The Last Chapter: Reflections on 30 Years of Watching Cliffhanger Serials

The serial that started it all for me

Back in December of 1988, I walked into a Movies Unlimited store, went over to the section marked serials and decided to rent one out called Nyoka and the Tigermen. I had heard about serials during the decade as a fan of the Indiana Jones movies, which I was told were modeled on the old cliffhangers. But I had never watched one. This particular serial was a jungle adventure, which was something I dug back in the day, so I figured why not? Over the course of the next 3 days, I watched all 15 chapters. It was, I had decided, a pleasant diversion and I finally got to see where the idea for my favorite movie series came from.

A month or so later I was in Movies Unlimited again and decided to check out another serial. I picked one called Mysterious Doctor Satan. Besides having a great title, it had a guy in a goofy mask on it's cover and an even goofier looking robot so I thought it might be fun. Oh, it was. When I picked a third serial a couple of months after that it was because it was considered one of the best of all time. That serial, Daredevils of the Red Circle, was the serial that hooked me on the format for good. By the summer of 1989 I was trying to write my own serial. That script, a 12 chapter affair called The Dark Avenger, has yet to be made by me. Next summer is 30 years since the commencement of that script, so maybe.

A little history lesson for the uninitiated.

The cliffhanger serial began as a format with a long lost serial called What Happened to Mary? in 1912.Some of the early silent serials, including arguably the most famous one of all The Perils of Pauline, didn't have cliffhangers but instead each episode was complete. But audiences enjoyed the peril part and producers quickly learned that the best way to bring them back was to leave your hero or heroine facing certain death. By the time the serials started to talk, there were over 400 silent serials made. Sadly, only a small handful survive to this day.

The first part talking serial was released in 1929 from Mascot Pictures. King of the Kongo starred Boris Karloff as it's villain and had two sound sequences per chapter. Recorded on a special disc that played in synchronization with the film, most of the sound discs are gone now, though you can find two scenes on YouTube with the sound intact. Universal was the only other hold over from the silent era to continue to make serials and they in fact released their first all talking serial in 1930, a not very good western called The Indians Are Coming. There were some fairly bad independent serials released in the early 1930s as well. Then Mascot became part of a merger to form Republic Pictures in 1936 and serial history was changed.

While the first four Republics are pretty rough around the edges--as a matter of fact I happen to hate their second serial Undersea Kingdom--they picked up the pace with their fifth serial, 1937's Dick Tracy. Director William Witney started later that year with The Painted Stallion and began to turn the serial into a true art form. Witney's style of filming fight scenes where one move was a single camera shot influenced many other directors over the years. You can even see the Witney style in the fight between OO7 and Red Grant in From Russia, With Love.

Columbia entered serial production in 1937 with Jungle Menace starring famous wild animal trainer Frank Buck. Why not? Republic's first serial was also a jungle serial with Buck's rival Clyde Beatty. Serials got better as the 30s wore on until some incredible stuff came along during the war years. All three major serial producing serials were at the top of their game in the early 1940s, even if some of the wartime serials may make the PC crowd cringe today with their depictions of Japanese agents. But that's a discussion for another time.

Still considered the greatest serial ever

The end of the Second World War saw budgets being slashed. Universal jumped ship in 1947. Republic and Columbia toughed it out into the 1950s but by then most of the really good serial actors had either retired, gotten too old, or died. Instead audiences were treated to stock footage laden chapters with actors who were hired more for their resemblance to a stuntman than any actual acting ability. TV had caught fire around this time, too, with youngsters able to watch shows like The Lone Ranger every week for free. And so between TV, the non-existent budgets, and a general refusal to evolve--no serials were ever made in color at a time that movies were moving more into color--the serial died a sad and depressing death. The last couple of years, it was as if nobody even tried anymore. Republic called it quits in 1955 with lousy mystery serial that forgot to have any suspects called King of the Carnival. Columbia, the last one in, was the last one out with an equally forgettable western called Blazing the Overland Trail. You can tell how bad this one is by the fact that even the villain sounds bored with it.

There were a few jabs after that. The most famous is a four chapter silent spoof known as Captain Celluloid Vs. the Film Pirates. The Return of the Copperhead was a 12 chapter serial allegedly shot in the 1970s but never released or edited, though a pretty unimpressive trailer exists. I entered the fray with a 12 chapter serial in 2001 that I called King of the Park Rangers. I wrote it over a few days in 1999, initially as a joke. Since there were quite a few Republics with the title King of the... where the lead male was named King, I said I was going to do the same, but make King a woman! 17 months of filming later, King of the Park Rangers was released. It still sells a few copies here and there all these years later, too! 2006 saw another spoof serial made, Monarch of the Moon. A second serial from the same company was announced but never made. I gave serials a second shot in 2008 with a mystery serial that I called The Dangers of Deborah. There was another low budget four chapter serial being made called Thirty Second Doom, but to the best of my knowledge, it was never completed.

