Dr Hermes Reviews - CLIFFHANGERS
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FIGHTING DEVIL DOGS (1938)
(Sep 8, 2005)
This serial is probably best remembered for its villain, the Lightning, but first I want to mention other aspects I liked about it. FIGHTING DEVIL DOGS features a pair of Marine lieutenants who work together, but they are not quite equal partners. Lee Powell's Tom Grayson gets more screen time and ends up in the cliffhangers more than Herman Brix's Frank Corby; this is understandable, since it was Grayson's father who was killed at the beginning of the story, he naturally has stronger motivation to capture the Lightning. Powell and Brix had earlier appeared together in THE LONE RANGER (of which I have a copy so poor it's barely watchable) and Brix of course played the Apeman in THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN. So here we have two likeable, competent heroes to carry the action, instead of one vigilante and a sidekick.
Since, as the title implies, the Marines are on the job trying to stop the Lightning, the action scenes have an extra weight to them. A gang of thugs fighting a single masked man with a revolver is one thing, but when a squad of United States Marines is coming at you with rifles ready, that's quite a different position to be in. I like the way Grayson and Corby give intelligent orders to their men and use strategy in the fights; it's not just the simple "I'll tackle these four guys and punch them" approach most serial heroes use. Also, the action is all over the globe, from Lingchuria to San Diego to sinister Gehorda Island; maybe that's just a way to work in stock footage of dirigibles and underwater shark fights and submarines, but it does give the story an impressive scope.
Easily beating out the Crimson Ghost, the Lightning is the most visually impressive super-villain the serials gave us. He's got it all. This fiend wears an all black outfit, complete with big gauntlets and boots, a flowing satin cape and a shiny helmet with a visor and a barbed crest. The Lightning shows some nicely melodramatic gestures, sweeping his cape back and shaking a gloved fist. "The power of electricity can rule the world, professor," he rants to his twisted hunchback associate, "and we control that power!" (Unfortunately, he also has kind of a cartoony nasal voice like an enraged Les Nessman, but no one's perfect.) George Lucas said openly that the Lightning was one of the inspirations for Darth Vader in the Star Wars films (I have to get around to seeing them someday, they're suppose to be pretty good).
As you might expect, the Lightning's secret identity is one of a group of people closely associated with the heroes. So as the weeks go by, the audience gets to look for hints as to which one is the bad guy. (I have never been right so far.) Not only does he have cool threads, the Lightning's impressive weapon is the appropriate Thunderbolt. This is an aerial torpedo that shrieks through the night, giving off sparks and hitting its target to release a flurry of lightning bolts in all directions. Anything caught in its impact area is electrocuted. Scary enough.
Although he prefers to launch his Thunderbolts from the safety of the Flying Wing, the Lightning is not afraid to tackle his enemies in person. In those cases, he uses a small hand weapon (which reminds me of an albuterol inhaler) that shoots jagged animated lightning bolts. As a final touch of class, the villain usually leaves a small lightning-shaped token on his victims. Lt Grayson calls him "a fiend who can menace the entire world with his diabolical machines!" The Lightning is one of the few serial villains who seems like he really could be a global threat.
FIGHTING DEVIL DOGS has a lot of good stuff going for it. Its main drawback is that it uses too much footage from earlier serials; I mean, by the late 1940s, I was hardened to seeing deathtraps and explosions over and over but this was only 1938! There is a gag where a small speedboat tries to get between two huge ships without being crushed and I saw it done in DICK TRACY, replayed in FIGHTING DEVIL DOGS and then restaged by Steven Spielberg in INDIANA JONES AND THE HOLY GRAIL, all of which I recently watched in close succession.
The Wing, a way cool experimental aircraft that looks like, well a giant Wing, first appeared in DICK TRACY (created by the Lydecker brothers) and it comes back in footage here to serve as the Lightning's transportation. I liked seeing it again, but then I find goofy-looking airplanes fascinating in their own right (like Blackhawk's bizarre Grumman XF5F-1 Skyrocket, which originally had the wings and props mounted in front of the cockpit; did that thing ever actually go into
production?).
