Dr Hermes Reviews - CLIFFHANGERS
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BATMAN (1943)

(April 9, 2002)

BATMAN was a lot more fun than I expected. To be honest, I've always been a Republic fan and I approached this Columbia serial without expecting much. But it's enjoyable and compelling in its own way, and encourages me to check out other well-known chapterplays from that studio.

The Republic cliffhangers had bigger budgets and great stuntmen, and they sometimes looked like as polished as the 'B'-pictures of that era. BATMAN on the other hand is more like an early black & white TV episode. The special effects (car crashes and ray guns and so forth) aren't as convincing, Batman's lab seems seriously understocked, and the solutions to the chapter endings aren't particularly inventive (Batman just dusts himself off and walks away from a plane crash, for example) but none of these things are fatal drawbacks.

For one thing, the fights and stunts are awkward and unspectacular, but they also seem more realistic, like real brawls. Batman and Robin fight gamely but they're not superhuman in skill or strength. Our heroes are shown actually climbng and jumping, without special effects. And it's strangely appealing to see a Batman who is wearing a simple cloth costume, not a gadget-laden black rubber get-up that would weigh a ton and be difficul to move in. This is a Batman who fits in with other human mystery men of that time, like the Phantom and the Green Hornet. It's odd but Batman seems more real here than he has ever since.

The cast is pretty good, overplaying their roles a bit but that's appropriate. Lewis Wilson wasn't athletic-looking (especially compared to guys like Tom Tyler and Buster Crabbe) but he had the right voice and languid gestures for Bruce Wayne.

And the fact that he played the role in a straightforward and sincere manner helped. William Austin as Alfred added some comic relief from the unbearable suspense and Shirley Pattterson as Linda Paige had surprising charm. (When she's made into a brain-controlled zombie who will follow any orders, many teenage boys in the audience must have had some ideas of their own on what Batman should do next.)

But it's J. Carroll Naish who takes over the serial and runs with it. I've always liked his broad style of acting (remember him as the love-smitten hunchback in HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN?) and here he plays the Japanese spymaster Dr. Daka as a completely diabolical mastermind. Daka not only compels his American agents to betray their own country and work for Japan (boo! hiss!), he uses the advanced gizmos found in the world of the serials. There's the explosive radium gun, the mind-controlling zombie helmets and a pit in the floor containing hungry alligators. (You just KNOW where he's going to end up in Chapter Fifteen!)

Admittedly, Naish's make-up looks crude today and his accent is a bit strong, but it works. Even a big MGM production like THE MASK OF FU MANCHU had make-up that looked more like a Martian than an Asian. There aren't as many (or as virulent) anti-Japanese slurs as I had expected after hearing the protests when this was re-released on video. Seeing this for the first time, I find the 1966 TV series suddenly makes more sense. The bombastic narration, the death-traps and imminent crashes at the end of the episodes, the wild fistfights.... they were all there back in 1943, just dusted off and put on the small screen twenty-odd years later where they were met with amused condescension. The thrills offered were the same, it was the audience that had changed.

Dir: Lambert Hillyer - 15 Chapters

BATMAN AND ROBIN (1949)

(Nov 25, 2005)

Not nearly as bad as I had expected. Sure, it's cheap and cheesy and repetitious, but still this 1949 Columbia serial provides more diversion and excitement than that multi-million dollar disaster of the same name directed by Joel Shumacher. The story is generic chapterplay (villain needs an item to complete his world-threatening gimmick, in this case diamonds, and most of the action is a tug of war as heroes and henchmen chase each other back and forth).

The opening titles of each title are pretty funny as Batman and Robin glance wildly in all directions, run forward a few steps and then pause to again look around confusedly. Presumably, they are supposed to be on the lookout for danger, but they just seem totally lost. The chapter ending solutions are completely unconvincing, which is too bad. It's worth sitting through a few lackluster chapters to see a clever or unexpected way for the hero to get out of a sticky situation. Mostly, Batman just gets out of the exploding cabin at the last minute or survives a deadly plane crash by simply staggering out the wreck as though nothing had happened. Good escapes are an essential part of the cliffhanger's appeal, and this one has nothing to offer in that department. (When Batman hits the sidewalk after falling off a building, the solution has been swiped from SPY SMASHER.)

