Daredevils of the Red Circle (1939)

A certain Harry Crowel (Charles “Future Emperor Ming” Middleton doing some fine mugging), now preferring to be called after his prison number 39013, has escaped from prison. He’s out for revenge on his former (legal) business partner Granville (Miles Mander) whom he makes responsible for his prison stint.

39013 is quite the evil master mind, so soon Granville’s various business holdings are exploding left and right. One of these attacks kills the little brother of circus performer Gene Townley (Charles Quigley). Together with his performing buddies Tiny Dawson (Bruce Bennett) and Bert Knowles (David Sharpe), and their rather handy dog Tuffie, Gene hires on as a very special security detail for Granville, in the hopes of laying hands on 39013 this way.

Little do they expect that Granville isn’t Granville anymore but 39013 who keeps the real Granville locked up in a hidden cell in his house for regular gloating sessions. Consequently, the daredevils’ missions to thwart 39013 tend to be rather more dangerous than they should be. Fortunately, they’re serial heroes. Additionally, a mysterious shadowy figure our daredevils imaginatively come to call the Red Circle leaves them helpful – yet not too helpful – warning messages under their own red circle symbol.

In general, serials do have a worse reputation now than they actually deserve, and I think much of the blame for it lies in later generations like mine watching the poor things in inappropriate ways. They were, after all, made to be seen in weekly instalments, and neither to be binged on like a TV show made in the 2010s – which makes their repetitive nature annoying – nor to be watched in the often horrible film versions that try to stitch a serial into a narrative that makes sense as a movie – which doesn’t work because the source material was usually just not written that way.

When watched properly (or if you’re like me once a day), perhaps as an appetizer before each film in your own private Bergman retrospective, it becomes far easier to appreciate the serials’ actual strengths, as well as their weaknesses. The latter mostly lie in cardboard characters, sometimes illogical plotting, again repetitiveness, and sometimes pretty horrid racism (in Daredevils represented by the fortunately not very frequent horrifying “comedy” stylings of Fred “Snowflake” Toones, and the horrifying way the rest of the cast treats him, which is to say, worse than the dog). The first three things aren’t much of a problem if you’re watching the episodes with the fact in mind that what you’re seeing was meant to provide a jolt of excitement before the evening’s cinematic main event; the last one is inexcusable, but for me at least (and in this case) easily shrugged of by seeing it as a sign of its times and the people the serials were made for. Everyone’s mileage will of course vary at that point.

What’s good about serials, and the Republic serials of directors John English and William Witney (with English shooting the talky stuff and interiors, and Witney the outside scenes and the action), of which Daredevils is supposed to be one of the best, is the sheer excitement and pacing of the action sequences, with some really imaginative stunts, and as many explosions and destroyed buildings as the budgets could come up with or the directors could special effects magic in. It’s all pleasantly breathless, sometimes uncomfortably dangerous looking, shot with surprising care if you keep the shooting schedules and budgets for these things in mind, and directed with a lot of visual imagination. You can, in fact, watch this and see how Witney (co-)invents not a little of the visual language of action filmmaking; much of it is still used today.

While the acting of our three heroes is at best serviceable, they do have the right sort of physicality for the action, and given that Daredevils expresses all that’s important to it, and all that’s good about it, through its physicality, that’s exactly what the serial needs.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,serial,reviews,action,pulp,john english,william witney,charles quigley,bruce bennett,david sharpe,carole landis,miles mander,charles middleton

In short: Chandu On The Magic Island (1935)

Not much has changed since The Return of Chandu. The Lemurian cult of Ubasti still wants to abduct Princess Nadji (Maria Alba) to use either her body or her soul (the film isn't so sure about which) to revive their old high priestess, which will somehow also let Lemuria rule the world again, while very white mystic Chandu (Bela Lugosi) protects her - at least he says that he does.

Of course, being Chandu, he starts the film off with going away for unexplained reasons, leaving Nadji in the care of his annoying relatives, obviously leading to a near instant kidnapping. This time around, though, Chandu's rescuing work will be quite a bit more difficult, for the cultists at once have teleported Nadji to Lemuria itself. If they'd only used this trick before.

