King of the Rocket Men (1949), The Rocketer (1991)

King of the Rocket Men is a 1949 Republic serial that mixes crime and science fiction. 

There are those who consider it to be the last great Republic serial.

The hero battles a crime lord, with the aid of a rocket suit. It's a lot of fun.

My full review can be found at Cult Movie Reviews.

And for an equally enjoyable later rocket man movie, The Rocketeer (1991) is highly recommended.

Dick Tracy Returns (1938 serial)

Dick Tracy Returns was the second of Republic’s Dick Tracy serials. It came out in 1938. This time it’s directed by William Witney and John English and nobody did serials better than those two. It also means that the cliffhangers will be above average.

Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy comic strip began its run in 1931. It’s still running today.

In this serial Dick Tracy has become an F.B.I. agent.

Dick’s latest case puts him up against Pa Stark and his five sons (obviously a reference to Ma Barker and her notorious boys).

And Pa Stark is played by Charles Middleton, Ming the Merciless himself. He is always a joy to watch. In this serial he’s not a wildly colourful villain but he is ruthless and menacing.

Ralph Byrd plays Dick Tracy and it’s fair to say that he was the definitive screen Dick Tracy. He makes Tracy a square-jawed hero but not too much of an an exaggerated comic-book hero. He resists the temptation to go over-the-top. His Tracy is a remorseless but quietly efficient crime-fighter.

Pa Stark dabbles in various kinds of criminality, from a relatively straightforward armoured car robbery to extortion and even espionage. His plans are elaborate but his boys don’t always execute those plans successfully.

A major problem that arises for Pa Stark early on is that his youngest son “Kid” Stark falls into the hands of the police and is facing a murder rap.

That murder rap is a personal matter for Dick Tracy. The murdered G-Man was one of his protégés.

Pa’s solution is to eliminate the witnesses, but that solution just seems to create more witnesses to more crimes. Dick Tracy becomes a witness but eliminating him is going to prove to be quite a challenge.

The science fictional elements of the first Dick Tracy serial have been dropped but there is still plenty of technology. 

Naturally there is some aerial action - aviation was a 1930s obsession so any crime serial worth its salt was going to include aerial adventure. You know there will be narrow escapes from doomed aircraft.

The Republic serials directed by Witney and English are always fast-moving. Never give the audience time to worry too much about the plots, just make sure that there is always something breathlessly exciting or tense happening. Have lots of things getting blown up. Witney and English always did superior action scenes.

Naturally Pa Stark’s criminal schemes tend to involve cars, aircraft and explosions and some modern technology (just as a new high-powered astronomical telescope), and abandoned mines and all the stuff that makes 1930s/40s serials so much fun.

Dick Tracy Returns is fine entertainment. Highly recommended.

VCI’s released a DVD boxed set containing three Dick Tracy serials. It offers perfectly acceptable image and sound quality and it’s a very good buy.

The first of the Republic Dick Tracy serials, Dick Tracy (1937), was not directed by Witney and English and has a different feel but it’s very enjoyable. I’ve also reviewed the two best Witney-English serials - Daredevils of the Red Circle (1939) and the magnificent Spy Smasher (1942).

Dick Tracy (serial, 1937)

Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy comic strip was immensely popular back in the 1930s (it began is run in 1931). Inevitably Hollywood took an interest. Four serials were made by Republic with Ralph Byrd as Tracy and four feature films from RKO followed. The two-way wrist radio that later became such a recognised trademark of the strip did not put in an appearance until 1946 and therefore does not feature in either the serials or the movies.

At the moment we’re concerned with the first of the serials, Dick Tracy, made in 1937.

The enemy of ace G-Man Dick Tracy in this story is the Spider Gang, led by a sinister lame man. The Spider Gang have kidnapped Dick’s brother Gordon and have performed brain surgery on him, turning him evil. The gang has plans to destroy the Bay Bridge in San Francisco (the famous bridge had been opened in 1936).

The Spider Gang have some high-tech weaponry at their disposal, such as a disintegrating sound gun and a huge flying wing aircraft (which looks extremely cool).

The Lame One comes up with a host of sinister plans involving everything from jewel thefts to counterfeiting to espionage. Much to his disgust Dick Tracy keeps thwarting those plans.

Dick’s biggest problem is that his kid brother Gordon (also a G-Man) has fallen into the hands of the Spider Gang and the Lame One’s outrageously malevolent hunchbacked mad scientist accomplice has performed brain surgery on him. Gordon Tracy has been turned into a ruthless conscienceless killer.

