The Saturday Serials - Buck Rogers 1939!

There's little doubt that Buck Rogers came to the screen in 1939 as a serial because of the success of Flash Gordon. I like a lot of people I suspect just sort of consider this a variation on the Flash saga, though when you take a peek into the details there are some significant differences.

Now not unlike the comic strip itself the notion of suspended animation thrusting a man into the distant future five hundred years from his own is dispensed with almost as soon as it's mentioned. Buck just jumps into this new era with aplomb, bravery and an uncanny knack on the technology of this new era.

The anti-gravity belts are the neatest gimmick in this serial as they are distinctive and a neat twist on the classic rocket pack. The characters move in ways not exactly like any other movie I've seen of this kind. The spaceships on the other hand are just more flat and angular versions of the classic Mongo type. They all look like little darts, but they function pretty identically.  The "Hidden City" is a pretty nifty thing and seeing those ginormous rock doors open and close is good stuff.

One of the weakest parts of the story is its insistence on flying back and forth to Saturn to get allies. Maybe there's some point being made about the events of the day, 1939 being a crucial year for people of good will to lock horns with a deadly enemy. The Saturnians are a fickle lot and without the constant badgering of Buck would have gone the way of appeasement for sure.

The cliffhangers are a bit weak, with more than a few being of the just shake it off variety. Deadly crashes are just ignored and at least one instance the story was changed to solve the dilemma. But I don't really watch them for that, but for the characterizations and Buster Crabbe is in fine form. He's a more mature go-getter in this one, less awkward on screen in the action sequences and his pal Buddy is fine and appears just the right number of minutes. Wilma Deering seems to have a good role early, but diminishes as the story tumbles along. 

A really good serial and at twelve chapters not too long. Only a few partial repeat elements. Buck Rogers is a good addition to the Larry "Buster" Crabbe filmography, neatly tucked in with his Flash Gordon work. 

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The Saturday Serials - Universal's Flash Gordon!

When Flash Gordon was adapted to the big screen by Universal studios it was appropriately enough in the serial or chapter play format. Serials were commonly the domain of pulp or comic heroes and in 1936 the Flash Gordon comic strip had become very successful and had maintained that success for a few years, a good sign that interest would be strong for a film rendition. When they started looking for someone to play Flash they found the rough and tumble but handsome mug of Buster Crabbe looking at them. An inspired choice, Crabbe became one of the mainstay stars of the serial in the 30's and 40's and beyond when serials became television. He was joined by Jean Rogers, probably a bigger star at the time and Frank Shannon as the intrepid trio of terrestrials who fly to the speeding planet of Mongo to save the Earth.

They find on Mongo the deadly Fu Manchu, or the variation on the "Yellow Peril" villain designed by Don Moore and Alex Raymond called Ming the Merciless. Joining forces with Thun the Lion Man and Prince Barin the trio battle Ming and his forces again and again until ultimately prevail and return home (spoiler alert?). I've always liked the idea that Thun was played by a Tarzan actor and that he joined forces with Crabbe, a one-time ape man himself. The serial worked hard, sometimes to its detriment, to cleave to the images that Raymond had burned into the memories and imaginations of the youth of America. Universal borrowed sets sets from Frankenstein, clips from Just Imagine, and costumes from who knows where, but still they pulled it off, and with sufficient success to warrant a sequal..

Now the first Flash Gordon serial was a huge success and so a rare sequel was scheduled. But by the time it rolled around one Orson Welles had made a big star out of the planet Mars so it was decided that Flash and his allies would go there instead of Mongo in the directly titled Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars. (Not all that surprisingly it looks a whole lot like Mongo.) This new adventure has more polish than the first one, more surface production value and while the first one cleaved to the Alex Raymond original to its detriment at times (do we really need to see Frank Shannon's knees?) this one felt comfortable enough to add a character.

That character was named "Happy Hapgood" a news hawk (played by Donald Kerr) who ends up accidentally along for the ride into space. Happy is added to the mix to give jokes, to be the comedy relief. He's totally unneeded and unwanted and he messes with the classic Flash Gordon formula something awful. One of the strongest aspects of  this installment is the presence of the Clay People who are cursed and as a consequence are able weirdly blend into the walls of their territory. Watching them blend in and out of the walls is seriously creepy and one of the scariest memories of my childhood. They are wraiths in nearly every sense of the word, ghosts blended with goblins to form a really unsettling creature.

