SOS Coast Guard

This is a very intriguing serial - gets quite interesting. Fun - most definitely fun. All the characters, including the supporting ones, are good. Of course the best are our leading and rival men, Ralph Byrd as Lt. Terry Kent and Bela Lugosi as Boroff.

As you can easily guess this is mainly a sea adventure - one that takes a few surprise twists and turns - good cliff hangers - and a fun but far fetched story of disintegrating gas and mass destruction. Lt. Kent stays hot on the trail of Boroff so there is never a dull moment.

This one is good for a few giggles but is a refreshing change to see Lugosi outside of the horror genre that he is well known for. Recommended for Lugosi fans - he gets lots of screen time.

8/10

SOS COAST GUARD (1937) never flags throughout its entire run of twelve chapters. Nearly every episode offers something new and different, be it a chase involving two cars and a motorcycle in one episode or one involving speedboats and tommy guns in the next. Most of it is filmed on location in all sorts of picturesque Southern California coastal sites. As the hero, Ralph Byrd (Republic's own Dick Tracy) seems to do a lot of his own stunts-on land and at sea. He clambers around rocks, flies a plane, goes out in boats, rides a motorcycle, runs around rooftops, jumps off of them and when he has to fight, he plunges right in, getting into furious scraps with a host of different henchmen. And it's never the typical movie fight in which opponents trade telegraphed punches. It's pummeling, tussling, shoving, grabbing, rolling, kicking-messy, like a real fight.

The hero and villain (Bela Lugosi) are well matched. They're both smart and proactive. The villain's always one step ahead-as it's gotta be for a serial to last 12 chapters-but Byrd is no dope and he catches up pretty quickly. The villain uses lots of henchmen, divided into different teams for different tasks, so Byrd's not fighting the same bad guys in every episode. Also, unlike most serial heroes, Byrd's not afraid to call in police or Coast Guard backup. One great scene has the henchmen staking out a lab where a scientist is trying to analyze the villain's disintegrating gas so he can find a method to counteract it. Byrd's got several policemen protecting the lab. The lead henchman comes up with a clever plan to get Byrd out of the way, find a ruse to get past the police, get into the lab, kidnap the scientist and get him out without arousing the cops' suspicions. Usually, scenes like this rely on wild coincidences or highly improbable circumstances, but the plan used here actually makes sense and one has to give the bad guys credit for using their heads. It makes the whole thing so much more dramatically interesting when the hero faces genuine challenges.

Bela Lugosi plays the villain, Boroff, a criminal mastermind trying to develop disintegrating gas to sell to foreign powers for use in the coming war. Lugosi plays it straight, without any of his usual over-the-top mannerisms, and he's very effective. He's well supported by the actors playing his men, who look and move like actual thugs and not pretty boys from Central Casting.

If I have any complaint it's that the idiot comic relief, inept photographer "Snapper" McGee, gets way too much screen time and is the only element that actually slows the serial down. Also, some of the cliffhanger endings are a little on the cheating side. In one ending, Byrd ducks into the cockpit of his plane as a water tower falls on top of him. At the beginning of the next episode, it shows that he escaped injury---by ducking into the cockpit of his plane! Not exactly worth waiting a week for. This actually doesn't bother me because the rest of the story is so filled with action and thrills that the cliffhanger endings really don't matter much.

"S.O.S. Coast Guard" benefits from the casting of Bela Lugosi as the chief villain. He adds a certain menace that only he can provide, what with that thick Hungarian accent and his patented menacing stare.

Coast Guard Lt. Terry Kent (Ralph Byrd) discovers that the evil Boroff (Lugosi) has developed a deadly disintegrating gas which he hopes to sell to a foreign power (in this case, "Morovania"). The key component of the gas, an element known as "arnatite" is being smuggled aboard the freighter "Carfax" to Boroff's hideout. En route the ship runs into a storm and runs aground.