The cliffhangers are not as inspired as the ones you’ll find in William Witney-directed serials such as Daredevils of the Red Circle (1939) or Spy Smasher (1942) but they’re competent. And nobody ever got close to matching Witney’s skills when it came to cliffhangers.

On the plus side there’s a lot of aviation stuff, and I love 30s aviation serials. And there’s a zeppelin! The aerial stuff is done pretty well, with a mix of real aircraft and miniatures. Today it would all be done with CGI and would probably look less convincing.

In 1937 everything in this serial would have seemed ultra-modern. Aircraft, zeppelins, powerboats, submarines, two-way radios, a miniature radio transmitter. And Dick’s young ward records radio programs off the air onto phonograph records. Cool stuff in 1937.

Ralph Byrd is a perfect square-jawed Dick Tracy. The acting of the other cast members is mostly bad, but it’s bad in a really fun B-movie way. The villains are sinister melodrama villains. Dick Tracy’s assistant are fairly incompetent but that’s OK because it keeps the focus on the main hero. His only competent assistant is Gwen, who runs his forensic science laboratory.

When considering the fairly minor flaws in this serial you have to bear in mind that serials were pitched at a young audience. Dick Tracy’s young ward Junior is mildly annoying at times but having a kid in the cast (who provides the hero with some vital clues) gave the kids in the audience someone with whom to identify. Smiley Burnette as Mike McGuirk, one of Tracy’s G-Man, provides excruciating comic relief but kids like that sort of obvious comedy. Kay Hughes as Gwen has little to do. She would have made an obvious love interest for Dick Tracy but presumably it was felt that younger viewers wouldn’t have gone for all that soppy love stuff.

There are plenty of pluses to compensate. There’s no shortage of action and excitement. The action scenes are well executed, the stunt-work is good and the flying wing aircraft really does look impressive. There’s stacks of cool 1930s technology. There are hair’s-breadth escapes from danger. There’s a decent mystery involving the true identity of the Lame One. There’s some mad scientist stuff. And there’s suspense involving the final fate of Dick’s brother Gordon - can the brain surgery that turned him evil be reversed?

Overall this is a very entertaining serial and it’s recommended.

VCI’s DVD release (in a boxed set containing all three Dick Tracy serials) offers quite acceptable image and sound quality.

I’ve also reviewed a couple of the RKO movies - Dick Tracy, Detective (1945) and Dick Tracy vs Cueball (1946).

Panther Girl of the Kongo (1955)

Panther Girl of the Kongo was the second last serial made by Republic Pictures. Republic always made terrific serials so it will be interesting to see how this late entry stacks up.

It’s a jungle girl adventure so that’s a good start. And it features giant bugs. Not what you expect in a Republic jungle adventure serial but this was 1955 and giant bugs were all the rage.

Jean Evans is a photographer in the jungles of the Congo. She is known as the Panther Girl, after an encounter with a killer panther. She swings from tree to tree and rides an elephant but oddly enough we don’t really get an explanation as to how she became a jungle girl. And she certainly doesn’t seem like a woman brought up in the jungle.

This was 1955 and audiences were getting a bit sensitive about hunting so Jean does all her shooting with a camera.

She gets some film footage of something very strange - a crawfish wandering about the jungle. A very very large crawfish. It’s the size of a lion.

Jean enlists the help of Larry, a formidable hunter and an old Africa hand.

As well as giant bugs there is of course a guy in a gorilla suit.

Those giant bugs are not a product of nature but why would anyone want to create gigantic crawfish in the middle of Africa? It turns out that the bugs are part of a plan to frighten off the natives. A mad scientist named Morgan has discovered diamonds but he can’t mine them unless he can persuade the local tribe, the Utangas, to leave the area.

The scientist has two goons working for him, Cass and Rand. The claw monsters should frighten off the Utangas but Cass and Rand now have the job of frightening off Jean and Larry. That will require a different approach. Morgan doesn’t want Jean and Larry killed but if that proves to be necessary it doesn’t worry him too much.

Most episodes are taken up by various attempts by Rand and Cass to get Jean and Larry out of the way. Jean and Larry slowly (very slowly) piece the puzzle together and discover what Morgan is up to.