Flash Gordon

When I started watching serials 30 years back, I had no idea what type of influence they would have on me. I certainly never planned to watch them all. But for a few silent serials, I have watched them all. Or at least all that exist. The good, the bad, and the what the hell did I just watch? I had read about them before watching them and foolishly allowed the opinions of others to influence my thoughts on the format early on. Indeed, to hear some writers and fans talk, there's only 66 good serials, those being the 66 that Republic released. Stuff and nonsense says I. Republic had plenty of stinkers and the other studios had plenty of good ones. Flash Gordon wasn't made by Republic. It was an Universal serial and remains one of the best serials ever made. Batman was made by Columbia in 1943 and it's one of the Caped Crusader's better screen efforts actually.

If I'm being honest, I think the company who made the best adaptations from other sources was probably Universal. The majority of their adaptions are pretty faithful to the source material, Buck Rogers notwithstanding. Then again, had they actually adapted the Buck Rogers strip as it was written, that serial would be banned right about now.

He's no Captain America, but she's better than Bucky!

Republic had a habit of taking the title and then making up whatever they wanted. For instance, their Captain America serial has absolutely nothing to do with Captain America. They changed the character from Army sad sack Steve Rogers and kid sidekick Bucky Barnes to fighting D.A. Grant Gardner and his secretary Gail Richards. Okay, Lorna Gray as Gail was an improvement over Bucky but it still has nothing to do with the strip. As for their Dick Tracy adaptions, well...I'm not convinced Chester Gould actually watched any of them since they tend to be Dick Tracy in name only. Serial fans often moan about Columbia's Superman serials, but at least in those serials, Superman is still Clark Kent and Lois Lane still works for the Daily Planet. Had Republic actually made their Superman serial in 1940, it's anyone's guess what we would have got. Yeah, it might have been good, but it probably wouldn't have really been Superman. Anyway, I like the two Columbia Superman serials even if the flying cartoon Superman is pretty silly. They're fun and that's all that should be required of any serial.

Ironically, the last of the sound serials I had to watch was one of the Republic Dick Tracy serials. The third in the series, Dick Tracy's G-Men, was an entertaining way to go out. Ralph Byrd was playing Tracy for the third time (you could tell when he was playing the character in the 1950s TV show he was sick of it) and he was always a good serial hero. There were a few of the serial regulars popping up in it and Jennifer Jones, at the start of her career, played the thankless role of Tracy's secretary Gwen. There was the usual amount of action and thrilling cliffhangers and William Witney and John English were directing at the top of their game. It seemed appropriate to go out on a Witney serial since he had directed Nyoka.

In between Nyoka and Dick Tracy's G-Men, there were many, many chapter viewings. For a time there was a message board called The Serial Squadron that I would go to and serial fans would gather on to discuss serials until the site owner decided he was more interested in selling serials than allowing discussion of them. There was even a yearly festival called SerialFest where fans would gather to watch serials on the big screen, discuss them, drink, and share a camaraderie. But SerialFest is dead and the Squadron is pretty much non-existent. Then again, a number of fans--some of whom I got to call friend--have died over the years. My best friend, who acted in both my serials, passed away in 2011 when we only had about 10 left to watch. It took me seven years, but I kept my promise to finish them.

And so, 30 years of watching serials has culminated in seeing the last of them. There's a little something bittersweet about the whole experience. 30 years, 219 serials, 2,913 chapters, and more hours than I want to consider. A lot of it was a good time. While it is true that some of it wasn't, I can't say that I regret watching them all. Perhaps one day the missing sound serials will resurface or someone who isn't me will make another serial. Should that day come, I'll be happy to watch. But until then, it was a fun ride while it lasted.

Serial Saturday: The Lost City (1935)

 I'm all for watching movies in the context of their times. I can watch something like the 1943 Batman serial and not lose my head when the narrator refers to "shifty-eyed Japs" since I'm aware that the serial was made a year or so after Pearl Harbor and we were at war with the Japanese. I'm perfectly willing to take the Looney Tunes cartoons at face value and am no more offended by Speedy Gonzales than I am Pepe Le Pew.Watching Peter Lorre or Warner Oland play Mr. Moto or Charlie Chan doesn't fill me with malignant hatred. After all, movies are not made in a vacuum. They are reflections of current events, trends, attitudes, and thoughts. But every so often, there comes along a movie so outrageous that even I can't reconcile it to anything other than pure out and out racial hatred. The Lost City, a 1935 serial from Sherman Krellberg, is one such unfortunate piece of celluloid history.

The Lost City opens with the coming apocalypse by bad weather. More specifically, stock footage of really bad storms ravaging the world opens the serial. Electrical Engineer Bruce Gordon (Kane Richmond) discovers that the source of the storms is in Darkest Africa, so he gathers four greedy scientist friends and one of the more annoying sidekicks in movie history (Eddie Fetherstone) and off they go. They eventually find The Lost City. Yes, that's the name of it. Not The Lost City of...just The Lost City. Even the denizens there call it that. The Lost City is ruled by power mad Zolok (William "Stage" Boyd), who wants to rule the world. Or destroy the world. Or do something. We're actually not quite sure what. Zolok is holding scientist Dr. Manyus and his daughter hostage. Manyus (Josef Swickard) looks to be about 108, so naturally daughter Natcha (Claudia Dell) is 20-something. Because of course she is. Creepy old scientists in serials always had 20-something daughters.