Then some years later they did it again with Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (a most unwieldy but memorable title. As in the comic strip Flash, Dale, and Zarkov go back to Mongo and get involved with saving the planet from Ming yet one more time. Again the movie looks like the comic strip, but by this time the comic strip was lush and handsome indeed. This is a good looking serial and one of my favorites, because it was this serial I owned first as it has always been in the public domain for some reason. 

There is much daring-do and the serial looks great. Buster Crabbe never looked more handsome or dashing on the screen. But some of the blood and thunder was missing, and that's true of the comic strip as well. There's a sense at times of going through the motions, both on screen and on the Sunday funny supplement. More on that tomorrow. 

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Mysterious Mr. M!

The Mysterious Mr.M is a polished finale to Universal's long run of serials. This 1946 offering is the one hundred and forty-seventh entry and shows both the accomplishment and weariness which comes with lengthy runs. There are lots of odd bits cobbled together from many other shows, even the with opening credits which feature a gallery of clips of shadows ripped from films like The Creeper and the Sherlock Holmes series, at least those are the ones I recognized. The story is a pretty standard bit, a villainous gang want the plans to a powerful submarine which will revolutionized transportation and spend the serial locating and stealing different parts of it.

They are opposed by a sturdy federal agent, a doughty insurance investigator, and a streetwise cop. This is a story filled with chemical mind control and schemes withing schemes. The lead is a bit of a stiff, but no one is incapable as the threats manifest and are overcome, as always in a serial with aplomb and limited memory. Buildings explode, burn to the ground, and crash into the water, planes spin out of control, cars sail off piers and buses dive into creeks. I always get a chuckle when after such danger the hero just pulls themselves up, dust off their frocks and keep the ball rolling. This one is for purists, but the restoration here is outstanding. For a more detailed review I recommend this link. 

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Jungle Queen!

Jungle Queen is an unusual movie serial. It seems at once to be serious and silly. The plot of this 1945 flick is a somewhat heavy-handed one with the story actually set in 1939 before the Nazis have rolled into Poland and kicked off the second World War. The clear intention of the film is to slam the Nazis and I'm totally down with that, in whatever form it might appear.

Ruth Roman is the titular character and she's one of the oddest things in the movie. Clearly inspired by H.Rider Haggard's "Ayesha", "Lothiel" as she's called literally runs through uncanny flames to reach a portal which opens up and she delivers some warning or proclamation to the assembled tribes of the "Middle Jungle". She is presented as ubiquitous, showing pretty much anywhere she chooses when she chooses to aid the heroes as they try to uncover and put and quick stop to the Nazi schemes.

One of the strongest elements of this serial is that black actors are used exclusively as far as I can tell to play the part of African natives. After seeing some lame attempts in other B-grade movies to present such a population, this was a pleasant surprise. I wish the acting had been up to the effort and sadly there are a myriad of accents present, none of which indicate the "Middle Jungle".

One critic I read said the story is too convoluted, and I cannot disagree. You have to keep your head on swivel as the plot unfolds (sometimes in dismaying slowness) but just when you think the road is too twisted, the light shines and it goes again, if barely. This one is for big fans of the genre, and not casual viewers who would be turned off I suspect to the form.

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Raiders In The Sky!

Sky Raiders is a 1941 serial from the folks at Universal Studios. But despite some really good acting and some vivid characters, Sky Raiders ultimately fails as a complete entertainment. Robert Armstrong leads a good cast and when he is on the screen he dominates, especially in scenes with Donald Woods, the supposed star.

This serial starts off pretty strongly (as do most of them) but by the end seems to have forgotten its own plot and frankly falls very short. The need to make most of the cliffhanger endings in the air is commendable and at times the model work is pretty decent (at other times terrible) but overall the energy in this chapter play is sapped away slowly and steadily as it grinds to an inevitable end.

I can recommend this one for the great work of Armstrong but little else. Sky Raiders was a nifty idea, but just didn't seem to work out.

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Secret Agent X-9 Times 2!

Before Alex  Raymond became the icon of comics with the creation of Flash Gordon he worked on another strip with Dashiell Hammett to fashion Secret Agent X-9. Most folks agree this was a work with virtues and flaws and soon enough both Hammett and Raymond were gone. But X-9 held on, changing with the times and creators who took on  the strip over the course of many years.