As if all the stock footage in the action chapters isn't enough, FIGHTING DEVIL DOGS has two recap chapters instead of the usual one. I never minded these, as by the time the eighth chapter or so came around, I had become a bit foggy as to exactly what the villain was up to originally. Also, after the heroes sit down and rehash all their tight spots of the past few weeks, often they would suddenly see the light and rush off in the right direction at last to start making some progress. It's like the chapter in a mystery where the detective snaps his fingers and goes, "Of course, how could I have been so blind?! There's not a minute to lose!"
Dir: William Witney, John English - 12 Chapters
FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE (1940)
(May 17, 2005)
Here we go again! An unexplained plague called the Purple Death is sweeping the Earth. People drop in their tracks with only a small purple mark on their foreheads to show what has killed them. As the death toll mounts rapidly, mass hysteria and panic break out. Luckily for all of us, Dr Hans Zarkov promptly fires up his rocketship and does some quick investigation in the stratosphere. It's his belief that some outside agency is behind the Purple Death and (I knew it!) Zarkov is correct again. A bullet-shaped ship from the rogue planet Mongo is dropping suspicious dust down on our world, infesting us with the Purple Death.
Along with Zarkov is his friend, the most famous hero of his generation (in the serials, anyway), the blond polo player who has twice before saved the planet Earth from destruction, none other than Flash Gordon himself. Along with Dale Arden (still haven't settled down and married her, eh Flash?), the two comrades drive off the alien ship, stopping the spread of the Purple Death for the moment. Then they stomp down on the accelerator and head for Mongo to straighten things out once more. We're rushing into FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE, the final of the three Universal serials featuring Alex Raymond's classic heroes and villains.
Arriving back on Mongo almost immediately (there are no shots of the ship hurtling toward its destination or references to how long it takes), the Earth heroes head straight for Arboria to see if good old Prince Barin can help. Picture Ruritania if Robin Hood had taken the throne and you've got Arboria. Also meeting with Prince Barin is Queen Fria of Frigia, who immediately gets on Dale's nerves by smiling a bit too much as the blond Earthman. It seems the tyrant Ming is still alive and more of a downer than ever. That session in the disintegration chamber at the end of the previous serial didn't seem to take and he got better. ('Ha ha', he must have thought - 'the fools don't know about my RE-integration ray!')
Ming has a whacko captive scientist coming up with a refinement on the Purple Death dust, one that only works on people with enough intelligence and character enough to think for themselves, leaving him docile brain-dead subjects (explains a lot about the last few years here, if you ask me). So after that, it's the usual shenanigans of chases and brawls captures, rayguns and deathtraps and spaceships for the next eleven chapters.
You know, those rocketships are hard to figure out. They take off and land from a horizontal position, but there are no runners or anything on them. (You might expect their undersides to be gouged up from dragging along the rocky ground.) They seem to lift up just a bit off the ground and move forward (with extravagant sparks and smoke from the exhaust) and then upward. [Scratches head]. Well, I would guess that Mongo and Zarkov have got some kind of anti-gravity that makes their ships nearly weightless. Maybe some alloy of cavorite. The rocket-tubes are just for releasing waste energy of some sort, they sure don't provide enough acceleration to reach escape velocity --- as Zarkov's ship takes off, either Dale or Flash is usually standing up in the cabin, not holding onto anything much less than being strapped in. And there's no apparent means of steering these ships, either, so I can't imagine how they perform these graceful loops and turns. As for the Norelco electric razor noise they make...! It must be a technology far in advance of any shaving device we have today.
Carol Hughes is fine taking over as Dale Arden. Maybe not as openly succulent as the under-dressed teenaged Jean Rogers in the first serial, but just as appealing. She grows on you the more you watch her. I love the dirty glares she keeps throwing at Queen Fria when that monarch expresses interest in Flash. Hughes' Dale is not one to put up with any nonsense graciously; when the Queen at one point pushes her brusquely, the Earth girl immediately slaps her hard and is ready for a real catfight (fingers already curled to scratch) until they are pulled apart.
Zarkov describes Dale as "a chemist, a radio operator and one of my most valuable assistants"... well, I guess that explains how Dale has been earning her keep since she first got caught up with these two wild and crazy guys four years earlier. A big ingredient in this series is all the lust boiling between the different characters, and it's interesting that Flash is as much the object of intense lust as Dale from the Mongoloids...err, Mongolians, no that's not right...Mongolites?
