Serials...

[BJonas]

Been watching "The Green Hornet" serial lately. I watch one chapter nightly. It's fun for the cheese, it's fun for the retro, and it's a lot easier to take it in installments than all at once. Anybody else do this? And can anyone recommend any good serials? The only other one I have is The Shadow (naturally)

 

[Mr. Sable]

Last year, I got a big DVD boxed set of serials including:

"The Hurricane Express" starring a young thin and awkard John Wayne
"The Lost City" starring a bunch of terribly racist characters including William "Stage" Boyd
"The New Adventures of Tarzan" starring Herman Brix
"Ace Drummond" starring John "Dusty" King
"The Phantom Creeps" starring Bela Lugosi
"Shadow of the Eagle" starring John Wayne
"SOS Coast Guard" starring Bela Lugosi (?!)
"The Three Musketeers" starring John Wayne
"Undersea Kingdom" starring Ray "Crash" Corrigan*
"Zorro's Fighting Legion" starring Reid Hadley
"The Clutching Hand" starring Jack Mullhall
and
"Dick Tracy" starring Ralph Byrd

I've only seen the ones indicated in colour here, so far. It takes a long while to get through them. These were all made in the 30's and 40's. They're quiet enjoyable. I actually saw a few episodes of *"Undersea Kingdom" in my (very small) hometown movie theatre when I was a kid in the late 70's - they used to very randomly play that, "The Terror of Tiny Town", and 1940's "Batman" episodes that were laying around in the projection room for the last four decades. At the time it was irritating, because we just wanted to see the feature film at those weekend matinees and not sit through the black and whites, but looking back, we were pretty privleged.

I freakin' LOVE serials! Though, admittedly, I really have to be in a specific mood to want to pop on in the player. I usually watch about four or five episodes at a time and work the next day is pretty much a write-off.

 

[Maxwell DeMille]

Radar Men From The Moon
Dick Tracy
Flash Gordon

Available online at:
http://MoviesInYourHome.com

 

[Mr. Sable]

I thought "Dick Tracy" was quite good, but it had absolutely nothing to do with the comics character. "The Clutching Hand" and "the Lost City" were very entertaining too, especially the former.

 

[BJonas]

Since I'm into the hero pulps, I've always wanted to find the Spider serial ("The Spider's Web" not the other one, which is supposed to suck). Can anyone help me with that one?

 

[BJonas]

Hey, I'm a "familiar face" now!

 

[Mr. Sable]

...I've always wanted to find the Spider serial ("The Spider's Web"... Can anyone help me with that one?

If anyone knows, it'd be these guys: http://www.serialsquadron.com/

 

[BegintheBeguine]

Pretty soon you'll be one of the regulars! The theater in the George Eastman house showed a serial of Flash Gordon when I was a child and, this is like a nightmare, I MISSED THE LAST EPISODE. All those weeks and I never found out who the bad guy was. 30 years later thanks to modern science I can purchase the DVD and find out, and have fun watching a good serial.

 

[Hemingway Jones]

Buster Crabbe was my hero. I watched all of his serials, which were still on when I grew up in the 70s. Buster Crabbe, I believe, is still the only man to ever play Tarzan, Buck Rogers, and Flash Gordon. I loved him as Flash the best. He was incredible.

 

[BJonas]

If anyone knows, it'd be these guys: http://www.serialsquadron.com/

Holy crap! That's a cool site. Thanks!

 

[Midnight Palace]

WB is sending me the Superman serials from the 40s and 50s this month. I've never seen them but will report back once I have

 

[The Wolf]

I'm a huge fan, too

I have the box set mentioned by Mr. Sable. The only other serial I have on DVD is The Return of Chandu. Most of the ones I own are on VHS.
Alan Ladd has a small part in the first Green Hornet serial. Maybe the sequel, I'm not positive.[huh]
I would also like to get the first serial of The Spider. It sounds like a more faithful adaptation (besides the costume) than most serials. Sadly, I have not seen The Shadow serial, just the two-reelers.

Tune in next time, for another exciting episode of,
The WOLF

 

[Doctor Strange]

The old serials were regular local-kiddie-show afternoon TV fare when I was a kid in the late 50s/early 60s. I saw all three Flash Gordons, Buck Rodgers, Undersea Kingdom, The Phantom Empire, the two Commando Codys, and others *multiple times*. (But I didn't see the Superman serials until AMC ran them back in the early 90s.)

I have always loved the Flash Gordons the most, and I got the feature version of the third one, "FG Conquers the Universe" on Super 8 sound way back in the late 70s. But I don't recommend the feature versions: with most of the cliffhangers and their resolutions cut out, it really nets out to just an awful lot of overexcited, lousy actors running in and out of doorways!

