Todd’s Serial Blog

DOC SAVAGE: A COLUMBIA SERIAL IN 15 CHAPTERS

Producer: Larry Darmour
Director: James W. Horne
Photography: James S. Brown, Jr.
Script: Basil Dickey
George H. Plympton
Wyndham Gittens
Music: Lee Zahler

Cast:

Doc Savage: Larry “Buster” Crabbe
Pat Savage: Iris Meredith
Tarnack: James Craven
Natalia: Veda Ann Borg
Renny: Roy Barcroft
Ham: Tristram Coffin
Monk: Charles King
Long Tom: Guy Wilkerson
Johnny: William Bakewell
Brown: Ray Teal
Taylor: Al Ferguson
Butch: Jack Ingram
Karl: George Magrill
Wheeler: Dick Botiller
Meeks: Kit Guard
Lyle: Lester Dorr
DA Warwick: Forbes Murray
Inspector Nolan: Robert Fiske
Judge Watkins: Selmer Jackson
Tuka: Al Kikume
Narrator: Knox Manning

Recap: “Doc Savage, the fearless Champion of Justice tracks down criminal mastermind Tarnack’s hideout but discovers that he is already on his way to Doc’s Fortress of Solitude. Doc and his loyal companions head out in pursuit.”

CHAPTER 4: RACE FOR THE NORTH POLE

Doc travels to the South Pole where he enters a large cavernous cave. While feeling around the wall for a hidden button, Tarnack and his henchmen sneak up on him. Tarnack congratulates the startled Doc on leading them to his Fortress. Doc laughs and says he knew it was a trick all along, and that this isn’t the Fortress. The Fab Five come up behind the men and another fight breaks out. Tarnack tosses a gas bomb into the midst of the fighting.

He and his men escape. Tarnack spots a precariously perched snow cap on the mountain above them. He fires a flare gun into it causing a massive avalanche that buries Doc and the Fab Five in the cave. Surveying the piled up ice and rock, Tarnack smirks and says, “Let’s see his fancy gadgets get him out of that!”

Doc comes to and uses a miniature flare from his vest to light the dank interior of the cave. It’s flickering flame tells him that there is little air in the sealed cave. He revives his friends and they begin to try and dig themselves out before they run out of air. It doesn’t look like they are going to make it when suddenly a hole appears in the wall and Pat’s head pokes into the cave.

Doc, clearly surprised, asks her how she got there. Pat tells him she wasn’t fooled by his robot controlled plane and had simply hired someone to follow it while she followed them. She has a group of natives with her that she has hired for the trek and they help dig Doc and the Fab Five out of the cave. After thanks are given they all head back to New York to plan their next move.

Back in the Big Apple, Ham and Monk spot Taylor and Brown buying cold weather supplies and follow them. They are spotted and a fight breaks out. Ham and Monk manage to fight their way free and head for Doc’s penthouse. Doc realizes that he has outsmarted himself, by heading for the South Pole he has inadvertently shown Tarnack that his Fortress of Solitude is at the North Pole.

He and his men immediately prepare to head out to Doc’s Fortress and try to get there ahead of Tarnack. Pat says she is going too. Doc readily agrees for once and then promptly locks her in a closet, saying he’ll have the building’s super let her out later.

.Tarnack and his men head for the North Pole. Natalia asks how they are going to find the Fortress. Tarnack says he has had some aerial photos taken of the North Pole and has been able to pin point it’s exact location. Wheeler notices that there is a large party coming up behind them. Tarnack realizes Doc has survived being buried alive and is coming after them, he curses the other man’s uncanny luck. Spotting an Eskimo village, Tarnack gets an idea and has his men hide in the rocks above the village.

Doc and his men come to the village and prepare to greet the villagers. Meanwhile Tarnack has Butch and Karl sneak in around the side and plant a bomb on the village’s sacred idol. After Doc and the Fab Five pass the idol it explodes. Tuka, chief of the tribe, immediately comes to the erroneous conclusion that Doc has done the sacrilege and orders his men to attack. Doc and his friends take cover behind some rocks and use their non lethal dart guns to defend themselves, but the Eskimos converge on them and bind the heroes. They are marched to a smoking pit where Tuka prepares to push them in to their death to appease the wraith of their god.

“Is no one left to stop Tarnack and his evil quest for the Fortress of Solitude? What will be the fate of the world if he succeeds? For the incredible answers you can’t afford to miss THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE! The Fifth Smashing episode of DOC SAVAGE at this theater next week!”

Tags: Fiction //