Showing posts with label Universal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Universal. Show all posts
Achieving the world's record for a solo flight, Dick Moreland (Richard Talmadge) decides to use the prize money to organize a voyage to search for his pirate ancestor's gold. Unfortunately, others get wind of his notion and try to snatch away the charts that he needs to reach the island in the south seas where the treasure is. Dick has a girlfriend, Dorothy (Lucille Lund), who takes the journey with him along with her father, and there is a nasty female who works with the bad guys named Marge (Beulah Hutton). Pirate Treasure is primitive but occasionally lively, such as a fight on top of a speeding train, a boat that smashes into a buoy, some gators in a lagoon, and an especially suspenseful sequence involving a falling crate in chapter seven. The fisticuffs are far below the Republic level -- everyone just flails their arms like children smacking each other and there is no nifty choreography. The island is full of angry natives. Talmadge's voice is kind of comical, like a German comedian, and hardly heroic-sounding.
Verdict: One of the serials you can probably miss. **.
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| Rentschler, Hughes, and Withers |
RADIO PATROL (12 chapter Universal serial/1937). Directors: Ford Beebe; Clifford Smith.
"He acts like he knows something." -- Policeman Pat, referring to the dog.
Scientist John Adams (Harry Davenport of Pardon My Past) has invented a formula for flexible steel which could make planes impervious to bullets and have other amazing uses. When Adams is murdered, the chase is on to not only find out who killed him, but keep the formula out of the hands of the bad guys. Cops Pat O'Hara (Grant Withers) and his partner Sam Maloney (Adrian Morris) join up with Adams' young son, Pinky (Mickey Rentschler); Molly Selkirk (Kay or Catherine Hughes), whose brother is at first accused of the Adams' murder; and Pinky's smart-as-a whip and spirited doggie, Irish (Silver Wolf). Bad guys include the sinister Egyptian, Tahata (Frank Lankteen), and slimy entrepreneur W. H. Harrison (Gordon Hart). Early on in the serial there are a couple of good cliffhangers -- Pat nearly winds up in a smelter furnace; and is almost smashed by a crushing door on a hydraulic hinge -- but other than that there's not much to recommend in this comparatively dull cliffhanger. Withers was in The Secret of Treasure Island, Jungle Jim, and other serials. Adrian Morris, sort of a Charles Laughton-lookalike, was the brother of Chester Morris. Beautiful Silver Wolf had only three film appearances. This serial was based on the comic strip of the same name; "Pinky," a youthful protagonist, came from "Pinkerton, Jr.," the original name of the strip. [In the the opening sequence a crime wave occurs and it is noted that the cops need radios in their cars to keep up with the bad guys; otherwise there is no real "radio patrol" in the storyline.] Withers and Morris also appeared together in the terrible serial Fighting Marines.
Verdict: When the dog is the most interesting character -- and actor -- and it isn't a Rin Tin Tin movie, you know you're in trouble. **.
The Dead End Kids and the Little Tough Guys join forces in this serial to take on a group called the Sea Raiders, who destroy Allied ships. Billy Adams (Billy Halop) and his buddies, including Toby (Huntz Hall) and Bilge (Gabriel Dell), are shanghaied by crooks, encounter the Raiders, and are eventually taken to their island headquarters. Billy has an older brother, square-jawed Tom (John McGuire), who's invented a new kind of torpedo, the plans for which are coveted by Tonjes (Reed Hadley), the leader of the Raiders. There are two women running around, the pretty Leah (Marcia Ralston, who resembles Merle Oberon), and the homely Aggie (Mary Field). One decent cliffhanger has one of the boys caught on a rope that is attached to a whale that's about to dive deep into the ocean, although another sequence features an octopus that doesn't appear to be in the same movie. [The same stock footage of a fight between a shark and an octopus later turned up in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.] The serial is hampered by the unfunny and irritating antics of the "kids," and the classical music on the soundtrack, such as The Barber of Seville, is always inappropriate. John McGuire had the lead in Stranger on the Third Floor.
Verdict: One of your lesser cliffhanger serials. **.
Anthony Waldron (Edmund MacDonald of Great Guns), who is presumed dead by the police, is holed up in his wealthy grandmother's estate with an evil brother and sister team who are helping him with his plans. Calling himself "the mysterious Mr. M," Waldron uses a drug called hypnotreme to keep the old lady (Virginia Brissac of The Scarlet Clue) compliant and get many others to do his bidding even while he piles up corpses in the river from his experiments. He is particularly interested in getting the plans for a device that will enable submarines to be as large as ocean liners and do more than forty knots an hour. But Waldron and his cronies get a surprise when somebody else calling himself "Mr. M" sends them recordings giving them orders and threatening to tell the cops Waldron is alive if they don't comply with his wishes. As the gang wonders who this new "Mr. M" could be, agent Grant Farrell (Dennis Moore) is on the case, especially after his brother, Jim (William Brooks/Ching), is hypnotized and killed; Farrell is aided by Detective-Lt. Kirby Walsh (Richard Martin) and insurance investigator Shirley Clinton (Pamela Blake of Ghost of Zorro).
The Mysterious Mr. M is an entertaining and suspenseful serial with Moore in good form as the hero, Waldron suitably gruff, and Jane Randolph [Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein] and Danny Morton [The Royal Mounted Rides Again] effective as the nasty brother and sister team. Byron Foulger [The Master Key] scores as Grandmother Waldron's lawyer, who nearly becomes a victim of Mr. M more than once. Memorable sequences include the fight between the Farrell brothers as electricity discharges all around them; a bit with a cigarette lighter that has a dart inside it; a cliffhanger concerning falling high-tension wires; and another in which Grant's car goes hurtling down a high shaft in a parking garage. The best cliffhanger -- one of the best ever, in fact -- has Waldron and Grant struggling on one parachute after they fall out of a plane even as a train races towards them on the ground below, with Grant eventually falling off the chute right into the path of the express!The serial also keeps you guessing as to the true identity of "Mr. M."
Verdict: Universal's very last serial is one of its best. ***.