If you compare Panther Girl of the Kongo to an earlier top-notch Republic jungle girl serial like Jungle Girl or Perils of Nyoko it’s obvious that there’s been a bit of a decline in quality. Of course many of those earlier serials were directed by William Witney, the master of the serial format. Panther Girl of the Kongo doesn’t have the superb cliffhangers that Witney always provided. The cliffhangers here are quite OK but they just lack Witney’s flair.

The plot also tends to keep covering the same ground. Cass and Rand keep trying to ambush Jean and Larry and they keep failing.

Serials are often accused of repetitiveness. That’s a valid criticism of some of the lesser serials although it’s much less of a problem in the really good serials. Panther Girl of the Kongo is not in the top rank and you do sometimes get the feeling that the action scenes are falling into an overly familiar pattern. They’re very well-staged, but a bit more variety would have helped. A major problem with these very late examples of the form is that budgets were very very tight indeed and it’s not easy to come up with lots of varied and exciting action scenes when you have no money to work with.

Director Franklin Adreon does a competent job within the budgetary constraints he had to cope with.

Morgan is a reasonable villain. He’s motivated more by straightforward greed rather than the more grandiose things that usually appeal to mad scientists (like world domination). He probably needed to be a bit more overtly villainous.

One amusing feature is that there’s not a single person in the story who can actually shoot. The good guys and the bad guys fire hundreds if no thousands of rounds at one another with remarkably disappointing results. You expect the bad guys to be poor shots (the bad guys have to be lousy shots in these kinds of stories but Larry is a top big game hunter and Jean is a jungle girl who has spent her life in the wilds so it’s a bit surprising that they’re lousy shots as well.

Phyllis Coates as Jean makes a reasonably acceptable heroine. Myron Healey as Larry is OK as a fairly stock-standard hero.

There was a strict dress code for jungle girls. Their skirts had to be very short. Jean wears some very very short skirts. When she’s in her hut she looks like a typical 1950s American housewife but as soon as he heads for the jungle she dons her sexy jungle girl outfit.

In my personal view the way to enjoy a serial is to watch no more than one episode per day. If you fall for the temptation to binge-watch then they can seem to be repetitive. In the case of Panther Girl of the Kongo it’s probably even better to space out your viewing a bit more - maybe one episode every couple of days.

If you’re new to the world of movie serials then Panther Girl of the Kongo is not a great place to start. It’s not too bad but there are much much better serials to start with - Jungle Girl (1941) and Perils of Nyoka (1942) are superb jungle girl serials. Spy Smasher (1942) is perhaps the best serial ever made. Daredevils of the Red Circle (1939) is almost as good. Drums of Fu Manchu (1940) is very very good also.

Panther Girl of the Kongo is worth seeing if you’re already a hardcore serial fan.

Olive Films released this one on Blu-Ray and it looks terrific.

Perils of Nyoka (1942 serial)

Perils of Nyoka (later retitled Nyoka and the Tigermen) is a 15-part 1942 Republic serial. Most of Republic’s serials were very good but this one was directed by William Witney which means it’s very very good indeed. No-one was better at directing serials than Witney.

The character of Nyoka the Jungle Girl had first appeared in another very good Republic serial made a year earlier, Jungle Girl. In that serial Nyoka was played by Frances Gifford but for Perils of Nyoka she was replaced by Kay Aldridge.

The opening episode presents us with everything we could possibly hope for in a serial. There’s an exotic setting, there’s a quest for a lost treasure, there’s a crucial papyrus which tells where the treasure is to be found, there’s a beautiful glamorous evil queen (the Arab Queen Vultura) and there’s a guy in a gorilla suit. And then we meet the heroine and she’s cute and feisty.

The prize in this case is not just treasure, but medical secrets from the ancient world which could rid humanity of some of its most feared diseases. So we have the bad guys motivated by old-fashioned greed while the good guys are motivated by the desire to benefit the whole of humanity.

Finding the location of these secrets naturally involves endless complications. You have to get hold of that ancient papyrus. You have to find an inscription but the inscription is no good without the papyrus.

Only one living soul has the knowledge to translate the papyrus, an eminent scholar who has disappeared.

Or maybe there is one other person who could translate the papyrus - the missing scholar’s daughter. That daughter is of course Nyoka.

There’s plenty of potential for betrayals - some of the good guys might not be good guys after all. And the bad guys might well be prepared to double-cross each other.

As you would expect Nyoka manages to get herself captured a number of times, and threatened with torture and death. She spends quite a bit of time tied up or imprisoned. Nyoka however is by no means a helpless heroine. She can put up a pretty good fight when she needs to. She’s very handy with a gun and if she doesn’t have a gun she’ll still fight like a tigress. She’s the the type of heroine who is likely to faint when faced with danger.

