Todd’s Serial Blog

With the exception of Zorro and Dick Tracy, Republic studios didn’t have a prolific history of adapting serials from other media. Oh sure they had a hand full of comic book superhero adaptations, and the Fu Manchu serial, but those are a drop in the bucket compared to the number made by Universal and Columbia. A character they never adapted, but probably wanted to was Tarzan, but his rights were sewed up by MGM and independant producer Sol Lesser, and he would have been too expensive anyway. But Edgar Rice Burroughs had started a small cottage industry in jungle supermen, and William L. Chester created a minor rival in Kioga, which Republic adapted in 1938.

Scientist Lincoln Rand (Lane Chandler) sets off on a scientific expedition in 1913 to find an uncharted island in the northern hemisphere. He brings his wife and infant son with him. As they approach the island, a hurricane hits and sinks the ship. Lincoln manages to write a note to his good friend Dr. Munro (Tom Chatterton) with a location of the island and seal it in a bottle before he and his wife are killed when the mast collapses on them. Faithful servent Mokuyi (Noble Johnson) grabs the infant son and along with Lincoln’s dog Tawnee (Tuffy) manages to swim ashore to the island.

Twenty-five years later smuggler Solerno (William Royal) is running from the coast guard. After crashing his boat he and his men hide in a cave, where they discover the bottle has washed ashore. Reading the note they get excited about a mention of treasure. Tracking down Munro, Solerno says he found the bottle while fishing. Munro is reluctant to get together an expedition, feeling he is too old for any more globetrotting. He changes his mind when wealthy dilettante Allen Kendall (George Eldridge) volunteers his ship, and Solerno volunteers his crew. Plans are made to begin the excursion.

On the island, Lincoln Rand, Jr. is now called Kioga (Herman Brix) by the Indian tribe that inhabits the island. Though he was raised there for many years, he now lives as an outcast with Mokuyi because he attacked tribal shaman Yellow Weasel (Monte Blue) when he beat Kias (Mala). Now the tribal warriors periodically search for Kioga’s hidden cave in the cliffs, Yellow Weasel having proclaimed that Kioga must be sacraficed to the volcano god Gunebo for his sacrilege in defying the shaman. Matters aren’t helped by the fact that the volcano seems poised to erupt at any moment.

One day while fishing Kioga discovers an old wreck on the beach that contains a treasure chest full of gold bars and jewels. Kioga is all for leaving it there, but Mokuyi says he will need it for when he returns to the land of his father. They take the chest and bury it in the base of a dead tree.

Munro’s expedition arrives. He goes ashore with Kendall, Prof. William Williams AKA Bill Bill (Patrick J. Kelly), Munro’s daughter Beth (Jill Martin), family servent George (Fred “Snowflake” Toones) and the ship’s captain. Kioga sees them ,and intrigued by Beth, he follows them at a distance. Kendall spots movement in the bushes and fires at it, wounding Tawnee and earning Kioga’s ever lasting anger.

Solerno and his crew also come ashore and accost the party, demanding to know what their share of the treasure will be. Munro, realizing there has been a misunderstanding explains that the treasure Lincoln Rand had mentioned was of a scientific nature, new fauna and animals to be cataloged. Solerno is ready to believe Munro, but then one of his men finds a bar of gold Kioga dropped when moving the chest and shows it to Solerno. Thinking he’s being cheated, Solerno whips out a gun and shoots the captain dead. He says the rest of the party can come back to the ship when they have the treasure and then leaves them stranded on the island.

Kioga takes Tawnee back to his cave where he fixes the minor flesh wound and tells Mokuyi what he saw happen. Later they hear drums from the village saying that Yellow Weasel has decreed the white invaders must be killed. Mokuyi tells Kioga he must go help them, but he is still understandably ticked off about Tawnee being shot. Eventually the thought of Beth being scalped by Yellow Weasel moves Kioga into action and he heads for the barricade Munro’s party has set up.

It is at this time that the unstable volcano has started a small earthquake which threatens to drop part of the mountain on Munro and his friends. They try to head for the beach and relative safety, but Yellow Weasel and his warriors attack, trapping them. Yellow Weasel breaks through the barrior and prepares to scalp Beth. Kioga swings down from a tree and cracks one on his mortal enemy’s jaw, sending the shaman tumbling into the barrior and stunning him. Before Kioga can get Beth away, the side of the mountain collapses and drops on them, burying them under tons of rock and dirt…..

