Perry Kate Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Develiker terrible... so disappointed.

ScoobyMint Disappointment for a huge fan!

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

kidboots In 1930 Conrad Nagel was the most wanted man in Hollywood - wanted for his romantic good looks but especially for his clear speaking voice - 9 films in 1929, 10 in 1930, 8 in 1931. Even Nagel joked he couldn't find a film to go to in which he wasn't featured but it didn't last and 1932 found him playing a villain in a William Haines feature - not a good sign and by the time he got a solid role in "Bank Alarm" his film days were numbered. He was paired with Eleanor Hunt, a chorus girl in the original Ziegfeld production of "Whoopee" who was catapulted to the female lead when Ruth Etting proved unavailable for the movie. Unfortunately her career was a series of shorts and uncredited bits, in fact "Bank Alarm" is apparently the movie she is known for.At Grand National they proved a popular team but the little studio didn't last very long. Initially it scored a bullseye by being the company that was able to release James Cagney's two independent releases and even though they weren't up to the standard of his Warner films they were still a feather in Grand National's cap. The problem was the rest of the releases were just standard stuff. Conrad Nagel hardly had the dynamics of Cagney.This is a nifty little crime yarn with Nagel and Hunt reprising characters they had played in a previous movie. Dept. of Justice's Alan O'Connor is already involved in trying to get to the bottom of the murder of crime king pin O'Hearn when his sister calls in for a visit. "That sister of mine is a sweet kid" he says to Bobbie (Hunt) in a nightclub - just to let you know there is going to be trouble. She has met Jerry Turner on the plane who is passing himself off as a movie producer, in reality he has been bought to Hollywood by racketeer Karlotti (Wheeler Oakman being his usual slimy self) to do a "job". He is to go to Nevada, posing as a vagrant where he will be picked up and taken to jail where the city's safe is located - a piece of cake!! Suddenly a rash of bank robberies break out and O'Conner and Bobbie trace the crook's stolen car to a desolate farm where the unwilling owner gives conflicting descriptions of the robbers.Meanwhile Bobbie (who has more to do than Alan) ingratiates herself into a job as Karlotti's publicity agent - but Vince Barnett as the "comic" relief is around just often enough to see she needs a last minute rescue from Alan. Grand National ceased as a studio in 1939 but it did give Conrad Nagel a chance to direct his first film "Love Takes Flight" - although in later years he was dismissive of it.

bkoganbing On the silent screen and the early sound era Conrad Nagel was a major star working with such people as Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer. But by 1937 he was in the minor leagues working at Grand National Studios and starring in a series where he plays G-man named Alan O'Connor.In this film Bank Alarm Nagel is working on a series of bank robberies and since the New Deal and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation bank robbery is now a federal crime. It's what J. Edgar Hoover's agency did its best work.But there's another wrinkle here as someone is attempting to change serial numbers to make the loot untraceable. By dumb luck he changes a bill and makes a serial number the same as one in Nagel's hands. The second wrinkle is that Nagel's sister is actually being romanced by one of the gang.Vince Barnett plays a photographer and Nagel's sidekick. I might have shot the guy on general stupidity grounds. What was kind of touching in Scarface did not work at all in Bank Alarm for Barnett.Conrad Nagel must have wished for the arms of Greta Garbo once more.

Robert J. Maxwell There's something always odd about these B features from the 30s. Even if the tales themselves are kind of entertaining, as this one is, nothing in it seems entirely real. Conrad Nagel here doesn't humiliate himself. He's handsome and expressive, but he's obviously acting, and so are the other cast members, except for the bit players who can't act at all. The direction, the performances, the art direction, the musical score -- they all suggest that the movie we're watching is a B feature made in America.This is passable in comedies, where naturalism isn't expected. The Marx Brothers were unimpeachable, though they had bigger budgets too. But in movies intended to be suspenseful or dramatic, the only successes seem to come when the elements of the film transcend realism and reach for the surreal. Is Humphrey Bogart convincing in "The Petrified Forest"? No, but he's magnetic and the story is taut. And no gangsters ever behaved or spoke as outrageously as Edward G. Robinson or Jimmy Cagney."Bank Alarm" is neither naturalistic nor surreal and so the scale is balanced at neutral and mundane. Aside from a few holes in the plot, it's all done with apparently effortless aplomb. They knew what they were doing. If someone walks towards a door, preparatory to leaving, the director and editor cut before he reaches the door. Why? Well, suppose the actor fumbled, or the door was stuck, or the wall wobbled like the cardboard it was made of. It would require a retake. So let's skip the actor reaching the door, opening it, walking through it, and closing it behind him. Too many danger points. No risks are taken with lighting a cigarette either. The dame might drop the match or something. So the scene begins with the cigarette already lighted.This doesn't interfere much with the story's flow, though. And, in fact, all that concision peps up the pace and moves the story a little faster. There is one element that's positively painful. A number of reviewers have noted that Chester Conklin's dim "Bulb" of a photographer isn't funny. They're right. It's more than that. Every time Conklin steps on a rake and the handle whips up and bounces off the back of his head, the viewer is likely to wince more markedly than Conklin himself.But the production IS after all professional, except for those bit parts. And if you're prepared to relax and shift your mind into neutral and let it idle, you might find this interesting enough to stick with to the predictable end.

MartinHafer This is a B-movie from Grand National—a relatively small-time studio by Hollywood standards. The film stars Conrad Nagel and Eleanor Hunt as a G-man and his girlfriend. Nagel has been frustrated with his attempts to get information about a clever gang that has been involved with some daring robberies and forgeries. The local police have been no help so Hunt and an idiot photographer offer to help (they see much like Lois Lane and Jimmy Olson—dumb and always in the way). One thing that no one knows is that Nagel's sister is dating a member of the gang! This is a reasonably well acted and entertaining B-movie. When I say B-movie, this is a term used to describe the second and lesser film from a double-feature. Unlike the A-picture, the B is very quickly and cheaply made---often by tiny independent studios like Grand National. While Bs often have a poor reputation, they are often fun to watch and sometimes are more entertaining than the A-film.Strengths of the film are good acting by Nagel and a plot that offers a few nice twists. The biggest negative is the limp comic relief—it didn't improve the film at all and the viewer was left wondering if anyone in real life is as big a cretin as the numb-skull photographer, Bulb. The answer is no.