She’s not quite a kickass action heroine in the modern sense. This serial doesn’t pretend that a rather petite female can throw huge guys around or punch out guys who weigh three times what she weighs. Nyoka fights like a girl, and I don’t mean that in a disparaging way. Not at all. Nyoka knows that if there’s a fight she cannot rely on speed and strength so she relies instead on being resourceful and quick-witted. If one of the bad guys has one of the good guys on the ground a girl can always sneak up and bash the bad guy over the head with a vase or anything else that’s handy. When there’s a fight Nyoka doesn’t cower in a corner. She circles about looking for opportunities to help.

And of course she has Fang to help her. Fang is her dog. Fang is brave and loyal and super-intelligent.

Speaking of cute animals there’s also an adorable pet monkey. Everyone likes cute animals so this serial has them.

More than anything else what distinguishes a really good serial from a lesser one is the quality of the cliffhangers. In a lesser serial the cliffhangers can tend to be obvious and repetitive. In the best serials the cliffhangers are clever, imaginative and unpredictable. No-one ever did cliffhangers with more style and ingenuity than William Witney. He’ll never give you the same cliffhanger twice.

Kay Aldridge as Nyoka is the perfect heroine. She’s as cute as a button, she’s smart, she’s brave, she’s sexy (in a wholesome good girl way), she’s likeable, she’s feisty but she’s also totally feminine.

Lorna Gray as Vultura is the perfect villainess. She’s cunning and ruthless and cruel and she’s sexy (in an unwholesome bad girl way).

Charles Middleton (better known as Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon serials) as Cassib makes a fine henchman for Vultura.

Clayton Moore as Larry Grayson is a solid hero. He’s not just a square-jawed action hero. He’s smart and likeable.

There’s non-stop action and the action scenes are expertly staged.

For those who like that sort of thing there’s the opportunity to see the beautiful heroine tied up. She gets tied up a lot.

With a sexy good girl pitted against a sexy bad girl you might be wondering if you’re going to get to see a decent cat-fight between the two of them. Well have no fears. You will get your cat-fight.

In some serials you will get one or sometimes even two episodes almost entirely made up of clips from earlier episodes. It was a good way to save money but these recap episodes are always boring and irritating. Thankfully there’s none of that nonsense in Perils of Nyoka. There are also no episodes that can be dismissed as mere filler episodes. Every episode advances the plot and has its share of suspense and excitement.

My personal view is that the way to get the most out of a serial is to resist the temptation to binge-watch. If you limit yourself to watching one episode per day you’ll have more fun.

Perils of Nyoka has been released on Blu-Ray by Grapevine Video. When you see the opening credits sequence you get that awful sinking feeling that this is going to be another cruddy unrestored release but don’t panic. It’s only that brief opening credits sequence that has problems. Apart from that the transfer is quite lovely. Image quality is very sharp, contrast is excellent and there’s no print damage. It looks like somebody has actually spent the money for a high quality restoration. Either that or somebody has somehow managed to find the original negative in pristine condition and the odds against that are pretty high.

Perils of Nyoka is a top-grade serial and it’s consistently entertaining. It contains absolutely everything you could want in a serial and all the ingredients are blended perfectly. Very highly recommended.

Other great William Witney-directed Republic serials I’ve reviewed - Daredevils of the Red Circle (1939) and Spy Smasher (1942). The latter may be the finest serial ever made.

Sky Raiders (1941 serial)

Sky Raiders is a 1941 Universal serial and it belongs to a sub-genre that I’m very fond of, the aviation adventure serial. It’s also a spy thriller so that makes it even more promising.

Captain Robert Dayton (Donald Woods) had commanded an elite fighter squadron in the Great War. Now he runs Sky Raiders Inc, an aviation company that is developing a new high-tech pursuit plane. A ruthless international spymaster, Felix Lynx (Eduardo Ciannelli), is determined to get hold of the plans but there aren’t any plans - everything is in Dayton’s head! So Lynx decides to steal the plane itself. The aircraft is about to make its first test flight. Dayton is supposed to have retired from active flying but he makes the test flight himself. The flight ends disastrously.

Lynx’s next plan is more ambitious - not to steal the new pursuit plane but to kidnap its designer. His plans are of course ludicrously complicated, involving an exact double for one of the main characters. There’s also a sub-plot about a new bomb sight.

