glorious black and white as well.