Manyus has a machine that turns short black men who scream like little girls into giant muscle bound black men who hoot and grunt. I'm sorry to say that I'm not making that up. These black giants will figure into Zolok's plan for the world, whenever he figures out exactly what that is. Manyus, for his part, protests this evil doing since his machine is meant for the good of mankind. How a machine that turns short black men that scream like little girls into giant black man who grunt is for the good of mankind, I don't know. You will find there are many things in this serial I can't explain.

The heroes escape with Manyus and his daughter around chapter 3. The serial then goes into an absolute exercise in pointlessness. The greedy friends who you thought might figure into something are all dead by chapter four, having done absolutely nothing to advance the story in the slightest. Our heroes wander aimlessly around the jungle (which looks more like the park around the corner from me than an actual jungle, but whatever). They meet various people who want to use Manyus' machine for their own purposes: an arab named Ben Ali (who doesn't even have the short black guys to start with) and an alarmingly flat chested Queen Rama who wears an outfit obviously designed for someone with a sexier build. Point in fact, all the men in the serial have larger chests than the women and all the women wear outfits designed for people with better builds.

For you prudish people who think the above comment was out of line, trust me. By the time you get to Queen Rama in this thing, you too will be thinking these thoughts.

Zolok sends particularly incompetent henchman Appolyn (Jerry Frank) after our heroes. Also chasing them are weird little Gorzo (Billy Bletcher) and huge, indestructible grunting black henchman Hugo (Sam Baker).

It all comes to a bizarre end where our heroes are recaptured, returned to the Lost City, escape again, and Zolok stumbles around drunkenly for ten minutes before blowing himself up.

A little over ten years ago, The Lost City was the center of an internet controversy. A so-called magazine writer, wanting to cash in on the upcoming movie version of The Producers, wanted to do an article linking producer Sherman Krellberg and the fictional Max Bialystock. This writer posted his proposed idea on a movie serial message board, which led to a huge fight with the owner of said board. Said owner not only ranted about the evils of The Lost City, he basically declared any conversation about the serial verboten unless it was in agreement with his stance. Following that, a number of serial fans, probably just to be contrary, decided that The Lost City not only wasn't racist, it was a great serial! Now, while this particular board owner is wrong about a great many things, even I have to say he wasn't 100% wrong about The Lost City.

For one thing, it is racist. Outrageously racist. You may be tempted to dismiss it as a product of it's time and say that the natives aren't any different than what you would find in your standard Tarzan movie of the time. But that's a fallacy. If there's one scene in the entire 12 chapters that hammers home the racial attitude of the serial, it comes up in chapter 8. Our heroes come across a tribe of Spider People. One of the Spider People approaches Manyus to "cure him of his blackness". God help me, Manyus has a serum that is able to turn black people into white people. After Manyus does this--I mean actually turning a black person into a white person--he is heartily congratulated by the hero! It is a scene that when it was over I actually said out loud "I did not just see that". Oh, but I had!

Even if you squeeze your eyes shut, cover your ears, and go "La la la--I don't see no racism here!", the serial is still awful. The above mentioned scene goes on for what feels like forever. The pacing in the entire serial is awful. The pacing can best be described as lethargy meets apathy with a cure for insomnia tossed in. Nothing--and I mean nothing--of consequence happens in this serial. You can literally remove chapters 3-11 and not miss a beat. Then again, you can also remove chapters 1, 2, and 12 at the same time and not miss a beat. One chapter starts with the entire last half of the previous chapter! Then there's the dialogue. Somebody actually got paid to write "That sounds like a white woman's scream!"

Come to it, the only thing worse than the dialogue and pace is the acting. Kane Richmond is usually pretty good in these things, but even he looks like he bored with the whole affair. Everyone else is that much worse. The scene where Kane proposes to the heroine at the end? Her immortal response is "Why--umm--yes, Bruce".

Some of you may have gotten the crazy idea that this might be fun to watch after all--a so bad it's good affair. No, just no. If you try, you'll wonder why you spent four hours of your life watching this instead of doing something more fun like doing laundry or clipping your toenails. It's a rotten, hateful serial that's just plain bad all around. It isn't fun, it isn't funny, it isn't even remotely entertaining. Is it the absolute worst serial ever? Maybe not. There are a couple that are more boring and lacking the "what the hell was that?" moments that this one does on occassion manage. Problem is, it isn't worth suffering the whole thing for those few moments.

Serial Saturday: Captain America (1944)

For those of you who aren't yet sick of reading about Captain America, here's one more review for you. If you are sick of reading about Captain America, that's okay, too. This is the last one of his movies I'll be reviewing for quite a while. It also happens to be his first screen appearance.

"That's what you get for saying I'm not Captain America!"