News reporter Jean Norman (Maxine Doyle) and her photographer Snapper McGee (Lee Ford) recognize the fleeing Boroff. While escaping, Boroff is pursued by Terry's brother Jim (Thomas Carr) who is murdered by Boroff. Terry vows to avenge his brother.

Meanwhile, in order to hide the evidence of the arnadite, Boroff sends his hulking mute henchman, Thorg (Richard Alexander) to cut the cables securing the distressed vessel. The ship then sinks. Boroff enlists scientist Rickerby (John Picorri) to manufacture the deadly gas.

Boroff has Thorg dive to the sunken ship to recover the arnadite. This leads to several death defying encounters between Terry and Thorg. Eventually Boroff is able to manufacture his gas and moves to ship it. Again and again Terry thwarts his efforts. Finally Terry and the Coast Guard bring the villains to justice in the final chapter, as we knew he would.

I believe that this was the first time Republic Pictures used that "melting/disintegration" special effect. You can see variations of this effect in several of their subsequent serials.

Others in the cast include Herbert Rawlinson as Terry's commanding officer, George Chesboro, Carleton Young and in an early serial villain role, Roy Barcroft as Boroff's henchmen.

It's interesting to note that the name "Boroff" is a contraction of the name BORis KarlOFF. The name of the ship, "Carfax" is the same as the name of the abbey Lugosi as Dracula rented (i.e. "Carfax Abbey")in "Dracula" (1931). Coincidence? Who knows?

Ralph Byrd would go on to portray comic strip detective "Dick Tracy" in three Republic serials, a role with which he would be identified for the rest of his career.

When this serial was made, there was a moratorium on horror films, brought on by Joseph Breen of the Hays Office. Consequently, Boris Karloff did thrillers at Warner Bros. (but not really any horror films), and Lugosi did poverty row movies and serials. Of the latter, this one I think is his best, but his having the name "Boroff" plus his using a ship called the "Cairfax" (as in Cairfax Abbey, where Dracula stays in London) are obvious in-jokes, though I doubt they were of Lugosi's doing.

Movie serials are odd when seen today. After all, there are a lot of conventions of the films which were just accepted back in the 1920s-50s but today seem strange. The strangest is the division of the serial into (usually) 12-15 parts...one which was shown each week. This meant that a viewer needed to go to the theaters weekly to finish the series. Another odd thing about them is each episode ending on a cliff hanger...where the hero or another good guy or gal is about to die or even appears to die...only to be magically saved at the start of the next installment. Finally, the stories were LONG...3-5 hours! They also were never intended to be seen all at once like you can today...and if you watch all 3-5 hours at once, you'll surely notice how padded each episode is. Again...folks in the day just accepted all this and to enjoy them, you need to 'grade it on a curve'...comparing it to other serials instead of a typical movie.

"SOS Coast Guard" is a serial from Republic Pictures and the serial was later chopped to pieces and made into a normal movie-length film in 1942. I had an easy time finding the serial on YouTube...but not the shorter 1942 version.

This serial stars Ralph Byrd and Bela Lugosi. Byrd always played heroes in serials, such as in this one and the Dick Tracy serials. Lugosi always played baddies in serials...and this one is no exception. And, in such roles, Lugosi was exceptional.

Boroff (Lugosi) has created a formula which literally makes things disappear...making it a very dangerous weapon. While returning to Marovania with arnatite to make his formula, his ship sinks off the California coast and the Coast Guard and other authorities are trying to capture him before he uses the formula or gets the arnatite. But considering this occurs in episode one and there are many more, you know the guy won't be easy to stop! Plus, he's aided by his slave, Thorg, who does his bidding because Boroff did brain surgery on the big guy! Between them, the pair seem unstoppable.

I was surprised by the quality of this serial...as it seemed much better than usual. The scenes in the ships and along the coast looked real even though in many cases they used rear projection...which usually looks poor but not here. Also, Lugosi is very good and restrained playing the baddie...possibly too restrained actually. Overall, it's a bit better than usual for a serial. Enjoyable throughout.