One exception is hilarious in an unintended way. Trapped in a vault being filled with poison gas, our hero gives Robin and himself oxygen breathers with mouthpieces, then cuts through the door with a blowtorch. Okay, we're used to seeing Batman pull useful gadgets from his utility belt, that's what it's for, after all. The problem here is that the cutting torch is not a miniaturized pencil-sized tool but a huge clunky thing two feet long that he lights with an equally big sparker. And the mouthpieces he and Robin breathe through are a foot long themselves. Sheesh, might as well have him pull a tire iron or snow shovel from his belt.

The cast is good in surprising ways. I always found Robert Lowery unappealing, with his frowning eyebrows and petulant mouth (he was particularly unlikeable as the boyfriend in THE MUMMY'S GHOST), but he makes a serious-minded and grim Bruce Wayne; wearing the mask, Lowery's constant scowl is appropriate. As Dick Grayson, the twenty-five-year old Johnny Duncan looks exactly like a tough street punk, so sullen you'd guess he was out on bail rather than Bruce Wayne's ward. His hairy muscular arms are a clue why this Robin wore flesh-colored tights over his legs. Yet, he is convincing in the fights and he seems genuinely tough. Frankly, if I were Batman, I'd rather have a mug like Duncan at my back than lightweight Burt Ward anyday. Jane Adams as Vicki Vale is okay if unexceptional (I remember her as the hunchback nurse in HOUSE OF DRACULA), and Lyle Talbot is great as Commissioner Gordon.

The evil mastermind this time around is the cloaked and hooded Wizard, whose amazing scientific gimmicks can make him invisible or allow him to control car and plane motors from miles away. The Wizard also has an unnecessarily elaborate hideout, which includes an underwater entrance for a small submarine (his thugs climb through a trapdoor in a cave and go down a ladder right into the sub's conning tower). You know, the Wizard must have spent enough just establishing his operation to have lived on comfortably in the first place.

Unfortunately, all the neat toys belong to the villain, when it's Batman who really needs them to be impressive. The Batmobile is a two-tone Mercury convertible; top down, it's Bruce Wayne's car and with the top up, it's Batman's (I hope he at least thought to change the license plates when going into action but we never see this). The simple cloth costumes (none of those fifty-pound rubber suits with built-in muscles) are kept neatly bundled up in a filing cabinet in the Batcave (makes sense). And the Batsignal is hard to take... it's a TV-sized projector in Gordon's office. He swivels it out the window and it shines a visible bat symbol on clouds even in broad daylight. Man! That's some powerful bulb in there!

Columbia didn't have Republic's team of ace stunt men like Tom Steele or Dale Van Sickel, and the fights therefore were clumsier and less astonishing. Yet, somehow, this also made them more believable. The scenes looked more like real men slugging each other than the wild acrobatics Republic featured. I also like the way Batman really throws a mean punch in this serial; when he smacks a goon, the guy drops and doesn't immediately jump up again. At one point, our hero comes up behind two crooks, smashes their heads together and they go down as if Superman had done the maneuver. Still, that cape...! Even the best stuntmen in the business have obvious trouble carrying on a brawl wearing a cape, and it's clear Batman would be better off without it, dramatic image to consider or not.

Dir: Spencer G. Bennett

Check out the blow torch Batman casually pulls out of his utility belt. Errr, isn't that supposed to be a miniature torch the size of a pencil? Where exactly does he keep the fuel tank? For that matter, isn't that rebreathing tube he's sucking on seem a bit oversized as well? Columbia's prop department guys either had a wry sense of humour or limited resources.

