Recently there have been some unexplained explosions of British military targets. No one knows who is responsible for the destructions or how they were accomplished. British Agent 43, better known as Linda Beech (Karen Morley), works for Scotland Yard and is assigned to investigate. Sir Eric Ledyard (Claude King) sends Linda to the south of France to pursue a lead after the last agent was killed. Sir Eric warns her that there may be some counter espionage going on and to trust no one.
Derrick Holt (Robert Baldwin) is an American reporter who sails to England for a story. On the ship he meets Lady Helen Lavering (Katherine Alexander), a well to do woman. While discussing the festivities around the King’s coronation in Britain, Derrick receives a cable from a friend of his, Mary Smith (Agnes Anderson). She asks him to come see her. When the ship lands in Britain, Derrick takes a plane to France. On the plane he meets and is attracted to Linda. She ignores him.
Mary tells Derrick that her husband, Martin, has disappeared and asks him to help. While he is there, Derrick receives a cryptic note warning him to mind his own business. When Mary shows him pictures that Martin took on his last business trip, one of them is a photograph of Linda. Derrick becomes intrigued, and being a reporter, decides to investigate for himself.
While snooping, Derrick ends up in the middle of a murder scene. Linda is suspicious of Derrick, but he ends up convincing her that he wants to help. Together they try to take down a plot by the evil inventor of a death ray who is determined to destroy the Royal Air Force as they participate in military maneuvers and disrupt the coronation celebration of King George VI.
“The Girl from Scotland Yard” was released in 1934 and was directed by Robert G. Vignola. It is a low budget American spy thriller with science fiction undertones.
First of all, the girl from Scotland Yard is really a woman. Despite the misogynistic title, the main hero of the movie is Karen Morley as Linda Beech.
The only exciting part that takes place in the beginning of the film is the inclusion of some newsreel stock footage. I’m probably one of the few that enjoyed that aspect. After that the movie is a confusing mash of plots and subplots that are designed to throw together Linda and Derrick as kick and sidekick.
The actual interesting part of the film is probably the last five minutes where the good guys attempt to destroy His Majesty’s planes by using a death ray. Unfortunately, the weapon isn’t seen until the last few minutes of the film, so the science fiction portion of the movie is more of a plot point that garners very little screen time. It’s not quite a MacGuffin but it comes close.
It was an OK movie, but I can’t help but think it could have been so much better if the science fiction aspects of the film had been fleshed out more.