Filmed on location at Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Mountains, this is by far the most visually beautiful serial ever filmed.  People who don’t like serials can enjoy this one just for the scenery alone.  William Witney’s autobiography, In a Door…, talks about the problems he had trying trying to capture the beauty of the surroundings while not cutting off his actor’s faces above chin level.  His hard work was well worth the effort by what is seen on the screen.

Since the plot is taken from a book, the storyline is a more linear than Republic’s usual episodic serials, though it does have one jarring plot twist that comes out of nowhere in the final episodes.  Everything is going along with the usual jungle style plotting, fighting off natives, fighting off pirates, a back and forth struggle over buried treasure, trying to get rescued, and then Boom!, Chapter Eleven introduces a masked killer to the plot as people get stalked and stabbed while crossing through a series of cave tunnels.  Of course everyone knows who the killer is, so the unmasking is a bit anitclimatic, but the final showdown on a cliff top is a great nerve racking bit of exciting suspense.

The action is all top notch with lots of fist fights and shoot outs between parties.  Bullets vs. arrows is always an interesting sight as ancient technology is shown to be just as deadly and effiecient as modern weapons. There is even a discussion about it between two of the heroes as they each boast on the accuracy of their chosen weapon. Best of all is the tree swinging stunts performed.  No vine swinging for this moccasin wearing Tarzan clone, Kioga has his own rope outfitted with a handy dandy clasp that can hook onto a tree branch and be detached with his patented Kioga wrist twist.

Having the natives be a lost Indian tribe is a nice change of pace from standard jungle serials as well.  It gives the serial a bit of Western movie flavor with tom tom drums mixed into the serials musical score, making it stand out from other jungle and lost island serials of the time.  It is also perfectly logically explained, the island is in the far North, though has a temporate climate thanks to the volcano, and all of the natives speak a language similar to Eskimos, allowing for translation.  The only thing it doesn’t explain is where all of the tigers that menace the hero from time to time come from.  It also doesn’t explain how amazingly spry the dog Tawnee is, being over twenty-five years old.

This is a large cast so I’m not going to go over every performance.  Herman Brix, an old hand at playing jungle heroes, being a former Tarzan and all, plays Kioga with a keen mix of intelligence and naive innocence.  It helps that he physically looks like he could strangle a tiger with one hand.  Jill Martin’s not so good, but it could just be that her headstrong character is constantly leaving the safety of camp for unneccesary reasons, getting captured and having to be rescued.

William Royal gives a dynamite performance as the oily criminal Solero.  He is a viscious, mean and cruel villan who thinks nothing of gunning down a man just to make a point.  It is sometimes hard to believe this is the same man who portrayed the dynamic and suave hero Sir Nayland Smith two years later in the Fu Manchu serial.  Monte Blue gives a bravura performance as the power hungry shaman Yellow Weasel, full of menace and religious ferver, made all the more amazing as he does it entirely through pantomime, his chracter doesn’t speak English.

The best performance by far is from George Eldridge as the argumentative Kendall, though a hero who does heroic things, he is not above leaving Kioga to his fate at times and exhibits a nasty racist streak.  When the party is captured in Chapter Two and the Indians are intrigued by George’s dark skin tone, Kendall threatens to turn their skin just as dark if they aren’t let go.   But his true colors come out toward the end when there is a chance at escape, but there are too many people in the party.  Kendall wants to leave Kioga, Mokuyi, and Kias behind, snaping out, “I’m not risking my life for two dirty Indians and an immitation white man!” No surprise what happens to his character before the final reel.

Then we come to the good and the bad.  The good is Noble Johnson’s performance as Mokuyi.  He gives a nice restrained performance full of quiet dignity and strength of character.  Not so George Toones, who is saddled with a cliched scaredy cat servent role, full eye bugging and stuttering deliveries.  There is not one embarassing stereotyped bit of slapstick over looked as he is given ample screen time to be the butt of every mean spirited demeaning joke the writers can think of.  I know that was just the way it was in the thirties , but this serial goes over board with him constantly falling into water and mud when he’s not gibbering in fear over some animal sound from off in the distance.  The only saving grace is his interaction with Patrick J. Kelly’s absent minded professor.  His exasperated sigh everytime Kelly pulls him away from doing his own work to help the man catch grasshoppers or pick rare flowers is far funnier than any scene of him of him pointing his gun at an unseen noise with the barrel shaking all over the place.

Tags: Reviews //