Two movie serials were made using the character, the second and best was done in 1945 by Universal and starred Lloyd Bridges, Keye Luke and others. On Shadow Island (reminded me of Madripoor) X-9 (Bridges) and his Chinese ally (Luke) joined with several others to forestall the ambitions of Japan as it attempted to spread across the Pacific. At risk is a secret formula which will make water into airplane fuel, so as you might guess this a a doughty task. My favorite character is Solo played by Samuel Hinds, a terse man who spends almost all of the serial seated at the bar, but who is a significant figure when the time is ripe. He never looks up but he always knows what's going on.

In 1937 Universal had made another serial with Secret Agent X-9 and in this earlier film he's pretty much a different person and functions as a cop more than a spy as he tries to recover some stolen jewels for the good of his country. Scott Kolk portrays X-9 and I don't really know what he was going for in the presentation, but it doesn't work very well. He comes across as too jovial by half. Jean Rogers is gorgeous as usual but has almost nothing to do and has just as many clothes on in this serial as she had off in Flash Gordon. The plot is nothing much, just a jumble of antics and some decent fights. My dvd had weird sound issues and was missing a chapter, but I'm pretty sure I got the sense of the story.

Of the two I can only recommend the 1945 version and that's for two reasons, the Sam Hings character and Keye Luke's very rich and adult presentation of an Asian character, not something you could count on.

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Ace Drummond!

Ace Drummond showed up on Turner Classic Movies this summer, appearing irregularly on Saturdays. It's a 1936 movie serial based on a comic strip which was written by famous aviator Eddie Rickenbacker and was drawn by Clayton Knight. It stars the usual All-American strong-chinned hero which appeared regularly in popular fiction.

In this serial Ace (John King) shows up in Mongolia to help the International Airways group complete an around-the-world flight schedule. They are being blocked by a mystery villain named "The Dragon" who operates a few secret bases and has at his command a squadron of airplanes capable of deadly attacks. Ace joins up with mechanic Jerry (Noah Beery Jr.) and a youngster named Billy (Jackie Morrow) to fend off the attacks. Along for the ride is the lovely Jean Rogers (as Peggy Trainor) as the damsel in distress but who has remarkably little to do in the thirteen chapters. She hangs around with Billy a lot and they get into the same messes more or less.

Noah Beery Jr., John King, and Jackie Morrow

To be honest this early serial (Rogers appears in this one right after her turn in the more famous Flash Gordon) suffers from some really ramshackle storytelling and the final chapters really fail to deliver on the meager promises of the early installments. King looks the part, and in fact gives off a young Doc Savage vibe in his jodhpurs and tie, but overall he lacks charisma. The producers insist that he sing some song written for the serial in nearly every chapter and it really undermines his tough guy image. Singing cowboys I'm used to, but singing aviators are another matter.

Jean Rogers and John King

 There are several red herrings put forth in the serial as to the identity of The Dragon, but actually it's pretty easy to see who it actually is. As with most of the action flicks of this era, some racism creeps in, actually the usual stereotypes about Asians. Notably among the villains (played by the likes of a young Lon Chaney Jr.) are many white guys posing as Mongolians or some such. They are mercenaries I guess, but they insist on cliche clothing throughout the story.

Overall it's a a typical distraction, but ultimately a failure as the elements of the story fail to really catch on.

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Green Hornet Holiday!

It's St.Patrick's Day and I plan to celebrate by watching the classic serials Green Hornet and Green Hornet Strikes Again. The former I have on VHS, but it's a pretty grungy copy, the latter I've never seen. So it should be quite the treat to finally get to see the complete adventures of Britt Reid and his trusty sidekick Kato.


The big movie updating the character from last year was a bust, but it did prompt the folks at VCI to clean up the two vintage movies and offer them up for sale. I've been waiting for them to drop in price a bit and they finally moved into my wheelhouse financially.


I'm very much looking forward to this. It should be a big bunch of fun.


Happy St.Patrick's Day to one and all.

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The Perils Of Pauline!

The Perils of Pauline is a 1933 serial which purports to be a remake of the silent classic. It's a pretty decent serial from Universal pictures, filled with action, a lovely girl, and lots and lots of scene changes.

The action begins in and around Borneo somewhere in a city which is undergoing a revolution. With bomb blasts resounding everywhere we meet our cast, Pauline Hargrave and her dad Professor Hargrave who are trying to find a sacred disk which has inscribed upon it a secret formula for a lethal gas which according to legend wiped out many an ancient culture. They are opposed by Dr.Bashan and his henchmen, especially one tough buzzard named Fang. The Hargraves are helped by engineer and all-around nice guy Robert Ward, and comedy is supplied by Hargrave's valet Willie Dodge.