Don’t expect the cliffhanger endings to be quite as inspired as those you get in the best of the William Witney-directed Republic serials but the ones in Sky Raiders are still pretty good.

The aerial sequences are generally excellent and fairly convincing. The miniatures work is extremely well done as are the process shots and there’s a considerable amount of actual aerial stunt work. And there’s lots of aerial stuff - the emphasis is very much on the actual flying with many of the narrow escapes from danger being the result of the normal hazards of early aviation rather than the machinations of the villains. Although the villain does his best to add to those dangers.

What’s interesting is that the usual serial clichés, like the bad guys kidnapping the heroine, are dispensed with. The heroine certainly finds herself in plenty of danger but in more interesting ways than was usual.

Donald Woods as Dayton makes a fine square-jawed action hero. He’s incredibly stubborn and his determination to do everything himself, including all the test flights, put him in additional danger.

Eduardo Ciannelli plays the villain Felix Lynx. He’s not as over-the-top as some serial villains but he is menacing.

Kathryn Adams is terrific as Mary Blake, Dayton’s devoted secretary who is obviously madly in love with him although of course he somehow manages not to notice. She’s a perfect serial heroine - she’s brave and resourceful but in a very feminine way. She doesn’t pack guns or anything like that but she is a skilled aviatrix which comes in handy on numerous occasions. She gives a lively and likeable performance.

Alpha Video’s DVD release is not great but it’s quite acceptable.

Sky Raiders might not be one of the more famous serials but it’s well worth seeking out. It doesn’t adhere slavishly to serial conventions and it has action, romance and great aerial sequences. Highly recommended.

The Vanishing Shadow (1934)

The Vanishing Shadow is a 1934 Universal serial.

Young Stanley Stanfield (Onslow Stevens) has inherited a newspaper but his two passions in life are inventing and planning to get revenge on Wade Barnett (Walter Miller), whom he blames for his father’s death. When he meets Barnett’s daughter (played by Ada Ince), who calls herself Gloria Grant, he’s inclined to hate her until he discovers that she doesn’t like her old man either. After that you figure it’s a safe bet they’re going to fall in love.

But let’s for a moment return to the subject of inventing. What Stanfield is working on is an invisibility ray. He’s having a few problems so he enlists the help of an older genius inventor, Professor Carl van Dorn (James Durkin), who just happens to be working on an invisibly ray as well. The problem both men are having is with shadows. They can make a man disappear but they can’t make his shadow disappear.

The Professor is working on some other inventions as well. He’s a kindly middle-aged man but he’s developing a death ray, which puzzles Stanley somewhat. The Professor assures him that the death ray will be used only for good although how you can use a death ray for good remains an enigma.

Professor van Dorn has a whole bunch of other gadgets he’s invented as well. One cute thing about this serial is that while Stanley likes and admires van Dorn he’s slightly disturbed (as we the audience are) by the sheer murderousness of his gadgets, and by the Professor’s apparent willingness to use them. In fact, his keenness to use them.

Of course Wade Barnett has plans of his own and those plans are definitely not going to be to Stanley’s advantage. He frames Stanley for murder. All this happened early in the first episode so I’m not giving away any spoilers.

The problem with invisibility is that it makes anyone who possesses the secret too invulnerable so it was a nice idea that this ray leaves you with a shadow so you’re not completely invulnerable after all. And the shadow adds a very slight touch of spookiness.

You might be wondering about the robot. He’s featured in the opening sequence of each chapter but he takes a long time to put in an appearance. But don’t worry, the robot does have a part to play. And he’s like all the Professor’s inventions - the Professor claims that he has lots of peaceful applications but he seems like he’s mostly designed to break things.

There’s a bit more depth to the characters here than you expect in a serial. I’ve already mentioned Professor van Dorn’s combination of kindliness and murderousness. There’s also Wade Barnett. He’s the chief villain and he’s certainly ruthless and immoral, but on the other hand he genuinely loves his daughter.


Gloria is interestingly conflicted. She loves Stanley and she’s thrown in her lot with him. She strongly disapproves of her father. But he’s still her father and she still loves him.

Even Dorgan, Barnett’s chief henchman and an unscrupulous thug, shows in one scene where he discovers something he didn’t know about Barnett that he’s capable of understanding and respecting normal human emotions. He’s a hoodlum but he’s not quite a mere monster.

