I Take This Oath (1940) User Reviews (7)

Taking Up

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 30 July 2014]

Producer's Releasing Corporation had a reputation for turning out lackluster product with their movies. But this first PRC film was not all that bad. It starred Gordon Jones who before he became beefy and goofy did some lead roles and serious ones in B films. I Take This Oath tells the story of a young man who joins the police force to avenge the death of his father Robert Homans. Homans was trying to find the secret crime boss of his city when he was killed by a bomb.

Obviously he was getting too close and Jones picks up where his father left off. He also joins the police force taking the examination with his friend Craig Reynolds whom he entrusts his girl Joyce Compton to escort as she's a girl who likes to step out. Jones is on a mission and he will let nothing stand in his way.

I Take This Oath is an OK noir film and PRC at least started on an acceptable note. Too bad it didn't live up to expectations.

Corny in the extreme

[Handlinghandel · 4/10 · 23 November 2007]

First: I would never call this a film noir. It's a lackluster movie about police officers and criminals. It came out several years after its genre had died off.

The officer father of the hero speaks with a thick brogue. His loving wife never gets out of the kitchen unless she's at church.

Joyce Compton is the female lead. She plays a police officer's daughter in love with the main character. She got lots of work but was immortalized as Dixie Belle Lee in "The Awful Truth." Here, she wears bangs and has plucked eyebrows, a la Claudette Colbert. There are several reaction shoots of her that seem spliced in.

The movie has several goofs. In one, a b-girl sidles onto a bar stool. She's meant to be hot stuff. And indeed, she is played by the always attractive, often naughty Veda Ann Borg. But her behind seems to bang into the edge of the stool before she alights atop it. I suspect this was shot in one take.

If the print were better, it might be worth watching. But it is undistinguished. The acting never gets beyond adequate. And the plot holds few surprises.

Paul Bunyons With Bull Dozers.

[rmax304823 · 4/10 · 19 November 2015]

The Alaska Highway, running from southern Canada to Alaska, is a rough gravel road but pretty well maintained, considering the burden placed on it by the climate. One of it most impressive features -- aside from the vistas and the woodland lakes -- is the horde of mosquitoes that rise in clouds from the muskeg whenever you get anywhere near it. They're highly specialized insects that live on nothing but blood. They must have enjoyed my presence because I wound up looking like Dracula and took to sleeping upside down in my closet.

Okay. So they have to make a living too. I don't begrudge them their meals. But where do those meals come from? How many mammals -- moose and bear -- does it take to sustain a population like that?

Well, there are some things man was never meant to know. One of those things not too many of us know about is the building of the Alaska Highway, undertaken after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, when the Japanese put some troops ashore on the Aleutian Islands.

The Army Corps of Engineers built that highway. We don't hear much about it because, compared to what was going on elsewhere in the world, building a road through the Canadian woods wasn't very glamorous.

We learn about it here but we don't get to see much of it. This is an inexpensive and rudimentary movie. There is one of those war-time prologues dedicating it those brave men who fought the wilderness and thanking the Canadian Film Board for its cooperation -- something like that -- but I'd estimate that there are no more than three or four minutes of interpolated newsreel footage showing the men at work. Instead, much of this was shot on a few indoor sets and there is some rear projection.

Most of the time is taken up with a corny romantic conflict -- two brothers in love with the same woman -- and lots of dumb gags that would make Abbott and Costello hang their heads in shame. Sometimes an otherwise poor production like this is redeemed by some sparkle and wit in the dialog. Not here. The script seems to have been written by some algorithm. Oh -- and don't worry. There's not a single black man in it.

About what you'd expect from PRC...

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 14 June 2011]

When I saw that this film was made by PRC, I realized it would NOT be a work of art! To put it mildly, PRC was a super-low budget company that mostly made terrible films. A few were entertaining despite their cheese-factor, but I have yet to see a well-crafted film by this 'poverty row' company.

The film begins in a jury deliberation room. Apparently some hoodlum was caught in the act of committing some atrocity but despite this some of the jurors seemed determined to acquit the guy. And, when this does occur, the judge voices his outrage over the verdict. In the next scene, the Inspector (familiar character actor J. Farrell McDonald) is talking to the Deputy Inspector about this and the Deputy decides to make it his one-man mission to bring the gang to justice and find out who 'Mr. Big' is. Not surprisingly, the guy is soon blown up--and his son (Gordon Jones) is determined to catch the people responsible. After fruitlessly running about on his own, he finally decides to join the police force and work with the law instead of taking it into his own hands. Naturally, he's the reason for the titles for "I Take This Oath" (also called "The Rookie").

While this is not among the worst of PRC, this isn't saying much! Sub-par acting and a difficult to believe plot make this a slow and rather silly film. Not terrible...but certainly not good.

"B" film supreme with great conflict, family drama and a bit of Irish blarney.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 18 May 2013]

The story initially focuses on the very Irish Robert Homans investigating a crime syndicate where the criminals always seem to get away with their evil deeds. He becomes a one-man task force against the rackets, resulting in a horrific death and awakening his son (Gordon Jones) to the need to become a cop to continue where his father left off. He goes through the rigorous training all police cadets need while utilizing evidence he discovered among his father's effects to unmask the mastermind. This creates an estrangement between him and his lovely fiancée (Joyce Compton) and puts his best friend (Craig Reynolds) in the position to try and win her from him.

With a family structure resembling the Irish-American soap opera "Ryan's Hope" (including a very Scottish accented Irish mother, played by Mary Gordon), this film is charming in spite of some clichés and powerfully gripping. The poor papa gets a horrific death scene that leaves very little to the imagination (and a shade of things to come in later mafia movies like "The Godfather") yet makes Jones aware that he can't leave his father's ambitions unattended, continuing the legacy of law enforcement to protect the public and get the criminal off the street. The always amusing Veda Ann Borg has a memorable cameo as a nightclub floozy. As the first of PRC's many programmers, it holds its place in their vault as one of their best.

A Good Start

[boblipton · 6/10 · 6 March 2023]

Gordon Jones' father was a cop, killed by no one know who. Jones decides to join the force and figure out who did it. First this cuts into his time with his girl, Joyce Compton. Then, when his mother, Mary Gordon, gives him his father's notebook, he investigates the clues therein, playing hookey from his studies.

The very first release from Producers Releasing Corporation is actually a decent, if cheaply shot second feature. The cast is very good, including J. Farrell MacDonald, Craig Reynolds, Veda Ann Borg, an unrecognizable Arthur O'Connell, and Robert Emmett O'Connor. I found the training montage some very nice editing.

Of course, PRC would not maintain this level. It would soon fall into a habit of shoddy scripts and tiny budgets which would stifle any creativity. For the moment, though they were starting out strong for a Poverty Row house.

Police family

[searchanddestroy-1 · 20 December 2022]

A crime story showing a policemen family, father and son. And this reminded me Josef Von Sternberg's SERGEANT MADDEN, but on another angle. Here the son seeks revenge over father's death. In SERGEANT MADDEN, father - Wallace Beery has his son becoming a rogue cop...Slightly different scheme. Back to this Sam Newfield - Sherman Scott or Peter Stewart, his other akas - it is short, very well made for a grade Z picture, made by the king of Z film makers of this period. I was afraid to discover something awful; but no. It is no that surprising though but pleasant to watch. Good action scenes, fast paced. Yes, a good little surprise.