This basic ensemble head into the jungle and tangle with natives for several chapters, then find one half of the disk in a temple which is as much fitted out with Egyptian designs as anything else. Then after many hectic installments where Pauline does indeed face assorted perils alongside her new protector Ward, the scene shifts to India for a chapter and then ultimately to New York to wrap things up.

Evalyn Knapp who plays the titular lead is a pretty girl and looks quite fetching in a few scenes here and there as she tumbles through the plot, always being perky and ignoring pleas for her to remain where it's safe. Craig Reynolds is a dandy hero, who does become something of a plant as the story rolls around him. It's not his fault really as he's only ever asked to dive in and save the girl or her dad or both time after time.

Bashan & Fang
The show is almost stolen in the first several chapters by Fang, played by Frank Lacksteen, and this is a henchman for the ages. He suffers more than Pauline does by a longshot, but he keeps going, trying to do Dr.Bashan's will at all times. He's a tough looking fellow and perhaps the most interesting face in the film. Bashan played by John Davidson is a worthy villain, but seems a bit too passive at key times to really appear to be a true threat to our heroes. The demise of these two is a great bit of movie making, that I will assert.

All in all this is a passably entertaining movie, neatly long but not too long. The NYC stuff gets a bit tiresome before it closes, but that's because the producers seemed intent on using every random scrap of film they got their hands on to compose threats. Lots of stock footage in this one, but that's typical for a serial.

For a few bucks this is one to look out for.

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The Phantom Creeps!

I get it!

I've known about this vintage serial for quite a few years, but I always thought the title was "The Phantom Creeps" with "Phantom" being an adjective and "Creeps" being a noun. It never seemed like much of a title to me before, but suddenly while watching the feature-length version, it flashed on me that it's "The Phantom CREEPS" with "Creeps" being a verb like in "The Shadow Strikes". Sheesh! I'm a maroon.

I like this title much better, and as it turns out I really enjoyed this movie much more. It must be my mindset, because I watched this same flick several years ago and I was much less impressed. This time, I viewed it as part of a little Bela Lugosi festival and it hit me much better. Lugosi's vintage mad scientist is a hoot. I've now seen the full-length serial version and it makes a bit more sense, but it's not necessarily more exciting.

Inspired by seeing The Return of Chandu, so far I've seen The Ape Man, The Gorilla, The Devil Bat, The Human Monster, The Invisible Ghost, The Return of the Vampire, The Black Dragons, The Corpse Vanishes, and finally The Phantom Creeps. It's been a real eye-opener on Bela. I've always liked his hammy style, but I'm beginning to gain a real empathy for his madmen, something I've never felt before. Whatever you think of Bela, he's magnetic on the screen, a presence you can't ignore. It's amazing in a flick like The Gorilla filled with Ritz Brothers romp and goofiness, Bela just has to show his mug and there's instant tension. And a movie like The Invisible Ghost which makes no sense narratively, still works mostly because of his compelling presence.

I'll have to combine The Phantom Creeps serial with Gene Autry's The Phantom Empire and Ray Corrigan's Undersea Kingdom for a mini "Outlandish Robot Festival"!

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Buck Rogers The Serial!

I finished watching Buck Rogers the classic movie serial from Universal starring Larry "Buster"Crabbe. This movie was made during his classic run of Flash Gordon movies for the same studio and it fits right in among them. The pacing, the sense of derring-d0 all match perfectly the tone of the Flash Gordon movies. A few times you even expect to hear "Flash" come from someone's mouth.

But in a number of ways this movie is maybe superior to the Flash Gordon serials. While it doesn't have the sheer sense of awe of the first Gordon serial, it matches up very well against the later two. The pacing in this story is very well handled, with very few slow patches. The chapter lengths are about right for the stories told and you don't have long sections of endless corridor running which beef up weaker serials. The villains are less exotic but seem more competent making them more of a basic threat.

The real strength of this story though is the wide array of technical details it offers up. This movie features the sci-fi concepts of suspended animation and time travel, instant molecular transport, anti-gravity belts, interplanetary spacecraft, mind-control machinery, bullet mini-trains, alongside the obligatory rayguns and ray cannons. There's even some invisibility. Things never get dull and the different things make for a varied and somewhat unpredictable adventure (at least by serial standards). Heck Wilma Dearing even saves herself a time or two, not needing Buck to ride to the rescue. Heck a woman saving herself downright unique in the format, not to mention the boy sidekick Buddy who isn't really just an excuse but helps out Buck quite a bit himself. Rare indeed.

All in a dandy serial.

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