The acting is slightly more nuanced that usual as well. Walter Miller as Wade Barnett is especially good. He’s a bad guy but he has what seem to be occasional flashes of conscience, and Miller makes them convincing. James Durkin is great as Professor van Dorn he’s disturbingly manic and obsessed.

Even the ending is slightly more complex than you might expect.

VCI’s DVD release is reasonably good. Image quality and sound quality are quite acceptable.

Interestingly this was regarded for some time as a lost serial.

The Vanishing Shadow is an above average serial with a nice mix of science fiction and crime thriller elements. And the science fiction elements are not just tacked on but integrated into the plot. The special effects are also quite effective. Highly recommended.

Jungle Girl (1941)

Jungle Girl is one of the series of excellent late 1930s/early 1940s Republic serials directed by William Witney and John English. This one was released in 1941 and introduced Nyoka the Jungle Girl who would also feature in a later William Witney-directed serial, Perils of Nyoka.

Jungle Girl is supposedly based on a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Now Burroughs did indeed write a novel called Jungle Girl. And a very good novel it is too - you can read my review here. But there is absolutely no connection whatsoever between this novel and the Jungle Girl serial. Obviously Republic bought the rights to the book since the Edgar Rice Burroughs name would be a definite box-office asset and then proceeded to create their own story. Which doesn't matter. Jungle Girl is a fine novel, and the Jungle Girl serial is terrific as well. They’re just not related in any way.

Nyoka (Frances Gifford) does seem a little bit like a lady Tarzan. She travels through the jungle by swinging through the trees on vines, she rides elephants and she knows the jungle like the back of her hand. But Nyoka is not an orphan raised by apes. She lives in the depths of the West African rainforest in the unexplored region of the Simbula Swamps, in the territory of the Masamba tribe. She lives there with her father, Dr John Meredith. Many years earlier Dr Meredith saved the life of the chief of the Masamba and as a result he was made the tribe’s witch doctor or medicine man and he has spent the intervening years bringing the benefits of modern medicine to the Masamba.

There is a reason that Dr Meredith has chosen to remain deep in the jungle and and has chosen to raise his daughter Nyoka there. He has an evil twin brother named Bradley, a notorious criminal now serving a long prison sentence, and his self-imposed exile is his way of avoiding any contact with his brother, and avoiding the scandals associated with his brother. Nyoka is therefore, like Tarzan, caught between two worlds. She has picked up a western education from her father and she has picked up the lore of the jungle as well.

Everything is fine until Jack Stanton (Tom Neal) arrives in his aeroplane with a passenger, a certain Slick Latimer (Gerald Mohr). Latimer tells Dr Meredith that his brother is dying and that he must go to him immediately. But maybe it isn’t a great idea to trust Slick Latimer. Nyoka has some problems to deal with as well. When Dr Meredith became the tribe’s witch doctor the previous holder of that office, Shamba, was displaced. And he’s been brooding about it ever since. Now he’s ready to do something about it. He’s ready to perform some nasty voodoo rites and to take more direct steps as well, with Nyoka as his target.

The key is the Lion Amulet, which is not only the badge of office of the current medicine man, it also allows across to the Caves of Nakros. That’s where the tribe keeps its treasure. And that treasure consists of an immense hoard of diamonds.

Slick Latimer and Bradley Meredith have their own plans to get hold of the Lion Amulet, with Bradley Meredith posing as his brother.

Frances Gifford is an energetic and appealing heroine. She looks convincing athletic and she’s very attractive. She’s not a great actress but she’s quite adequate. Tom Neal as Jack is an interesting choice for the hero rôle. He’s remembered today for his off-the-wall and disturbingly intense performance in Edgar G. Ulmer’s bizarre but fascinating 1945 film noir Detour. He’s intense here as well, making him intriguingly different to most serial heroes. In fact his acting is pretty decent. So we have a genuinely interesting heroine and a genuine interesting hero.

We also have a pretty cool villain in Slick Latimer, played by Gerald Mohr who positively drips with evilness.

It’s quite amusing that very few of the Masamba tribesmen look even slightly African. In fact I think the actors playing those parts cover just about every ethnicity except African. The Masamba chief is played by a Hawaiian while the evil witch doctor Shamba is played by a Syrian.

