Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Boring

Better Late Then Never

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

You have to swallow a whole lot in order to give A Yank in Libya any credence of any kind. This was inflicted on the wartime American public by that bottom rung Poverty Row studio PRC.No doubt the folks at PRC thought to capitalize on those MGM classics A Yank At Oxford and A Yank At Eton in the title. School had nothing to do with this picture although someone sure missed their geography when they wrote this.Libya on your Rand McNally maps prior to our entry in World War II was colored the same color that Italy was as it was an Italian colony. Yet nowhere do you see signs of Italian soldiers or Italian anything. What we have here is neutral Libya being stirred up against the British in the person of consul H.B. Warner by William Vaughn an agent of the Fuehrer.Getting wind of this reporter Walter Woolf King who wants to scoop the world, but keeps blundering into the situation. He's driving Warner, Joan Woodbury and the rest of the British nuts.The British and the Nazis are supporting rival sheiks Duncan Renaldo and George J. Lewis respectively. Although in 1942 we did not know how things would turn out, the good guys prevail here.But any film that has Harry "Parkyarkarkus" Eisenstein as another agent give a wide berth.

Mike Malone is an obnoxious and stupid American reporter who, inexplicably, is hanging out under cover in Libya! He's boorish and stupid--which is a nice match, as all the rest of the folks in the film are really dumb. Because of this, the whole gun smuggling and Nazi infiltrator angles just don't make a lot of sense and the film leaves you wondering WHAT you've just seen! "A Yank in Libya" is a horrible movie and I have no idea why most of the reviews are so kind to this mess of a film. The only good thing about it is that the film can be fun to watch because it is so incredibly stupid!When the movie begins, you can see that the footage they're using of a desert scene is old re-used footage. It's grainy but more importantly, since it was from a silent film (which runs at a different speed than a sound film) the footage is too fast. As you watch the film, again and again you notice this, as the filmmakers actually just spliced up an old movie and inserted a few new scenes into it to make an all-new picture. Clever? Not really, as it's very obvious AND the new scenes are just god-awful--mostly due to the script having been written by a couple of chimps! Again and again, the dialog is just awful (a nice example is the line "why I'd be a cock-eyed whirling dervish...") and the plot just doesn't make any sense (one guy is shot from only a few feet away and is dead...but later, with no explanation, he's very alive and quite well!). The bottom line is that this terrible B-movie is so terrible that it actually could be seen as funny to bad movie buffs- -but all others stay clear!

This film is an example of what a low budget "B" film can be like. "A Yank In Libya" is one of those more classic B films amongst movie buffs, as well known for its title as it is for being a "poverty row" film. The film was produced and released by PRC, Producers Releasing Company. Intercut in the film are numerous scenes taken directly from other films, by doing this it was a cost saving measure. Also several scenes, such as the fight scenes were speeded up, much in the way old silent comedies were run at a faster speed. The film has an interesting plot where Germans are supplying weapons to Arabs to murder Americans. H.B. Warner has a great supporting role playing the British diplomat. He is best knoiwn for having played Christ in the biblical silent epics. Joan Woodbury plays an attractive lead, in real life she was the wife of Henry Wilcoxon. Parkyakarkus, a radio actor of the time essentially plays himself. If you have no idea who he is, he looks, sounds and acts like Jack Oakie. Walter Woolf King essentially plays the male lead, and does a good job.

Although this film stars H.B. Warner, he is certainly not the central character, that role being fulfilled by Walter Woolf King, a little known actor, who portrays an American war correspondent who has unearthed a Nazi plot to foment a rebellion among the Arab tribes. In fact, Warner's part is rather minor. The story is pedestrian but the acting is good. There is not much big action, the only scenes promising it being at the end of the film, but, it doesn't come off. The chief of the attacking Arabs, making a sudden recovery from a Luger bullet at close range, prevents it. It turns out a small medallion on his chest stopped the bullet!Neither Leonard Maltin nor Martin and Porter list this film in their filmograhies. I got it on DVD in a budget set of eight "War Classics". The plot of a Nazi conspiracy to foment a revolt of the Arab tribes in Libya is the nearest it gets to WWII. The sheik is played by Duncan Renaldo, perhaps better known as the Cisco Kid both in film and on TV. The Arab villain is portrayed by the prolific George J. Lewis with whom any fan of serials would be familiar, being a stock villain in that genre. He only appeared in about 260 films! Some comic relief is supplied by Parkyakarkas posing as an Arab selling razor blades!