If you are intimately familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe Captain America movies and manage to seek out this 15 chapter Republic serial, you may be a little confused watching it. In this version, Captain America is two-fisted District Attorney Grant Gardner, out to stop the evil machinations of The Scarab, who has no connection to Adolf Hitler but is a scientist out for revenge against the members of an expedition that cheated him out of millions. Gardner's assisted by his secretary Gail Richards. He also has no shield or super powers but he does have a gun. He also doesn't really look like Captain America. He has a sweater with a star on it that he wears under his suit (either the city is really cold or he sweats something fierce) and a hood with an A on it. He also wears sensible shoes instead of boots. In short, there's no Army, no Bucky, no Super Soldier formula, and no Nazis.

You may have read the above and thought "wait! What?". I get that. There seems to be two theories as to why the serial is that way. One is that it was planned for a different character, quite possibly Fawcett's Mr. Scarlet. When that comic was cancelled, Republic just rewrote the serial and substituted Captain America. The proof of this some say is a chapter called The Scarlet Clue which has nothing Scarlet in it.

The other, just as likely theory, is that Republic read the sample pages provided to them by Timely Comics (Marvel before they were called Marvel) and decided to do their own thing anyway. There's plenty of precedent for this as just about all of Republic's adaptations pretty well ignored the source material, going right back to Dick Tracy in 1937. The four Dick Tracy serials may be good but they have as much to do with Dick Tracy as I do.

Just another Tuesday in this serial

That said, the question remains of whether or not this is any good. It is, all things considered. Dick Purcell plays the title character and while he's no Buster Crabbe, he's no Myron Healey either. He's acceptable if unexceptional, a decent middle of the road serial hero who fares slightly better than most of the stiffs Republic hired after. As his gal Friday Richards, Lorna Gray is an admitted step up from the ten year old Bucky of the comics. At the least, she's easier on the eyes even if she doesn't get to do much beyond getting captured and tied up.

Sidebar: why did so many superheroes in that era have 10 year old sidekicks? In particular Cap, taking a child into an active war zone seems wildly reckless. I get that it was a different time and the publishers wanted to appeal to children, in particular in the wake of the popularity of Robin the Boy Wonder but still...

Back to the serial.

No snide comment: just a great villain

On the malcontent side, we have screen veteran Lionel Atwill as Dr. Maldor aka The Scarab. Atwill terrorized Fay Wray onscreen and played opposite Erol Flynn in the 1930s but found himself relegated to serials and B movies towards the end of his career. But like fellow villain Bela Lugosi, Atwill was professional enough to give it his best and is just menacing enough to be fun. Serial regulars George J. Lewis and Jon Davidson are his henchmen. They were always worth watching in these things and this is no exception.

A few other character actors pop up during the course of the serial. Serial regulars like Kenne Duncan, Tom London, LeRoy Mason, and Stanley Price do their customary one chapter and done appearances. John Hamilton, Perry White on the George Reeves Superman TV show, is one of Maldor's victims. Also on Maldor's hit list was Hugh Sothern from the serial The Fighting Devil Dogs. But the best supporting part belongs to Edward Van Sloan, best remembered today as Van Helsing in the 1931 Dracula. Here he's a scientist demonstrating a thermodynamic vibration machine or the Dynamic Vibrator for short. This leads to what may be the greatest line in serial history when Gail says "Mr. Merit and Mr. Norton are here to witness your demonstration of the vibrator."

For you prudish people thinking "it's a shame he felt the need to write that", let this be a lesson to you. This is what happens when you apply present-mindedness to 1940s serials. On the other hand, some of you are gonna howl when you think about that line.

"Dr. Scarab I presume?"

In fairness, the Dynamic Vibrator wasn't the only machine in the serial. The serial also gives us such devices as an Electronic Firebolt, a gas that can make someone look like a 3,000 year old mummy, and a device that can--and is--used to raise a dead man. That the dead man turns out to be the head henchman is unfortunate for the heroes, but not for us.

Captain America was Republic's most expensive serial. It came out the same year as Haunted Harbor, Zorro's Black Whip, and The Tiger Woman. As such, it was one of the last of the all original cliffhangers serials. That alone, as well as being technically the first Marvel adaptation. It's also the only Captain America worth watching until the recent trilogy with Chris Evans. It's directed with typical gusto by William Witney's old serial directing partner, John English. English had proven he could do serials on his own quite nicely the year before with Daredevils of the West. This time he gets a bit of an assist from Elmer Clifton, who in the 1930s had directed what is arguably the best of the 3 Stage and Screen Serials released by the Weiss Brothers. That, by the way, says nothing considering the other two were The Clutching Hand and The Black Coin.

"Nope. No War here"

It does seem strange to see a serial about Captain America released in 1944 and not see him doing what he was known for at the time: punching Nazis. Then again, Republic seemed to have decided to stop fighting the war in 1943 as none of their serials from 44 or 45 even make mention of World War II. Columbia and Universal, on the other hand, fought the war right up to the bitter end.