BLACKHAWK (1952)

(March 4, 2005)

If only this serial had been made ten years earlier! It's really sad. BLACKHAWK required an effort to sit through and to be honest, it wasn't worth the effort. The darn thing wasn't so awful as to be obviously worth jettisoning, it was just lukewarm and mediocre. I kept hoping it would kick into gear and take off, but it never really showed any creative energy.

The BLACKHAWK comic is one of the few Golden Age titles that I actually have a dozen issues from (as opposed to Archives and reprints), and I love the premise. Seven expatriate men from countries overrun by the Axis band together as air vigilantes. From a secret island base in the North Atlantic, they take off in odd-looking fighter planes and tackle the enemy with deadly determination. Grim storylines and exceedingly fine artwork by Reed Crandall made the stories in MILITARY COMICS (later MODERN COMICS) and BLACKHAWK well worth tracking down. After the war, the seven dark knights went after those Commie rats with equal gusto. (Then, of course, the characters were sold from Quality to DC and quickly hurtled downhill.)

The serial is a grave disappointment to me. The Blackhawks are still active, tackling a spy ring which is trying to get hold of a mysterious new fuel called Element X (there's also an unimpressive death ray projector and a cartoon flying saucer in their arsenal), but they sure don't do it with any style or panache. This version of the team has its headquarters and hangars on a secret base somewhere in the American Southwest. (Pretty near Southern California if not actually in it, seems like.) There are still seven of them, although Hendrickson (the Dutchman) seems retired from active duty and seems to be always in greasy coveralls, tinkering with the plane's engines. Chop-Chop (just called Chop) is played by Weaver Levy, and his characterization seems reasonable enough as the team's cook. He doesn't wear a uniform, but he does get in on the action once in a while. (The grotesque original Chop-Chop from the comics looked more like a Martian dwarf than a Chinese man.)

Of the other five, Olaf (from Sweden) and Andre (from France) run around a bit, get to drive the car and participate in a few slugfests but that's about it. Stan (from Poland) has a slightly bigger role, as he is impersonated for a short time by his rotten twin brother Boris. And Chuck is Blackhawk's lieutenant, usually accompanying his chief (Chuck was American in the comics, which kinda disrupted the theme but maybe he had relatives in one of the occupied countries).

Blackhawk himself is played pretty well by Kirk Alyn, who also portrayed Superman in the two Columbia serials. Alyn looks great in the Blackhawk uniform, although its chest emblem is unfortunately emblazoned across his stomach for some reason. The actors playing the five regular Blackhawks all look way too much alike to be readily told apart, and their identical Storm Trooper uniforms make things worse. It might have helped to have cast one Blackhawk much taller, one blond and one really beefy, but no such luck.

(On the other hand, I can see why they didn't try to keep the exaggerated accents. On a comic book page, that work okay. On a screen with live actors, a jumble of Swedish and French and Polish and Chinese accents would have been hilarious in a bad way.)

Taken just on its merits as a chapterplay, BLACKHAWK is only fair. The action scenes are uninspired punching matches and the chapter closings don't show much creativity, either. (One I did like showed Stan tied to a stake as a pilotless plane rolled toward him, propellers whirling.) The serial seems to do a lot of treading water and there's not much progress made. It's hard to tell what chapter you're watching. I'm also disappointed again in Carol Forman as Laska, the head of the international spy ring. She didn't show any charisma as the blonde Spider Lady in SUPERMAN four years earlier and she doesn't hold my attention this time either; her unrelieved frown and bilious scowl in this serial get tedious. (Also, it's not particularly cunning to shoot someone dead right in front of the assembled Blackhawks who are about to grab you, no matter what grudge you might be holding.)

