Mystery Sea Raider (1940)

Onslow Stevens has the largest role as Carl Cutler, a prosperous importer who unexpectedly becomes a German spy when WW2 breaks out. Taking over a freighter in mid-ocean somewhere in the Caribbean, Cutler transforms the vessel into a Nazi raider, then does his best to decimate the British fleet. But Cutler has failed to take into consideration the resourcefulness of ship’s captain Jimmy Madden (Henry Wilcoxon), who with the help of the Nazi’s unwitting cohort June McCarthy (Carole Landis) manages to strike a blow for Democracy in the final footage. Though set in the 1940s, Mystery Sea Raider seems more like a WW1 melodrama, with both Allied and German forces displaying gallantry and even chivalry in the face of death. This sort of romanticism would be dispensed with after Pearl Harbor, whereupon no enemy officer would ever be cut any slack in a Hollywood film.

Carole Landis, Henry Wilcoxon, Onslow Stevens, Kathleen Howard, Wallace Rairdon

1940, B&W, 78 minutes