Other bloggers have commented that they are surprised serial fans actually like this. I'm not. Most serial fans, especially the ones who rabidly attest that only Republic made good ones, are willing to take most of these things as they get them. They especially recognize that it does little good to rage against Republic for their lack of fidelity to the comics since that was just what the company did. Maybe in another universe or dimension Republic put out faithful adaptations of comic books with Dick Tracy as a cop battling Big Boy Caprice and rescuing Tess Trueheart and Captain America and a 10 year old Bucky punching Adolf Hitler in the face. But not in our universe. We can choose to accept it or give ourselves coronaries at what we're watching.

I choose to accept it. This is an entertaining serial even if it doesn't have anything to do with Captain America. If you can get past that lack of fidelity, you too may find yourselves enjoying it. Lorna Gray and the villains make it worth spending a rainy Saturday afternoon watching it. There are better adaptations of these characters after all. If I want to watch the real Captain America, I'll slip in one of the MCU movies. But if I want to spend a few hours with fun and familiar character actors, henchmen coming back from the dead, and Dynamic Vibrators, I'll pop this one in.

Serial Saturday: The Invisible Monster (1950)

The Invisible Monster is Olive Films' first Republic serial release on Blu Ray and it looks absolutely spectacular. Unfortunately, it's still The Invisible Monster and that's not really a good thing.


I get why Olive chose to lead off with The Invisible Monster. It's goofy 50s sci-fi with an exploitation title. However, there are plenty of Repulbic serials with exploitation type titles, some of them quite good such as Haunted Harbor. And while it is true that there are worse serials than The Invisible Monster--it never reaches the depressing depths of Man with the Steel Whip or Panther Girl of the Kongo--it's not an especially good serial either.

The serial concerns the machinations of a mad scientist who refers to himself as The Phantom Ruler (not The Invisible Monster, it should be noted). He brings several illegal aliens into the country--a timely theme I suppose--and threatens them with arrest and deportation if they refuse to help him in his criminal enterprises. He's attempting to raise funds for an invisible army with which he plans to conquer the world.

"You clean the office while I raid the hideout, OK?"

Opposing him is Insurance Investigator Lane Carson (Richard Webb, TV's Captain Midnight) and his gal Friday Carol (Aline Towne). Well, Carol is sort of Lane's gal Friday. Despite proving her competency again and again, he tends to tell her in so may words not to come along because it's man's work. I do tend to place movies into the context of their time frame, but the casual sexism exhibited is a bit of a bother since it was just a few years earlier that Republic gave the heroines backbone and skill. Six years prior to The Invisible Monster, Linda Stirling was kicking ass as the titular lead of Zorro's Black Whip and Kay Alrdidge was saving Kane Richmond as often as he saved her in Haunted Harbor. However, by the 1950s, Republic's view of it's leading ladies was as bad as it was in 1936 and that's a shame.


Anyhow, back to the serial.


The Phantom Ruler wears special robes treated with a particular chemical which, when exposed to a particular spotlight, allow him to become invisible. Digest that bit of information for a moment. A spotlight is necessary for the invisibility and he wants to outfit an army to conquer the world like that. Yeah, that's not gonna work. Small wonder he eventually downgrades from conquering the world to conquering the community. God help us, not even the entire city--the community. One tends to get the feeling that had the serial gone much past 12 chapters, he would have downgraded to conquering a broom closet.

Some of you may have read the above paragraph and decided that this thing is too daffy to pass up. While it definitely has it's moments, such as the Phantom growling at one of his henchmen to move the spotlight slowly so he can stay in it or his delusional belieft that he only needs $200,000 (the only sucessful heist he has in all 12 chapters) to fund his worldwide army, it becomes too paint by numbers after a while. Republic serials followed a fairly strict formula and as such they lived and died by their cast. The Invisible Monster is no exception.

The whole community will be wearing them

Webb and Towne are okay as their heroes, but they're both pretty bland. Webb is certainly no Clayton Moore and Towne is no Linda Stirling. There's no particualr spark to their characters except for one amusing scene in chapter one where Webb is attempting to dismiss the idea of receiving help from a woman and Towne is nonchalantly pointing out all the detective work she already did that he didn't get to yet. By this point, Republic was picking their leads based more on their resemblance to stuntman than on acting ability, so we're lucky we got these two. At least Webb sort of tries, unlike later heroes like Myron Healey. The henchman, played by Lane Bradford and John Crawford, fair a little better, but even they aren't up to the standards of mean set by such forties henchmen as George J. Lewis and Anthony Warde. As for the Phantom Ruler himself, well, he's the serial's single biggest liability.


The Phantom Ruler is played by Stanley Price, today best remembered as the frizzy haired henchman to Phil Van Zandt in the 3 Stooges short Dopey Dicks. Stanley Price made for a pretty good henchman, not only in that short but in numerous serials. He was short, frizzy haired, and fairly creepy/bug-eyed. However, like Anthony Warde and George J. Lewis before him*, he mighta been a good henchman but he was a rotten head villain. He has no sense of menace except for when he's threatening the illegal aliens he's brought in. It doesn't help that he looks like a bug-eyed psycho like usual but is trying to play a suave villain. The part really called out for a Charles Middleton or Roy Barcroft, but by 1950 Middleton was dead and Barcroft wasn't doing many serials. Add to that the absurdity of the villain's entire scheme--which in the later chapters even he seems to recognize might not have been as well thought out as he would have liked--and yeah, this comes off as a let down.