Our hero has only seven days to reach Lemuria, where he will witness even more abductions, kidnappings and re-abductions, all the while hindered in his heroic work by the "Black Curtain of Ubasti" that shrouds the island and (sometimes, sometimes not) nullifies Chandu's magical power of the Yogi phone. What luck that the bad guys are even more incompetent than he is!

Chandu On The Magic Island is a re-cut film version of the same serial The Return of Chandu was based on, and everything I said about that film still applies. The only thing that's different is that the editing and reassembling seems a little less slapdash here and that the whole kidnapping business reaches even more ridiculous heights, letting Chandu not look all that heroic anymore.

Still, it's good enough fun.

 

Technorati-Tags: american movies,adventure,serial,pulp,in short,bela lugosi

The Return of Chandu (1934)

Frank Chandler (Bela Lugosi), master of the mystical arts of "The Orient", and therefore also known as Chandu the Magician, brings his friend, the Egyptian princess Nadji (Maria Alba) into the supposed safety of his Los Angeles home.

Poor Nadji is quite the popular girl, you understand. Especially the Lemurian cult of Ubasti is very interested in acquiring Nadji's body as the vessel to carry the soul of an ancient high priestess of their goddess. This kind of soul transfer is only possible into the bodies of members of the Egyptian royal family, and Nadji, being the last of her line, is the last hope the cultists have to get their high priestess reincarnated. Why they didn't try their luck a few centuries earlier is anybody's guess.

The traveling time between Lemuria and California will certainly not be enough to hinder their plans, and soon Chandu and the cultists are playing a merry game of kidnap/rescue the princess. It is quite possible that Chandu is not the most competent of heroes, what with his permanently letting his charge alone or in the care of his nephew Bob (Dean Benton). The latter amounts to a fate worse than death - being in the same room as Bob, at least until he runs off to do who knows what and leaves Nadji to be kidnapped again.

Chandu, you have changed! While the first Chandu film featured the less than fascinating Edmund Lowe in the title role and (house favorite) Bela Lugosi as his nemesis, the excellently named Roxor, this sequel promotes dear Bela into the unusual role of the hero, an opportunity the great man seems to have relished.

As was so often the case in Lugosi's career, he is also the only one on set who does any acting at all, unless one wants to call Maria Alba's excellent work at cowering in fear and being unconscious acting.

Compared to the first Chandu film, Return of Chandu is a much impoverished outing, with sometimes sloppily arranged, cheap looking sets, the already mentioned non-acting, not too many stunts and an effects budget that doesn't allow for much more in the way of magic than a little invisibility (no moving objects here, obviously), Bela's patented hypnotic gaze and the Yogi phone - Bela calling his mystical master WITH THE POWER OF HIS MIND to get great advice like "keep the faith" combined with a little magical GPS. Which I'd call something of a problem in a film about a magician.

This and other of the film's problems, like the repetitiveness of its plot, or a certain lack of transitions, have their reason in the sad and tragic truth that The Return of Chandu isn't a real feature film at all, but a fix-up of the first six parts of a twelve part serial, and a cheap one at that, quite naturally not leading to the slickest of experiences even in the hands of a genius of editing.

Still, it isn't all bad - the opportunity to see Bela for once as a film's hero is a fine thing, and his charisma and presence definitely is preferable to anything your typical white-bread serial hero actor could bring to a film, the few stunts that are there are fun enough, the plot has a certain pulpy drive, even if it does not make much sense, and the evil rituals are quite charming.

I also found myself absolutely enamored with the main bad guy's - whose name unfortunately gets lost through the terrible sound quality of the print - love for very big hats. I suppose he has other deficiencies that make wearing them necessary. He starts out with the biggest damn turban mankind has ever seen, but obviously levels up in the second half of the film and is then allowed to wear the Tower of Pisa on his head.

 

Technorati-Tags: american movies,adventure,serial,pulp,bela lugosi,reviews