The Dawn Express

1942 "Lured into a trap by a Mata Hari... the lives of his loved ones was the price demanded for his honor!"
4.5| 1h2m| NR| en
Details

A Nazi spy ring is after a chemical formula that increases the power of ordinary gasoline for U.S. Army aviation use. Two U.S. chemical companies are developing the formula, with each working on half for security purposes. The spies get half the formula and know that either of two chemists, Robert Norton or Tom Fielding, knows the rest. They capture Fielding, through a ruse by gang member Linda Pavlo, and threaten the life of his sister Nancy and his mother if he does not give them the formula. To protect his friend Fielding, who does know the formula and is engaged to Nancy, Tom pretends to know the secret and boards the Dawn Express plane with the spy leader and his gang.

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Reviews

Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!
Patience Watson One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.
Jemima It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.
tlkiefner While there is an airplane at the end of the film this film really has nothing to do with the cover artwork. This film deals with synthetic fuel (formula 311) developed by two scientists apart from each other as security measures. A love interest between the two stars adds to the story and intrigue. This is a slower paced film but I like the plot and the conclusion is surprising. The good news is it is available for free on the internet archive and their copy is watchable. The score by Lee Zahler is passable. Nothing stands out but it is passable. The number of people who were watching Norton was hilarious. The German Captain Gemmler in the picture somewhat reminds me Col. Klink in the television show "Hogan Heroes." I give this film a #100 ranking.
bkoganbing It's a PRC film so start with low expectations, but The Dawn Express will not even meet those. This is a horribly dated early World War II era flag waver when we were told to be on the alert for Nazi spies everywhere.Michael Whalen and William Bakewell are a pair of scientists working in a chemical laboratory on a formula to get a little more mileage out of the gasoline in your tank's tank. Something no doubt that General Patton will find invaluable, not to mention what it will do for the post war civilian drivers. The Nazis want it too and they're even sending one of their top scientists, flying him secretly to America to test it for himself. It's Bakewell they get to first putting an alluring Constance Worth in his path. Bakewell does fancy himself a player. Then it's up to Whalen to keep the formula out of Nazi hands and rescue Bakewell if he can do both. In fact he's engaged to Bakewell's sister Anne Nagel.There are about a dozen holes in this story and it looks like it was shot with an old Bell&Howell home movie camera. I just hope our post war drivers got the benefit of this research.
kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** One of the very first movies out of Hollywood after the entrenches of the US into WWII the film "Dawn Express" concentrates on the Nazis effort to steal, by hook crook and pay offs, the secret formula 3-B-11 no not the ingredients of a new kind of soft drink from Coca Cola but something that has to do with doubling the mileage of your gas tank when it's dropped in the gasoline. This secret is so important to the Nazi war machine that Germany sent it's top secret agent, who has trouble hiding his very prominent German accent, to the US Captain Gemmer, Harr Hans Heinrich Von Twardowski, who never makes mistakes to get his hands on it.It's the two US chemists Robert Norton & Tom Fielding, Michael Whalen & William Bkewell, whom Capt. Gemmer wants kidnapped and then paid off, with $100,000.00 in US currency, to give him formula 3-B-11 or else he'll not only off them but their family members as well! It's when Norton finally gives in to spill the beans or the formula to the Nazis that his good friend Tom Fielding turns traitor to his country and not only volunteers to give them the magic formula for gasoline enhancement but mix it for them as well!***SPOILERS*** As we'll soon see Tom Fielding is no traitor to his country but a full fledged hero instead. Putting his life on the life Fielding is brought on a Nazi airplane to fly back to Germany with top Nazi chemist Karl Schmidt, George Pembroke, to check if him mixing formula 3-B-11 is on the up and up. You begin to wounder why Schmidt couldn't do it himself? It was an act of desperation by Fielding but he in the end put and end to the Nazis attempt to get their hands on secret formula 3-B-11 by putting an end to them as well as himself!P.S What Tom Fielding did was copied in real life by the likes of Japanese kamikaze pilots as well as Al-Qeada suicide bombers who's actions in some cases were just as successful as his were!
jcholguin It is during World War II and nazi spies will stop at nothing to get a secret formula of increasing the power of gasoline. Two scientists Norton and Fielding have the information. Will Norton accept the offer of 100,000 dollars or will Fielding accept the offer of the lives of his mother and sister? What about the protection of the american intelligence team assigned to protect them? One of the agents should have watched an episode of "Get Smart" because when he gets killed he could have said "fell for the old knife hidden in the blind man's cane trick." A rather interesting film and worth the watch.