It would be unreasonable to expect a Columbia serial at this late date to use a real fighter plane like an old Mustang (although God knows they could have benefitted from getting one so they could splice in some combat footage). Instead, the studio got hold of a plain ol' cargo plane but I can deal with that. I can even see why they wouldn't want to make any real modifications on it if they were just renting it. But seriously, what would it take to paint a few Blackhawk emblems on cotton or plywood and fasten them on the wings or fuselage? Give us something to work with here, fellas.

I have no problem going along with cheesy back projection, no matter how obvious. However, in one scene where the spies are speeding along in their convertible, we see film of the trees and scenery behind them running BACKWARDS. Ow, that hurt my feelings, guys, someone should have caught that.

For someone who has defeated dozens of the best German and Japanese soldiers and pilots, not to mention many spies and criminal masterminds and just plain lunatics, Blackhawk really doesn't seem too sharp, nor do his men. At one point, their plane is taxiing in a meadow with no one at the controls while our boys slug it out with the bad guys. As the spies jump in their car and roar off, Blackhawk piles all of his team into their own car and take off after them... leaving their plane rolling across the field in wide circles, certain to smack into a tree soon. Blackhawk, dude! What would it take to say, "Andre, climb in that plane and follow us!" Some master strategist.

These crimefighters don't carry guns, although they keep a few pistols around their headquarters and don't have any qualms about using guns taken away from their opponents. One of the more realistic aspects of cliffhanger heroes is their practical acceptance of firearms when dealing with armed enemies. Blackhawks in the comics not only wore sidearms, they used Tommy guns as necessary. They were soldiers at war. It's a bit sad that these Blackhawks have to rely on the Mexican State Police as back-up.

Ah, well. I've had great luck so far working my way through cliffhangers. BLACKHAWK joins PANTHER GIRL OF THE KONGO as only the second disappointment.

Dir: Spencer Bennet and Fred F. Sears - 15 Chapters

BUCK ROGERS (1939)

(Oct 7, 2004)

This is actually a pretty enjoyable serial, but it seems doomed to be forever overshadowed by the much superior Flash Gordon trilogy. Universal brought BUCK ROGERS out in 1939, in between their own chapterplays FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS and FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE; it also starred Buster Crabbe (but with his natural dark hair instead of Flash's golden curls) and although it is filled with space ships and weird gadgets, BUCK ROGERS lacks most of the elements that gave the Flash serials their intense emotional draw.

For one thing, there is none of the strong sexual charge that the Flash series had. Instead of nubile Dale Arden and sultry Princess Aura both competing for the hero's attention while the villain openly lusted for the heroine, Buck's epic featured Constance Moore as Col. Wilma Deering. Now, Moore is perfectly fine in her role, but she is after all a soldier in the resistance army and not a fair damsel in distress. She has a nice moment when she wrests a ray gun away from a guard and blasts her way out of her cell, but she and Buck seem to be merely chums on the same side.

Also, although BUCK ROGERS has plenty of futuristic gadgets (rayguns and buzzing spaceships which shoot sparks from their backs, teleportation tubes and invisibility rays), there are no grotesque monsters or nonhuman alien races on view. Prisoners have remarkably goofy metal helmets strapped on which turn them into docile zombies, and there are these homely goons called Zuggs moping around, but that's hardly as fascinating as Lion Men and Clay People and horned apes (that Orangapoid critter).

What's ironic about all this is that the comic strip BUCK ROGERS by Philip Nolan and Richard Calkins started in 1929, was immensely popular for many years and it success inspired the creation of Flash. Yet the Flash strip benefitted from the genius of Alex Raymond, one of the all-time great cartoon artists, and it produced stunning visual images (from the samples of Buck's strip I've seen, it was imaginative enough but pretty crude and drab). This contrast carried over to the serials.

Buck Rogers and his sidekick Buddy Wade (Jackie Moran) are pilots who crash in the Arctic in1938 and survive for 500 years because the 'Nirvano' gas they were carrying put them in a state of suspended animation. They both seem to adapt to waking up in the year 2424 pretty well, where I would think most people would be so traumatized it would take a while to adjust. In this dystopic future, the Earth is ruled by a mega-gangster called Killer Kane (another setback; Anthony Warde would be okay as a crimelord but he just doesn't have the imposing presence to convince me this guy can dominate an entire planet).

