Showing posts with label Columbia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Columbia. Show all posts
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| The Black Falcon goes into action! |
FLYING G-MEN (15 chapter Columbia serial/1939). Directors: James W. Horne; Ray Taylor.
Four famous sky hawks have now become G-Men, working for the Air Division of the FBI/Department of Justice. Their assignment is to track down the members of a deadly espionage ring and discover who its leader is. When their friend Ed McKay (William Lalley), who's invented a remote control pilot-less bomber, is killed, they vow to track down his murderer with the aid of his young son, Billy (Sammy McKim), and grown sister, Babs (Lorna Gray). The sky hawks decide that one of them should take on the costumed identity of the Black Falcon, so that he can sort of operate outside the law and really get the goods on the bad guys. One of the foursome is killed off in the first chapter, leaving Hal (Robert Paige), Bart (Richard Fiske), and John (James Craig) to become the Falcon. [Hiding the identity of the hero as opposed to the villain had been done the year before in The Lone Ranger, and later in The Masked Marvel.] It is hard not to notice the resemblance between the Black Falcon and comic books' Blackhawk, but the latter character did not actually appear until 1941 [Republic did a serial version of Blackhawk in 1952], meaning the Black Falcon came first. Although the individual cliffhangers tend to be nothing special, Flying G-Men is still a very fast-paced and highly entertaining serial, with lots of lively fist-fights and some exciting aerial action as well. Paige makes an appealing protagonist, and Fiske and Craig are stalwart enough as his colleagues. Lorna Gray would have to wait three years until Perils of Nyoka to make an impression as the evil Vultura; in this she isn't given enough to do. An uncredited Tom Steele has some dialogue passages early in the serial as a bad guy, and Nestor Paiva turns up as one of the saboteurs. Sidney Cutner's rousing music complements the action beautifully. Paige was in Blonde Ice and Son of Dracula; Fiske did The Spider's Web and Perils of the Royal Mounted; and James Craig was in everything from Winners of the West to The Cyclops. Young McKim was also in Dick Tracy's G-Men.
Verdict: Punch-fests and action galore! ***.
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| David Bruce, Richard Crane and John Crawford as Kidd |
THE GREAT ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN KIDD (15 chapter Columbia serial/1953). Directors: Derwin Abbe [Abrahams]; Charles S. Gould.
"Kidd was sacrificed on the altar of greed and politics."
The amazing thing about this cliffhanger serial is that it manages to get the basic facts straight about Captain William Kidd, supposedly a notorious pirate. In the 17th century Kidd was assigned to track down pirates but legend has it that he became a pirate himself; he was hung for piracy and for murder [he did kill a member of his crew, but this may have been involuntary manslaughter or perhaps even self-defense]. Biographers have suggested that Kidd was railroaded, important evidence suppressed, and this serial supports that view [but perhaps tries too hard to make him out some kind of saint].
In 1697 when the U.S. was still under English rule, Captain Richard Dale (Richard Crane) is assigned to investigate the allegations of piracy regarding William Kidd (John Crawford), and he does so with the aid of his colleague, Alan Duncan (David Bruce). Along the way they are shanghaied, become fugitives, wind up on more than one pirate ship, and finally become part of Kidd's crew, although they are confused by the fact that he doesn't act at all like a pirate. If Dale didn't have enough problems, his superior, Robert Langdon (Nelson Leigh), is willing to betray him at the drop of a hat for his own ends, and in general a great conspiracy regarding Kidd seems to be in place. There are a few exciting cliffhangers, angry Mohawks, storms at sea, and more than one mutiny to keep things humming. Our heroes are thrown in a hay cart which is then thrown over a cliff, tossed into a fiery store room, and tied up directly in front of cannons that are just about to be lighted. In perhaps the most startling cliffhanger, Duncan throws a knife in his friend Dale's back.
Crane [The Mysterious Island serial; The Alligator People] gives one of his best performances in this, and both Bruce and Crawford are fine as Duncan and Captain Kidd. [Dale isn't the brightest fellow. Told to keep his assignment secret, he discusses it with Duncan in the middle of a crowded tavern!] Others in the cast include Marshall Reed [Pirates of the High Seas], effective as the pirate Robert Culliford, George Wallace [Radar Men from the Moon], who is quite vivid as the conspiratorial Buller, Gene Roth as a prisoner, Lyle Talbot, who shows up briefly as a Boston jailer, Michael Fox as a scurvy fellow, and even Eduardo Cansino, Jr,. the brother of Rita Hayworth, as a native; he had only a few credits. One assumes that choreographer Willetta Smith must have been a friend of the producers, as she doesn't make a particularly fetching princess in a couple of chapters. Crawford was in a number of serials, as well as Captain Kidd and the Slave Girl [not as Kidd, However]. Bruce was Deanna Durbin's leading man in Lady on a Train and was also in Singapore Woman.