 Clayton Moore could drive and shoot at the same time

The action is directed by Fred C. Brannon in his typical fashion. The fights are almost all done from long shot and lack the inventiveness of one of the fights William Witney or Spencer Gordon Bennett directed. It's mostly people punching each other and occasionally breaking a chair or table. I suppose Brannon was efficient enough for the Republic bosses to keep him directing the serials and most of his are at least a little better than the few that followed in the wake of his death but that's like saying Plan Nine From Outer Space is better than The Sinister Urge. Yes, that's true, but what does it really say?


All that said, if you're a serial fan you absolutely should get this Blu Ray, even if only because it's a serial on Blu Ray and that's something in pretty short supply. It looks fantastic and hopefully Olive Films decides to continue to release serials on Blu Ray. And yes, if you like goofy sci-fi from the 50s, you could find worse ways to spend a couple of hours than this. There is a workmanlike professionalism to the enterprise and still some semblance of energy. The chapters are short enough (13 minutes) to be digestable in small doses and get from point A to point B with economy. There's only a couple of times that the stock footage (which is most of the chapter endings) sticks out and that's what happens when you're using stock footage from the 1930s in the 1950s. At the end of the day, The Invisible Monster is a passable if unmemorable serial.


*Anthony Warde took his turn as the head villain of Buck Rogers, Killer Kane. It is universally agreed that he is the biggest knock against that serial. George J. Lewis did it all--hero (The Wolf Dog, Zorro's Black Whip), sidekick (Radar Patrol Vs. Spy King), henchman in too many serials to name, but his two turns as the head bad guy--Federal Operator 99 and Cody of the Pony Express--leave a lot to be desired.

Serial Saturday: The Crimson Ghost (1946)

1946 was a turning point in the history of motion picture serials. It marked the last year of serial production for Universal studios. It also really helped mark the beginning of the end for Republic serials. Republic whiz kid director William Witney, freshly returned from World War II, would make The Crimson Ghost the last serial he directed. It would also mark the last true masked mystery villain in a Republic serial. Every mystery villain from here on out would either be a character talked about but not seen until their unmasking or a voice barking out commands.

The serial itself is your standard-issue mystery man serial. Professor Chambers (Kenne Duncan in his last serial appearance) has created an anti-atomic bomb device called The Cyclotrode, which can not only stop nuclear missiles, it can cripple transportation and communications. He demonstrates a prototype of the machine to his colleagues at the university, unaware that one of them is secretly a madman wearing a skull mask and crimson robes calling himself The Crimson Ghost. The Ghost wants to get hold of the Cyclotrode for his own nefarious plans, including selling the device to a foreign power. Opposing him is two-fisted criminologist Duncan Richards (Charles Quigley) and Chambers's secretary Diana Farnsworth (Linda Stirling). The duo go up against the villain and head henchman Ashe throughout the 12 chapter chase, being threatened with death by explosions, poison gas, deadly slave collars, death rays, and cars going over cliffs. In other words, the standard stuff.

This was Quigley's last appearance as a serial hero. He is best remembered for this serial and 1939's Daredevils of the Red Circle, where he was the de facto leader of the trio trying to track down villain Charles Middleton. After this, Quigley would appear in a few more serials for Columbia, always in villainous roles whether as the head villain or a henchman. He actually makes for a pretty good hero, not quite up to the standards of Kane Richmond maybe, but good. He's aided immensely but some great one-liners in the script. Point in fact, The Crimson Ghost may have the snappiest dialogue of any serial ever.

At SerialFest 2001, I put forward the theory that there were three types of serial heroine: Serial Queen, who could basically hold her own against all comers. The Damsel in Distress, whose sole purpose seemed to be to be put into peril. Finally, there was what I called Pretty Background Scenery, a heroine who basically sat around in the office or the hero's house and took very little part in the proceedings, letting the men fight it out amongst themselves. Republic's second advertised Serial Queen, Stirling got to be all three during the course of her six serials. She was a full fledged Serial Queen in The Tiger Woman and Zorro's Black Whip fulling kicking people in the teeth, put into constant peril and in need of constant rescue in The Purple Monster Strikes and Manhunt of Mystery Island, and beautiful but with little to actually do in this one and Jesse James Rides Again. It's a pity, because her first two serials demonstrated what she could do. She still gives as good a performance as anyone saddled with such a thankless role could, but one is left wanting more from someone advertised as The Serial Queen.

Clayton Moore, like director Witney, had also just returned from World War II. This was his first serial since 1942's Perils of Nyoka (starring Republic's first advertised Serial Queen Kay Aldridge). In that one, he was the hero and most people know him today as TV's The Lone Ranger, so it's a bit of a pleasant surprise to see him as a bad guy. He played the henchman role again in 1952's Radar Men From the Moon, but he's much better here. Also, footage of him from this one shows up in 1950's Flying Disc Man From Mars. Moore was one of the top five serial leading men and one of the few to do as well both as hero and villain. Moore's next serial, which also had Linda Stirling in it, returned him to the hero role in Jesse James Rides Again.