There are all the usual hazards for our heroes to face. The only problem with jungle serials is that you pretty much know you’re going to get a guy in a gorilla suit, poison darts, the hero wrassling crocodiles and lions, etc. What matters is that being a Republic serial of this era the fights, the stunts and the cliffhangers are all without exception extremely well executed. There’s an excellent cliffhanger ending that is incredibly similar to an equally excellent cliffhanger in an earlier William Witney-John English serial, the superb Daredevils of the Red Circle. And one cute touch is that in this serial it’s the heroine, not the hero, who wrassles crocodiles and lions barehanded. She gets captured a lot and has to be rescued, but Jack and his sidekick Curly also get captured a lot and Nyoka does her share of rescuing.

There’s also the obligatory cute kid, with an obligatory cute pet (a remarkably intelligent monkey).

With most serials you have to put up with at least one filler chapter made up of flashbacks from earlier chapters but that’s not the case here. There are also no real pacing problems - the action keeps moving along pretty nicely.

The fact that Jack has a plane which plays an important part in the story adds some further interest and there’s an aerial action climax.

VCI’s DVD release is very pleasing. The transfers are very good. The earlier VHS releases of this serial have a very poor reputation (even by VHS standards) for image quality but there’s nothing to complain of here.

Jungle Girl is certainly a superior serial. It’s better acted than most, the jungle setting is utilised well, the cliffhangers are great and it’s generally very enjoyable viewing. Highly recommended.

Tailspin Tommy in the Great Air Mystery (1935)

Tailspin Tommy in the Great Air Mystery is a 12-chapter 1935 Universal aviation adventure serial. And it’s a pretty spectacular example of the breed. This was actually a follow-up to Universal’s 1934 Tailspin Tommy serial.

Tommy Tompkins (known as Tailspin Tommy and played by Clark Williams) and his pal Skeeter Milligan (Noah Beery Jr) work for Three Point Airlines. Their latest job is surveying an oil pipeline on the Pacific island of Nazil. The survey will be made by dirigible but the dirigible meets the fate that alas usually met such beasties - it runs into a typhoon and crashes. Just as Tommy has performed the daring feat of docking with the dirigible in mid-air.

The survey is resumed but using two aircraft - Tommy’s biplane and a cabin monoplane piloted by Betty Lou Barnes (Jean Rogers), the niece of oil tycoon Ned Curtis (Bryant Washbourne). But more trouble awaits our intrepid heroes.

There’s a virtual civil war raging on the island over control of both the island and the oil. It’s a war between two branches of the Casmetto family (there are two brothers who both seem to think they own the whole island) and there’s a traitor in the camp of the good guys. The bad guys also have an air force, led by a mysterious pilot with XX on his flying helmet. There’s also another mysterious pilot, known as The Eagle, who seems to be on the side of the good guys but no-one has any idea of his identity. There’s also a jovial Irish chef who is really a newspaperman and we’re not sure at first which side he’s on but he’s certainly in the thick of things.

The plot has all the standard serial elements with narrow escapes, the heroes getting captured, the heroine getting captured, a few double-crosses and an abundance of action. And of course a touch of romance. Betty Lou is clearly crazy about Tommy and Inez Casmetto, daughter of the good Casmetto brother, obviously thinks Skeeter is kinda cute.

Clark Williams as Tommy is an adequate hero. Noah Beery Jr as Skeeter steals every scene he’s in. Jean Rogers is adorable as feisty gal pilot Betty Lou Barnes. Needless to say she’s constantly getting herself into scrapes. There’s the usual assortment of heavies. The chief villains are certainly ruthless although perhaps not as colourful as one might like.

The aerial sequences are absolutely superb and are mostly original with surprisingly little use of stock footage. There are lots of dogfights but they’re mostly inconclusive, which of course is intentional - you don’t actually want the good guys shot down and you don’t want the bad guys shot down either, at least not until you’re getting close to the final chapter. While the bad guys and The Eagle have machine-gun on their aircraft Tommy’s aircraft is unarmed so when it comes to a dogfight he has to improvise a bit (such as tossing hand grenades at his aerial opponents). Perhaps it was felt that if Tommy flew an armed plane it would make him seem less of an insanely brave hero.

Most of the cliffhangers involve impending aerial disasters although sometimes the mix is varied a bit. Apart from air combats there’s plenty of gunplay on the ground. And since this is a serial there are of course some hidden passageways and some dungeons!

There’s certainly no faulting the job done by director Ray Taylor. He keeps things moving along and mostly avoids the slow patches that bedevil lesser serials. Serials are by their very nature formulaic and repetitive. The trick is to keep coming up with clever variations on the standard plot devices and cliffhanger endings. This serial on the whole manages to do that.