As serials go, this one has gorgeous visuals, with opulent sets that an actual 'B' picture of that year would be glad to get. The costumes are also spectacular, what with all the military uniforms and gowns. Flash seems to change clothes every chapter, ostensibly to be appropriate for the locale he's in or to infiltrate the enemy, but even so... We know he's straight, but he sure runs around in some flamboyant outfits. I could put up a page with screen captures of our hero in six or seven marvelous rigs from this serial alone; he's not called "Flash" for nothing. In addition to the usual reliance on classical music from the library, FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE also uses the great scores written for BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and SON OF FRANKENSTEIN that really set an epic mood.
Although this serial looks terrific, I was a little disappointed by its relative lack of energy. It definitely runs at a lower creative level than the first two. There are none of the bizarre bipedal Dragons or horned gorillas or winged Hawkmen. Okay, we do meet some odd-looking mechanical Annihilatons, who are literally Walking Bombs, but I want much more weirdness in my Flash Gordon fix than that. Rock Men are just lesser retreads of the Clay People and those lizards pretending they're gigantic don't fool anyone.
On the other hand, the early chapters where the Earth heroes venture into Frigia (worse than Lake Woebegon in February!) uses a lot of footage from an earlier Universal movie, WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU. These scenes are pretty impressive, full of snowstorms and avalanches, and they make up for some of the slack chapter endings we see later.
Buster Crabbe plays Flash as he always does, with a dazzling smile and complete conviction. Frank Shannon as Zarkov is his usual cool self, very much the under-rated real hero of this trilogy. For an older guy lacking Flash's athletic prowess to fall back on, Zarkov stands up defiantly to Ming every time. As Emperor Ming, Charles Middleton doesn't put quite as much zest in his evil cackling or wild gestures as before; Ming seems to have passed through his Fu Manchu phase as a quasi-Asian warlord and now dresses like a military dictator, complete with some goofy plumed helmets. I don't know, maybe he's been observing Earth through his televisors and is attracted to some of the European leaders' regalia.
Dir: Ford Beebe and Ray Taylor - 12 Chapters
FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS (1938)
(March 25, 2003)
Okay, I have to confess that when I saw the Flash Gordon serials on TV as a kid, I was less than taken with them. They seemed hokey and old fashioned. But I was a little too old to enjoy them with the hypercharged imagination of childhood, and was very jaded. (Toy rockets on strings? You call that special effects?) Now, all these long years later, I can look at them again and see them, as it were, for the first time.
FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS is terrific. It has an epic feel that compares favorably to many bigger budget B pictures, and for a serial, that's quite an achievement. The elaborate sets and flashy costumes are enjoyable for their own sake, but the story is just as much fun. While I love the Republic serials for their masterful stuntwork and special effects (as well as characters like Rocketman and Captain Marvel), they often had a tug of war feeling as the heroes and villains chased each other back and forth, without any real progress until the big showdown. The Flash Gordon chapterplays, on the other hand, had an actual coherent plot. Events have consequences, and the result feels much more compelling.
This serial gets off to a great start with Flash, Dale and Zarkov returning triumphantly to Earth from Mongo. They get ticker tape parades as headlines praise them, and the three are worldwide celebrities. (Considering the three of them were known to have literally saved all life on Earth, you wonder if they were granted a Nobel Peace Prize or other reward.) Asked to give a speech about the likelihood of our own little planet being invading from outer space, Zarkov says "You bet", little dreaming that even as he speaks, two bigheaded aliens are being teleported to Earth to open the way. As the dramatic Franz Waxman march music from BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN sounds, we see Ming and Queen Azura watching the scene. Yes, Ming has joined forces with the witch queen of Mars in another attempt to conquer the Universe, and a new Flash Gordon adventure is underway.
Soon, worldwide disasters are threatening civilization. Some strange ray is draining the "nitron" from the Earth's atmosphere. As quick as Zarkov can fill the gas tank on his rocketship, he's ready to take off and trace the beam to its source. Of COURSE Flash is going with him without even having to be asked, and Dale volunteers promptly as well. Soon, our Earthfolk are right in the thick of things, ruining Ming's warplan and trying to abduct Queen Azura, negotiating with the creepy subterranean Clay People, falling into one deathtrap after another, meeting with Prince Barin and generally giving the audience a good time.
Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon and Charles Middleton as Ming the Merciless are perfectly matched opposites... the young, dashing, All-American jock and the older, cunning, alien tyrant. They're almost living yin/yang, and the way both Crabbe and Middleton play their roles with complete conviction gives their scenes together a real feeling of conflict.
Dale Arden, well...okay, she had long blonde hair back in the first FLASH GORDON serial, and here she steps out of the returning rocketship with short dark hair. All I can guess is that it was a lengthy flight home, and at some point Dale trimmed her curls and washed the peroxide out as her roots grew back in. Jean Rogers is still a heartbreaker, but dressed a bit more demurely than in her first appearance. Some of the erotic undertones of the first serial are missing here, too, as she doesn't have the overheated Princess Aura (with her apalling eyebrows and heaving breasts) to contend with as a rival for Flash. Queen Azura, despite her magical powers, is rather bland and unexciting. The way Ming treats her toward the end reinforces just how vile and devious the Imperial one really is.
As for the dated special effects, I've suddenly come to find them charming. God knows why, but compared to the elaborate, expensive CGI images that fill every movie with spectacular images in a tangling incoherent pile, somehow I've come to appreciate the cheesy old toys on strings and drawn-in light beams. I'm glad I dusted off the old cassette and gave it a shot.
Dir: Ford Beebe and Robert Hill - 15 Chapters
FLYING DISC MAN FROM MARS (1950)
(Oct 27, 2002)
This is a pretty weak entry, straggling late in the day for cliffhangers. Is it just my imagination or does this serial contain almost no new footage? There are so many lengthy clips from half a dozen earlier Republic cliffhangers that FLYING DISC MAN seems like one of those cheater TV episodes where the characters sit around and reminisce over past highlights. After the final credits, I was left with the nagging feeling that nothing had happened and the whole adventure had been a prolonged case of deja vu.
Anyway, Mars is gearing up for another attempt to take over the Earth through a handful of hired human gunmen. A Martian emissary named Mota (spelled backwards, it's.... oh never mind) arrives in a forced landing and immediately contracts the dubious Earth scientist who shot his ship down to help him begin his conquest. The Martians are worried that our new H bomb technology will blow up the Earth, disrupting the rest of the Solar System as well. Only a brave young aviator stands in the way of Mota's campaign of blowing up vital installations and so forth.
Now, I understand that by 1951 Republic had cut their budgets to almost nothing and that big chunks of stock footage had to be used. At the time, this probably wasn't that noticeable to audiences. After all, kids were seeing these chapters only once in a theatre, and the footage reprised had been by them (if at all) a few years earlier. So only a few of the veteran serial fans probably got the feeling of "hey, wait a minute..."
Today, when we can study these serials at home on tape or DVDs at our leisure, we're really not giving them a fair break. They weren't designed to be scrutinized in slow motion or played in close sequence ---- they were meant to seen once at a Saturday matinee before the main feature and this is one reason why they could get away with fudging their solutions to the previous week's deathtraps.
So let's see. We have the flying disc crash from THE PURPLE MONSTER STRIKES. We have the scenes of the cool looking flying disc in action from KING OF THE MOUNTIES (where it was originally Japanese secret weapon, explaining the Rising Sun tail emblem). And there`s also clips from G-MEN VS THE BLACK DRAGON and SECRET SERVICE IN DARKEST AFRICA to provide car chases and plane crashes. To be honest, I think they might as well have thrown in the robot from THE MYSTERIOUS DR SATAN as well, and made this sort of a "Republic's Greatest Hits" serial. What the heck, maybe in the last chapter, Walter Reed as the hero could have unpacked the old Commando Cody rocketsuit as well and taken flight for a big finale.
The serial is not very creative or exciting, but it's not hopelessly dreadful either. If you haven't seen the earlier epics that the footage was cribbed from, you might find it more entertaining. Still, Gregory Gay as the villain is nowhere near being in the same league as the menacing Roy Barcroft, and Walter Reed is bland as the hero. James Craven essentially repeats his role from THE PURPLE MONSTER (you'd think he'd have learned to keep away from these Martians with the scaly outfits). This is the most disappointing serial I've seen recently, although I'm sure there are many more out there that will make this look like a classic.
Dir: Fred Bannon - 12 Chapters