As for The Crimson Ghost himself, he was voiced by character actor I. Stanford Jolley. Jolley popped up in a bunch of late era serials and, while not the most imposing looking villain, he still had a great oily presence. His voice work as the title character is top notch.

The main problem with the serial is the same problem that most of these mystery villain serials had: the suspects. None of them particularly make any sort of impression. The four actors fill their necessary spots as the bland fellow, the suspicious acting fellow, the helpful fellow, and the grouchy fellow, but that's it. Republic's best guessing game remains The Adventures of Captain Marvel, which really showed audiences how the game could be played. As it is, we wait for the Scooby Doo ending of The Crimson Ghost knowing that the identity of the character is going to be as random as usual.

That said, this is probably Republic's last truly great serial. Witney, who had revolutionized the way serials were filmed with the choreography of the fights in the 1930s, dropped out of the genre after this. He apparently saw the writing on the wall and went on to direct Roy Rogers features. Other serial supreme director Spencer Gordon Bennett would leave Republic the following year, finishing the genre off at Columbia. Republic's legacy would be left in the hands of such lethargic directors as Fred Brannon and Franklin Adreon.

But with it's memorable looking villain, witty dialogue, and inventive fights, this is a fitting finale for it's director. It also gained it's own legacy, with punk rock band The Misfits co-opting the villain's visage for their mascot. It also became one of only two Republic serials colorized in 1990. The colorization looked decent for the time, though the serial itself makes enough use of light and shadow that it should only be viewed in black and white. Olive films is releasing the serials The Invisible Monster and (ironically enough) Flying Disc Man From Mars on Blu Ray later this year. They should also seriously considering The Crimson Ghost as well.

Serial Saturday: SECRET AGENT X-9 (1945)

If you say the name Lloyd Bridges to most people today, they instantly think of the guy who said "looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue" in 1980's Airplane!. But 35 years before that movie redefined his carreer, Bridges headlined this WWII serial as the title character.

Secret Agent X-9 was based on a comic strip created by mystery writer Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon) and comic strip artist Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon). It was the last serial Universal based off a comic strip and one of their last serials. It was also the second such serial Universal did based on the strip. It's quite different from it's predecessor, but also as good as it.

Japanese agents discover that formula 722, when mixed with distilled water, becomes a perfect substitute for aviation gasoline. The problem is, the secret to the formula is in America, in the papers of a scientist who was trying to develop it for use as an explosive. The Japanese and Nazi agents determine to steal the formula from America, using a supposedly neutral island known as Shadow Island as their base of operations. Shadow Island is run by Lucky Kamber (Cy Kendall), a self-serving profiteer who collects a protection tax from fugitives on the island. When an American agent is murdered on Shadow Island, Secret Agent X-9 (Bridges) shows up to route out the Axis agents and put a stop to their mad plan. X-9 is aided by a Chinese agent named Ah Fong (Keye Luke) and a beautiful Australian agent (Jan Wiley) posing as a Quisling.

B-Movie and serial fans will find a lot of amusement in seeing who shows up in this. Samuel S Hinds, better remembered today for the Bela Lugosi version of The Raven, plays the mysterious Solo, who sits at the bar Kamber owns playing tiddlywinks constantly, except for when he shoots one would-be killer and draws a gun on another. Of course, as soon as the excitement is over, he goes back to playing tiddlywinks. The serial also has two of Charlie Chan's sons in it, though on opposite sides of the law. As mentioned, Keye Luke (No.1 Son) is Bridge's sidekick. No 3 Son, Benson Fong, plays Japanese scientist Dr. Hakihima. Serial regular Eddie Cobb gets big billing on the poster, but only shows up in a couple of scenes as a bartender. Another frequent serial baddie, I. Stanford Jolley (best remembered as the voice of The Crimson Ghost), plays a short-lived thug.  Other frequent serials players in the serial include John Merton and Stanley Price, who gets the funniest death scene in the serial.

Victoria Horne plays the lead Japanese agent. Naruba. She does this by basically looking like a somnambulist, with her eyes mostly shut and her arms folded and in her dress sleeves for most of the serial. Politically correct-minded people will howl at this portrayal as racist, as well as Bridges referring to the enemy as "Japs" and "Nips" in the serial. But I think a little historical context is in order when watching this, or almost any WWII serial for that matter. The film was released in 1945 and we were still at war with Japan, which meant that they were the enemy. This was also just over three years after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Now, I know that it's not fashionable to demonize your enemies anymore, but back then it was. More to the point, it was a release valve for audiences. Secret Agent X-9 and its ilk were meant to be patriotic flag waving films, much the same as Top Gun and Red Dawn were in the 1980s. The worst thing we can do to a serial like this is try to apply our present-minded thinking to it. X-9 had a time and a place and, in some respects, represents a snapshot of America at that time. It's propaganda people, something that still goes on today, just a little differently than back then.