Luckily, Buck and Buddy have been found by the small resistance movement hopelessly trying to overthrow Kane from their hidden city. Here is Dr Huer (C. Montague Shaw, who I just saw in the UNDERSEA KINGDOM doing the same gig with his wild inventions) and Wilma Deering leading the good fight. For some reason I missed, everyone immediately puts all their trust in Buck and he pretty much takes over. (Maybe he's just one of those charismatic alpha males or something.) Most of the serial involves desperate trips back and forth to Saturn to enlist the aid of the isolationist Saturnians, and this means running the blockade of Kane's ships. The usual fistfights and explosions and captures and escapes normal for this sort of situation ensue. It's a lot of fun if you take it on its own terms, with a strong linear plot and likeable heroes, but it really never kicks into high gear and seems a bit drab.

It's interesting that some (but not all) of the Saturnians are played by Asian actors. Prince Tallen, who gets caught up in most of the fun, was portrayed by a very young Philson Ahn, and I thought for years this was the same guy who in 1972 impressed us as the head of the Shaolin Temple in TV's KUNG FU (he taught all the styles, really amazing if you think about it). Turns out that was Phiip Ahn, Philson's brother.

Dir: Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind - 12 Chapters

THE CRIMSON GHOST (1946)

(Jan 24, 2002)

This Republic serial is a lot of fun to watch, but somehow it's never been one of my favorites. All the right ingredients are there but it seems like not enough is done with them. The first thing fans remember is (of course) the Crimson Ghost his own self--- one of the coolest- looking masked villains ever to hit the screen. In his hood and robes, skeleton-design gloves and gruesome skull mask, he certainly must have sent a few younger viewers out to the lobby when he first appeared. The Crimson Ghost is not only a mastermind willing to commit murder to obtain the gizmo he craves, he's also a traitor. He intends to sell the death ray Cyclotrode to the highest bidder, even if it's the Soviet Union. In 1946, with the Cold War getting bitter, this marked him as vile indeed.

Yet it's humbling when he fares poorly in hand to hand fights, getting knocked out several times in free-for-alls and getting run down by a dog. I also wondered why the heck he informs everyone he's a member of the academic science council in his real identity. You think that's the last thing he would want his henchmen and adversaries to know.

Linda Stirling is fine as the heroine, leaping out of cars at the last second and looking completely serious as she discusses how to counter the Crimson Ghost. She is also very restful to gaze upon. As the hero, Charles Quigley is energetic and athletic but he makes no lasting impression and seems a bit bland. I haven't watched my copy of DAREDEVILS OF THE RED CIRCLE yet, and maybe that will show him in a better light.

Clayton Moore is almost always very good as a hero or a villain, and here he pretty much carries the thrust of the plot, acting as the Ghost's lieutenant. Moore can handle himself in the action scenes, and he's very convincing as a thug. Check out his wicked leer as the mask is pulled off when he's been impersonating the Crimson Ghost-- that's about as far from the noble Lone Ranger as you can get.

Republic villains all seemed to belong to some sort of underground brotherhood, judging by the gadgets they have access to. Did the Crimson Ghost buy his slave-making control collars from the same firm that supplied similar devices to Dr Satan? Or (more likely) did the Ghost get them on the black market after Dr Satan met his fate? And what about all these wonderful blasters? If you assembled this serial's Cyclotrode, the Sonic Decimator (KING OF THE ROCKETMEN), the Golden Scorpion (CAPTAIN MARVEL) the ray cannon (THE PURPLE MONSTER STRIKES) and the Munitions Disintegrator (SECRET SERVICE IN DARKEST AFRICA), you'd be able to repel an attack by Godzilla!

Dir: William Witney and Fred Bannon - 12 Chapters