The Great Adventures of Captain Kidd has more of a story than most movie serials, fairly good production values and performances, and is entertaining on top of it.
Verdict: If you like lots of sword fights ... ***.
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| Lynch (Marshall Reed) takes orders from the unknown Leader. |
A Canadian mountie, Sgt. Joe Ward (Jock Mahoney), and Constable Bram Nevin (Clayton Moore) team up to take on the minions of the mysterious Leader of the White Horse Rebels, a black-cloaked man on horseback who wants to take over the entire Northwest Territory and turn it into a lawless Republic. Lynch (Marshall Reed) is chief of the Leader's lieutenants, and Rita (Phyllis Coates) is a gal with secrets who seems to be playing both sides against each other. There's a lost mine from whence comes the gold that the Leader uses to finance his Rebels. Other characters include Inspector Wheeler (Lyle Talbot), to whom the heroes report; Indian Agent Stone (Joseph Allen); Walt Anders (Zon Murray), who tries to forge an alliance with the territory's unfriendly Indians; and Otis Green (Don Harvey), any one of which could be the Leader, although the serial doesn't work up much suspense as to his true identity. Two of the more interesting cliffhangers have Ward unconscious in a boat that is slowly sinking beneath the water, and Ward and Nevin tied to horses that the Indians hope will gallop away and tear them apart. Marshall is again an appealing villain, making the most of his great voice, and the other actors are all at the very least professional. This was not only one of the very last Columbia serials, but one of the very last serials period. The serial benefits from a rousing musical score and some well-chosen locations. Moore, of course, was TV's Lone Ranger and appeared in many serials, while Mahoney starred in The Land Unknown and Three Blondes in His Life.
Verdict: Standard but entertaining western cliffhanger. **1/2.
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| Bad Gals: Carol Hughes and Veda Ann Borg |
JUNGLE RAIDERS (15 chapter Columbia serial/1945). Director: Lesley Selander.
Jake Rayne (Charles King) runs a trading post on the outskirts of the jungle, and is keeping Dr. Reed (Budd Buster) prisoner in his basement because he thinks he knows the location of some treasure. Cora Bell (Veda Ann Borg) a hard-as-nails associate of Rayne's, brings Reed's daughter, Ann (Janet Shaw) to Rayne in order to use her to force her father to comply, but Ann is fortunate to meet up with Bob Moore (Kane Richmond) and his buddy, Joe (Eddie Quillan). Bob's father, Dr. Moore (John Elliot) is a colleague of Dr. Reed who hopes to find a certain fungus in the jungle that may prove as much a boon to mankind as penicillin. In addition to Rayne's team of bad guys, the heroes and Ann have to contend with the evil witch doctor (Ted Adams) of the Arzec tribe, who know the secret of both the fungus and the treasure, and their High Priestess, Zara (Carol Hughes), who is always calling for sacrifices. When they aren't slapping each other around, Cora and Zara are uneasy allies and both come to a fitting end in the final chapter. The natives of Jungle Raiders seem more like Indians than Africans, and one chieftain sounds as if he just got off the bus from Brooklyn! There isn't much "jungle" to be seen in Jungle Raiders, and the serial is overlong and meandering, but there are a couple of good cliffhangers, such as when Bob and his father are hung over a pit with sharp stakes at the bottom of it, and also when old Dr. Moore is nearly drowned and eaten by gators at the same time, and has his head placed under a big boulder by bitchy Zara. Whatever its flaws, the serial is reasonably entertaining, and Borg offers a vivid portrait of a heartless tough gal only out for herself. Kane Richmond is stalwart, as usual, and Quillan offers the same vaguely comical character as ever.
Verdict: Hard-boiled Veda vs. Zara. **1/2.
PIRATES OF THE HIGH SEAS (15 chapter Columbia serial/1950). Directors: Spencer Gordon Bennet; Thomas Carr.