I'm not necessarily excusing the portrayal, I'm just savvy enough to understand where it was coming from and so not get so worked up about it. Besides, there are far worse portrayals of Japanese agents in other serials like 1943's Batman and the Popeye cartoon You're A Sap Mr. Jap. Let's not even bring Bugs Bunny Nips The Nips into this, either.

As for Bridges, he makes a fine serial hero. It's actually a shame this is his only serial since he does so good in it. This serial was done when Bridges was apparently cutting his teeth in acting, doing a lot of B-Westerns. It gives a glimpse of the actor to come, and only 6 years after this would he be playing Gary Cooper's deputy in the classic High Noon. Jan Wiley's Lynn Moore (great last name) gets to stand around and look pretty most of the time, leaving the heavy lifting to Bridges and Luke, but she does well with the sneakier aspects of her character. Three Stooges (and serial) buffs will also recognize Gene Roth as an incompetent Nazi henchman.


Every serial producing studio took a different tact when it came to the form. Republic favored constant action and set destroying fistfights, sometimes to their detriment. Columbia relied on silly, over the top humor. Universal took a more plot oriented approach, however, with a lot of dialogue. Some serials this worked for while others it just slowed down to a crawl. Fortunately, in Secret Agent X-9, it works. All the spy vs. spy and double dealing routines help keep the serial moving. One is never completely sure who's on whose side in this and that's a large part of the fun.

This is Universal's last truly great serial as the last few that squeaked out after it weren't quite up to par. But it's a fun and entertaining early glimpse at an actor that most would later know for comedy, back when he was a straight leading man. For that alone, it's worth watching.

Serial Saturday: Perils of the Wildernesss (1956)

In 1946, Universal Studios abandoned making cliffhanger serials with a production called The Mysterious Mr. M. The official word was that they were trying to upgrade their image, but it seems just as likely that they realized that the format couldn't go on for much longer. Indeed, shrinking budgets, competition from television and a total refusal to evolve seemed to doom serials and within 10 years, the last serials were released. Republic Studios, the studio that put out the most popular if not the best serials of the sound era, jumped ship in 1955 with the ultra-lackluster King of the Carnival. This left Columbia Pictures, the last of the big three of the sound era, releasing serials and they finally ended in 1956.

Perils of the Wilderness is the next to last of the Columbia serials and it's a complete mess. While it's true that all four of Columbia's final four serials show an appalling lack of effort on the part of the studio, this one may well be the most lackluster of the four. That took some doing on the studio's part, too, considering the existence of The Adventures of Captain Africa.

The serial's first major problem is that there is no discernible storyline to it. The villain (frequent 3 Stooges baddie Kenneth MacDonald) is riling up the local Indians, but we're never actually sure why. It may be because he's smuggling something, but what that something is we're not told. It may be because he wants to stop the railroad, but that's not clear, either. About the only thing we know for certain is that he appears to be a fugitive hiding out in Canada and being hunted by a U.S. Marshal. A Marshal that happens to be way out of his jurisdiction, but that's beside the point. The Marshal is sort of working with the Mounties, but not entirely. The Marshal, for his part, keeps trying to be undercover and joining the gang, but then he openly fights them, so his plans to join them don't work out.

To make matters even more confusing, we have no idea when exactly this is all supposed to be taking place. In one scene we see people flying hydroplanes, an invention of which not only are the Mounties aware of, they have a couple of their own. But then in the next scene, the Indians are attacking covered wagons taking supplies to the railroad camp. Wait, what?!

If all of that isn't convincing enough, then consider the fact that most of every chapter is stock footage from earlier serials, most notably Perils of the Royal Mounted.  How much stock footage is there? Well, let me put it this way: know those 3 Stooges shorts made with Shemp after his death? The ones that have 3 or 4 new shots per short and the rest of the short is stock? That's a pretty close description. Mind you, that can describe most new serials released in the 1950s, but at least most of them almost made sense. Even The Adventures of Captain Africa, bad as it was, almost made a modicum amount of sense. This one, the footage is so haphazard, one just keeps watching hoping to figure it all out in the end. It's like watching an Ed Wood movie without the loony fun. Pretty sad.

Actually, I find the whole end of the serial era to be fairly depressing. Never mind the sheer amount of stock footage cobbled together whether or not it makes any sense. Nobody puts any effort into any of these. The actors look either bored or like they'd really rather be anywhere else but here. Even the ones like this that managed to get a couple of veteran characters actors couldn't muster anything approaching entertainment value. It's not that Kenneth MacDonald or Dennis Moore (this serial's hero) could give Cary Grant a run for the money in the acting department. But these guys were dependable character actors who, in days past, gave the audience their money's worth. They showed enthusiasm and were fun to watch. Neither actor is even remotely fun to watch in this. I'd say they were going through the motions, but they don't even do that.  The only thing that keeps Perils of the Wilderness from being the worst serial ever made is the existence of couple of Independent serials from the 1930s that somehow manage to be even worse. Now that's a scary thought.