This electrifying Saturday Night Special is all about the serials!
Serials were a big deal in the 30's, 40's, and 50's, but these days they're about as popular as 8-track tapes. We've covered a lot of the cool ones that featured colorful characters like Captain Video, Commander Cody, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Captain Marvel, Superman, The Batman, and The Green Hornet, but there are some lesser known heroes I know we'll probably never get around to, but I'm about to remedy that a bit!
In 1936, there was a character named "The Clutching Hand." "15 Thunderbolt Chapters," now how cool is that?
Republic Studios were responsible for many of these
serials, and in the "The Fighting Devil Dogs" from 1938, the United
States Marine Corp were the heroes.
In 1940, Republic Pictures decided to turn it around a bit, and used the name of the villain instead of the hero as the title for the serial!
The hero of this series was actually named Copperhead and was played by Robert Wilcox.
Also from 1940 was "The Green Archer," which seems like it's going to be a period piece, but isn't. Based on an Edgar Wallace novel, it's modern times, but older weapons are used by the hero, such as a box and arrow!
If you're a spy guy, and you're not in the mood to get smashed, I suggest you get the Hell out of town!
There were many more colorful heroes and villains in serials over the years like Dick Tracy, Tarzan, Zorro, The Masked Marvel, The Black Widow, Spy King, and Don Daredevil. The list goes on and on and on. Probably 90% of them can be found on YouTube or The Internet Archive so there's no excuses for not watching them instead of the drivel they choose to air on TV these days!
In 1947, television was pretty much responsible for the demise of the serial, now it's time to turn the tables.
4 comments:
My fave serial is one called Captain Video, which seemingly has little to do with the early Live TV series. One of the best things about it is the plethora of wild technology on display, the fact that it was produced by the awesome Sam Katzman, and last but not least, actor Gene Roth as bad guy, Vultura!
Trailer: https://youtu.be/lrYurRJUHhs?t=4
I love these crazy old serials!
"Flying Disc Man From Mars" is great.
Republic did that. I have the blu-ray.
They always speeded-up the camera (film speed) during fight scenes.
That is hilarious!
The special FX are great in B&W, you a blu-ray + flatscreen to see the clarity.
COMMANDO CODY is great too...Leonard Nimoy is in "Satan's Satellites".
The flight shots for Command Cody are funny to see because you know
the physics of it are impossible.
With his "rocket pack" he wouldn't
have a backside left after 1min of flight or less.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i83MGnMQ0zU/XXF63Nh7WrI/AAAAAAAB0GI/GZlyinuvuoYoPVk4Yhv9qIAX44fH-d3LQCLcBGAs/s1600/king19.jpg
Secondly:
I found a great TOHO page I just wanted to share
if you guys don't know about it already:
https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Toho%22&sort=-publicdate&page=1
A lot of old cliffhanger serials were shown on TV here in Australia around 1965/66. Lots of memorable ones including "Bruce Gentry - Daredevil of the Skies". I was 8 or 9 at the time and lapped it all up, telling my sister that I wanted to be Bruce Gentry when I grew up. Ah, simpler times.
regards from Australia,
Paul
Another favorite serial of mine is ATOM MAN VS. SUPERMAN, mainly for the best-ever representation of Superman's nemesis, Luthor, by the great Lyle Talbot!
And a surprise supporting role performance was by the great stuntman/stunt supervisor, the wonderful Paul Stader, whom I had the great pleasure of working with on Larry Cohen's silly 1989 witchcraft-comedy, WICKED STEPMOTHER.
Mr. Stader and I had a nice chat one day, mostly about his work on Irwin Allen's movies and tv shows, particularly THE TIME TUNNEL, which he stated was the favorite of Allen's tv shows for everyone on the Allen staff, and of Mr. Allen himself. To which a hearty "Hear hear!" from me.
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