On the paradise island of Talua in the south pacific post-WW 2, Kelly Walsh (Tommy Farrell) is bedeviled by the crew of a "phantom cruiser" that shoots at his boat and then disappears into thin air. Said cruiser has the ability to dive underwater while retaining the outward appearance of a boat instead of a submarine [this ability is so under-utilized that it's a wonder the serial even bothers with it.]. Kelly sends for his old Army buddy Jeff (Buster Crabbe), who has no interest in returning to the south pacific but suddenly finds himself besieged by passengers who must get to Talua, including Kelly's pretty blond sister, Carol (Lois Hall); Whitlock (Gene Roth), who turns out to be the governor of the island; and Castell (Tristram Coffin of King of the Rocket Men), an agent who is after a Nazi war criminal named Van Horsdorff who has hidden away millions of dollars worth of diamonds somewhere in the vicinity of Talua. The clue to the location of the diamonds may be inside a music box that plays "Three Blind Mice." It is revealed early on that Whitlock is corrupt, to put it mildly, and has some nasty confederates, especially Shark, captain of the phantom cruiser, who as portrayed by Marshall Reed with two day's growth of beard is one of the sexiest sociopaths to ever appear in a serial. Handsome Shark thinks nothing of gunning down associates with impunity before they can impart important information to the good guys. There are a couple of memorable cliffhangers, such as when a heavy stone block comes crashing down on a coffin inside which Jeff is hiding; and a great bit when Jeff battles a hood on a flat piece of wall that has just been torn off the side of the jail and is being dragged behind a speeding truck as it careens toward a cliff. Most of the characters in this, even some of the good guys, are rather shady and duplicitous, including Lamar (Stanley Price), Whitlock's secretary, and the Lotus Lady (Symona Boniface), who runs the general store and whose loyalties are ambiguous. Pirates of the High Seas may not be one of the classic serials, but it is entertaining if overlong at nearly four and a half hours. Crabbe may be a bit paunchy and middle-aged in this but he still delivers the goods, and the other cast members are generally equally adept.
Verdict: Worth a trip on the Phantom Cruiser. ***.
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| Andy Clyde |
"I believe in telling my patients the truth even if it kills them."
In this Columbia two-reeler Andy Clyde (Andy Clyde) has had the hiccups for several days, so his doctor decides to get rid of them by giving him a scare: he tells him he only has three months to live. Andy kisses a gal at the bank where he works, pulls off the boss's toupee, and takes a world cruise, somehow winding up on the island Republic of Paprika. There he becomes embroiled in the conflict between soldiers and revolutionaries. There are a couple of amusing bits, but for the most part this is more energetic than hysterical, and while the now-forgotten Andy Clyde has an ingratiating personality, in this, at least, he isn't that funny. Clyde did a great many of these shorts, and later wound up on such TV shows as The Real McCoys and Lassie in the sixties, remaining quite professionally active throughout his lifetime. This runs approximately seventeen minutes but seems much longer.
Verdict: One revolution you want to get out of. *1/2.
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| Michael Fox vs. Judd Holdren in Lost Planet |
THE LOST PLANET (15 chapter Columbia serial/1953). Director: Spencer Gordon Bennet.
"What has he to offer a great scientist like me?"
Reporter Rex Barrow (Judd Holdren) and his photographer friend, Tim (Ted Thorpe), stumble into the mountain hide-out of the megalomaniac Dr. Grood (Michael Fox of Riders to the Stars), who is forcing Professor Dorn (Forrest Taylor of The Iron Claw) to enslave the inhabitants of another planet, Ergro, in order to take over Earth. Grood is assisted by the groveling Jarva (Jack George), who is like something out of the Three Stooges, on earth, and by portly Reckov (Gene Roth), on the alien world, while Dorn's daughter, Ella (Vivian Mason), travels to Ergro with the others. Grood is able to mind-control anyone he chooses, and has other weapons as well, and employs spaceships that take everyone from Earth to Ergro in a very fast and highly unscientific manner. There's also a cosmo jet, and a cartoon flying saucer. Late in the serial some earth men of rather ill repute try to take over Grood's operation, briefly join with him, and then switch sides again. Holdren is perfectly bland and adequate, and Fox is rather good as Grood, yet somehow he doesn't make the kind of memorable serial villain that, say, Charles Middleton does as Ming in Flash Gordon. Holdren and Roth were also in Captain Video, Master of the Stratosphere and the former starred in Zombies of the Stratosphere as well.
Verdict: Acceptable, silly sci fi serial. **.