But hands down, the most fascinating serial of them all is The Phantom Empire from 1935! It was the "Firefly" of its day, combining western and sci-fi elements in a very clever way: Singing cowboy Gene Autry (in his first starring role) has to make his daily live broadcast from his "Radio Ranch" while contending with robots and ancient Rome-garbed soldiers from the futuristic hidden city of "Murania", located several thousand feet *below* the surface of his ranch. There's a regal queen with the hots for Autry, melting rays, televisors, death and resurrection(!) by psuedoscience, boxy robots and sword-wielding baddies, little-kid sidekicks and comedy-relief western sidekicks, some nice tunes... Incredible campy fun - a must-see!

Oh, and alas, the Superman serials aren't that good, though Kirk Alyn makes a game attempt at playing Superman (he jumps around and moves fast to try and indicate his super abilities), Noel Neill is a cute young version of her classic Lois, and the music is pretty good. But geez, Supes turns into crummy animation (*not* Fleischer quality!) whenever he flies!

Here's a great set of articles on the serials:

http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue04/infocus/introduction.htm

 

[LizzieMaine]

Oh my -- I'd forgotten all about "The Phantom Empire." The summer I was 11, one of the local TV stations ran it on Saturday afternoons, and I just happened to tune in and catch the first episode, which hooked me. I followed it all that summer -- but the day the final episode aired was the day I was supposed to go on a trip to Boston with my friend next door and her family.

So I missed it, and it wasn't until 25 years later that I finally saw how it came out. To say I was disappointed at the ending is a terrible understatement -- I was rooting for the Muranians all the way!

 

[jake_fink]

I'm a serial lover. I loved serials as a kid when I watched them with my dad on TVOntario's Magic Shadows and PBS' Saturday Afternoon at the Bijou. I have about forty of them on video tape, and before video tape I collected them on 16mm. I love them.

My favourites are:

Phantom Empire.
Absolutely the wackiest of them all. The cliffhanger often hinges on Gene Autry getting back to the ranch to to make his radio broadcast in time. It was all inspired by a novocaine induced hallucination in a dentis's chair.

Daredevils of the Red Circle
A great serial with thrills that are still thrilling, like the cliffhanger at the end of chapter one; a motor cycle ride through a tunnel that is collapsing and filling with water.

The Mysterious Doctor Satan
Originally meant to be a Superman serial, a last minute rights conflict led to the creation of a new hero, The Copperhead. Dr. Satan is played by Eduardo Cianelli who was always great, and who you may recognize from Gunga Din.

The Adventures of Captain Marvel
The ne plus ultra of serials. Which is a hoity toity way of saying the best of them. Captain Marvel is kind of nasty, killing heavies in pretty much every episode.

Zorro's Fighting Legion
Great theme song.

The Serial Squadron is a great place to start looking for serial stuff.

 

[Trampilot]

Zorro's Fighting Legion
Great theme song.

I quite agree.

When I was younger BBC2 (I'm English) used to show various serials early in the morning. The Flash Gordon & Buck Rogers - Buster Crabbe serials caught my eye first but these were shaded by the pulpy:

King Of The Rocket Men
Nyoka & The Tiger Men
Man Hunt On Mystery Island
SOS Coastguard
Undersea Kingdom

I'm completely hooked on them and love Republic Pictures' habit of throwing cars, chariots etc off the same cliff.

 

[The Reno Kid]

Radar Men from the Moon is my personal favorite. Go Commando Cody! And it has Clayton Moore (Lone Ranger) in a supporting role. Gangbusters is another good one.

 

[dfrancis]

Coming in really late on this one. Couple of my favorites that when nowhere:

Colt .45 (Western - has some very interesting plot lines)

Garrison's Gorillas (Kelly's Heroes style WWII serial - well known among Italian stiletto collectors due to the character "Chief" ["switchblade artist"])

The Outcasts (think "The Unforgiving" - in 1968, no wonder it only ran one year)

A couple of good shows that had a fair run:

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (This show and 'Get Smart' featured real world spy craft, drove the US/UK agencies nuts trying to figure out how they knew: they didn't... they just made it up [International Spy Museum]... More fashion trends were spawned by this show than anybody can remember, from turtlenecks to Flag Bros Beatle Boots to Swank Medallions)

I Spy (another salt and pepper team, but the contemporary setting makes it work - Note: the re-teaming of Culp and Cosby as "Hickey and Boggs" should not be missed)

 

[Doctor Strange]

Uh, but those are TV series, not theatrical serials (aka "chapterplays"). Whole other thing...

For the record, I enjoyed "I Spy" a lot in its original run, though.

 

[dfrancis]

Right you are. I think Colt .45 may have started out in life as a theatrical serial, it was certainly campy if nothing else. I was thinking along the lines of series that are available on DVD, or VHS, sorry for the confusion. I'll default to Charlie Chan.