Rubber Racketeers

This is an oddball wartime curio dealing with scumballs who replace rubber tires with cheap imitation crap.

Our story opens in a defense factory, where our hero, Bill Barry (Bill Henry) uses a machine gun to mow down caricatures of Mussolini, Hitler, and Tojo.

Bill has a girlfriend named Mary. (That's right; if they get married, she'll be Mary Barry.) While driving home from work, they are cut off by a car carrying Ricardo Cortez, who has just been released from the can after having spent three years in stir. Cortez stiffs Barry for the repairs, then gets the idea of entering the rubber racket.

After Mary's brother is killed by a tire blowout, Bill decides to find the culprits. As usual, the police are nowhere to be found in movies of this type.

Cortez' girlfriend (the lovely Rochelle Hudson) tries to convince Cortez to give up the racket in the name of patriotism. Nice try. In the climactic donnybrook, Bill's defense pals beat the crap out of Cortez and his gang.

Cortez is his usual suave d-bag. John Abbott plays a moron killer named Dumbo who doesn't speak and plays with rubber rings, which is obviously where Captain Queeg came up with the idea of playing with his steel balls. Alan Hale Jr. Shows up as a muscle-bound pal of Bill, and Milburn Stone plays a crook.

The movie manages not to be tiresome. However, the filmmakers spared every expense, threatening to fire Stone, and jacking up the price of admission.