Serial Saturday: Haunted Harbor (1944)

It can be argued that very few if any genuine horror serials were done in the sound era. Supernatural elements were more prevalent during silent serials. But by the mid to late 1920s, serials were considered more for children and I suppose the serial makers, who were occasionally under fire for the violence in the genre, didn't want to attract any more attention to themselves by scaring the dickens out of children. As such, despite the great title, Haunted Harbor went for a straight sea and island adventure over horror.


Captain Jim Marsden (Kane Richmond) is in debt to a man named Vorhees, who is planning to take his ship. Seems Marsden's prior ship, The Dolphin, was lost at see with a million dollars in gold on board and Vorhees holds him responsible. When Marsden goes to confront Vorhees, he finds him murdered. The police arrest Marsden for the crime and are planning to hang him for it. His friends Yank (Clancy Cooper) and Tommy (Marshall Reed) break him out and escape with the help of a friend named Galbraith. All Galbraith wants in return is for them to investigate the bizarre happenings at Haunted Harbor. On the way to the island where Haunted Harbor is, Marsden and company rescue Patricia Harding (Kay Aldridge) and her father (Forrest Taylor).

Vorhees was really murdered by his partner Carter (Roy Barcroft), who is also responsible for the so-called hauntings. Carter was also behind the sinking of the Dolphin and is stealing the gold, melting it down for himself. He pretends to be Kane, operator of a mining post. To keep people away from the wreck, he's invented a sea monster to scare people off. If the legend of the sea monster doesn't do it, he gets henchmen Gregg (Kenne Duncan) and Snell (Bud Geary) to off them. For 15 chapters, Gregg and Snell do their best to get rid of Marsden, but he's more than a match for them. Marsden, meantime, is determined to find Carter and discover the mystery of Haunted Harbor.

Haunted Harbor was shot just before Republic's serials went into their slow and depressing decline. As such, it's one of their last truly great serials. It has one of the best casts of any Republic serial--indeed arguably of any serial period. Most serials have a weak link in the casting of the main parts, but not here. Richmond, who may be best remembered today for playing Lamont Cranston in three Shadow movies in the 1940s, had been the lead in what some considered the greatest serial ever, 1942's Spy Smasher. Richmond was a likeable hero in his serials, easily as good as the more famous Clayton Moore or Buster Crabbe. He ended up doing 7 serials in fact, from the infamous The Lost City to the fun but trippy Brick Bradford.

Kay Aldridge was Republic's first advertised Serial Queen and had played previously in Perils of Nyoka--which is probably the serial with the best cast ever--and Daredevils of the West. One of the nice things about Aldridge is that while she was frequently imperiled in her serials, she also held her own. She rescues Richmond or saves herself just as often as he saves her in this. Her successor Serial Queen, Linda Stirling, started off much the same way, but was quickly relegated to pure damsel in distress to pure pretty background scenery by the end of her run. For that reason, I always liked Aldridge's three serials better.

While this would be Barcroft's first starring role as a serial villain, he would go on to be THE serial villain for all time, only rivaled by Charles Middleton. As far as the henchmen are concerned, both Duncan and Geary had done and would go on to do this sort of thing in plenty of serials. They're backed up for about half the serial by another serial baddie vet, George J. Lewis. All four would manage to go on to threaten Stirling, too.

All this is directed by legendary serial director Spencer Gordon Bennett. Bennett directed serials from the 1920s right up to the bitter end in 1956. While not all of his serials can be called classics, his work for Republic bounded with energy. He very neatly stepped in when Republic's famed serial director William Witney joined the war effort in 1943. Haunted Harbor is Bennett firing on all cylinders.

The fights in the serial are typical of Bennett during this period, with whole sets being reduced to so much rubble in their wake. The store Richmond ostensibly works at in the serial gets trashed two or three times at least. On top of that, the cliffhangers are genuine classics. This is one of the last Republic serials to feature original cliffhangers every chapter, which makes it doubly exciting to watch. Two of the best are the hurricane in chapter one, threatening to bring a rock wall down on Aldridge's boat, and a particularly nasty one in chapter nine with Aldridge tied to a post with a huge air drill aimed right at her.

If there's a knock against the serial, it's the goofy looking sea monster, as seen above. The Lydecker Brothers, Republic's SFX wizards, were usually great at creating surprisingly realistic looking effects. But one can't look at the "sea serpent" and keep a straight face. It in no way looks real. More to the point, it does nothing but come up out of the water, making noise and blowing smoke out it's nostrils, and then goes back into the water. There's no actually moving parts. One is left wondering how gullible those island natives were to fall for something that looks like a bad parade float. One also wonders how Aldridge and Richmond kept from cracking up when they saw it.

Sadly, Haunted Harbor spelled the beginning of the end for Republic serials and for serials in general. This was the last Republic serial Richmond would do and the last serial for Aldridge. Within two years, William Witney would return to do one last serial before abandoning the form forever. Bennett would leave Republic in 1947 and go over to Columbia. And Republic serials would fall victim to the uninspired direction of Fred C. Brannon and such uninspired leads as Walter Reed and Harry Lauter. That said, Haunted Harbor remains my favorite serial for it's terrific cast and nonstop action.