"The Flaming Signal" is an awfully bad film made on a shoestring budget by a tiny studio. In order to save money, they used an awful lot of stock footage and blending it in with the scenes they actually shot was far from seamless.
The film begins with Lt. Jim Robbins flying about setting all sorts of flying records. And, on most of these trips, his doggy Flash (played by Flash) accompanies him. On one particular occasion, he tries to leave his beloved pooch behind, but Flash, like other German Shepard heroes of the era, KNOWS he's needed and sneaks aboard the plane. Soon, the plane crashes near a tropical island that just happens to have a sexy naked WHITE lady--and Flash soon finds her. During this scene, the audience is treated to a lot of skin since this is a Pre-Code movie--and pretty much anything went during this era! Additionally, a Bluto-like character named Von Krantz (Noah Beery) rapes a girl and the islanders go on the warpath. Unfortunately, the pilot, his dog, the missionary and the missionary's daughter (the one who was naked) are all about to be killed because of this idiot. So what do they do? Pretty much nothing! Even when Von Krantz then murders an islander, the other white folks do nothing to stop or kill him. Later, when he kills the priest again (it's not worth getting into that), there is a big fight in which one of the worst old movie clichés occurs--the bad guy drops his gun by the lady's feet and she just stands there watching the fight! Hello, stupid...pick up the gun and shoot the crazed killer and sex pervert!! And since she doesn't have the guts, the ever faithful Flame crushes the guy's throat. But does that please the villagers? Nah...they just love to hold grudges--so it's up to Flame to murder another one. The probably rabid doggy then falls about 100-200 feet while killing the next one but he is fine--just a sprained paw!! He probably would have killed more, but a plane soon lands and the surviving white folks beat a hasty retreat along with their demented dog.
This is a profoundly silly film with bad acting, horrible script-writing (if there even was a script) and sloppy production values. However, it IS funny...unintentionally so, but it does at times make you laugh because the film is so incompetently made--hence instead of a 1, I score this one a 2.