One thing that amuses me is that Nazil is supposed to be a Pacific island but everybody seems to be Mexican. And it all looks rather Californian.

An unfortunate feature of most serials is the flashback episode comprised mainly of footage from previous chapters. Happily there is no such episode in this serial.

The DVD (I believe there’s also a Blu-Ray) from VCI offers extraordinarily good transfers. Which is a major bonus in this case since the flying sequences look particularly impressive.

Tailspin Tommy in the Great Air Mystery is a fairly conventional serial but it’s extremely well executed and it has terrific aerial stunts. Very highly recommended.

Daredevils of the Red Circle (serial, 1939)

Daredevils of the Red Circle is a 1939 Republic serial directed by John English and William Witney. Which means it’s probably going to be very good. We shall see.

It starts off with a bang, literally. An escaped convict (played by Charles Middleton - yes, Ming the Merciless!) who goes by the name of 39013 (his prison number) is systematically destroying the business empire of a man named Granville. He’s destroying it by blowing it up, piece by piece. His current target is the Granville Amusement Park and his bomb outrage there makes him three implacable enemies - three carnival daredevils. One is a high diver, one is a strongman and one is an escape artist. All useful skills for the heroes in a serial!

The first episode offers everything you could ask for. It has lots of action, impressive visuals, a whizz-bang cliffhanger, a touch of tragedy and a touch of mystery - we know what 39013 is up to but we don’t really know why or what his ultimate intentions are.

The mention of tragedy is important. This is a serial in which real people really can get hurt, or even killed. That’s a daring strategy for a serial but it does give the suspense a definite edge. If they’re prepared to kill off a character (and a sympathetic character) in the first chapter you know that none of the characters is entirely safe. When they seem to be in danger you really believe they are in danger.

While we know the identity of the chief villain there are lots of things we don’t know. We don’t know how many of the people working for Granville are actually working for 39013 so we don’t know if the three daredevils can or should trust any of these people. We also don’t know the identity of the Red Circle, the person who keeps feeding the daredevils vital information. So there’s plenty of material there to provide both mystery and suspense.

Willian Witney (who apparently directed most of the action scenes) had a reputation for doing extremely good cliffhanger endings. And this serial has plenty of great examples of just that. The circus fire in the opening chapter, the destruction of the mighty tunnel, the burning oil well - these are superb action set-pieces and they provide thrilling cliffhangers.

Now you might be thinking this all sounds swell but if only they’d managed to get a death ray into the story somewhere. Well don’t despair - there is indeed a death ray!

The acting is very decent. It’s no surprise that Charles Middleton makes an absolutely  splendid villain (which is not a spoiler since we know he’s a bad egg right from the start). Miles Mander has a fascinating rôle which presented some subtle acting challenges (he’s not always quite what he seems to be) and he carries it off with style and confidence. Carole Landis is a fine leading lady who adds a touch of glamour. The actors playing the three daredevils (Charles Quigley, Herman Brix and David Sharpe) may not be great actors but they’re convincingly athletic heroes and in this serial that matters a lot more than acting ability.

Carole Landis makes a perfectly fine heroine. Mention must also be made of Tuffie, the daredevils’ dog, who not only gets to do clever things but reasonably convincing clever things.

They didn’t have the budgets that Universal had for their serials (Daredevils of the Red Circle was made for just $126,000) but Republic really knew what they were doing when it came to making to getting plenty of bang for their buck. The special effects and the stunts really are excellent. The miniatures work is generally very impressive. Even the rear projection shots are done competently. There are explosions and there are some great fires. William Witney was renowned for doing terrific fight scenes and there are lots of them here.

There’s also a lot of location shooting and the locations have been very cleverly chosen (and are used with great skill). The Granville house itself is riddled with secret passageways which provide endless opportunities for thrills and surprises.

Kino Lorber’s DVD presentation offers an extremely good transfer indeed and it even includes audio commentaries (by film historian Michael Schlesinger) on several of the episodes.

Daredevils of the Red Circle is one of the best of the Republic serials, which means it’s one of the very best of all the serials of its era. It’s entertainment plus and it’s highly recommended.

Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938)

My write-up on Universal's Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938) at my cult movie blog might be of interest to people here as well.

Here's the link to my review.

It's a worthy follow-up to the superb 1936 Flash Gordon serial and it's enormous fun. Fans of the great age of movie serials might also be interested in my thoughts on some of the other classic serials such as Buck Rogers and Spy Smasher.