Todd’s Serial Blog

With the huge success of The Dark Knight (2008) a topic has come up on the message boards about how Batman (1943) should have had The Joker as the main villain instead of a war time spy and wondering why he wasn’t used.  Some have speculated that Columbia didn’t want to pay extra for a villainous character.  I’m not sure I buy that idea, I think when you option a property you option all of the characters that are owned by the copyright holder on that particular property.  Other comic book and strip characters fought their old nemesis’, Don Winslow faced The Scorpion, Spy Smasher fought The Mask, Superman battled Lex Luthor and Captain Silver was at odds against The Admiral.  Some have speculated that the screenwriters just wanted to come up with original villains like Dr. Daka and The Wizard.  Personally I think that the writers took a look at Batman’s rouge gallery and felt like they just couldn’t work with these characters, a homicidal maniac made up like a clown (The Joker’s mad killer personae didn’t morph into a master criminal who pulled robberies based on peculiar themes until after the war), a disfigured DA who uses a coin to decide whether to commit a crime or not, a fat gangster in a  tuxedo who has a tricked up umbrella that shoots bullets, and a cat burglar who literally dresses like a cat.  Bad enough that the hero goes around dressed like a bat, but to include one of the weird villains from the comics might have just been too much and they went with the old stand by of an Axis spy for the first serial and a standard mystery villain in a cloak for the second one.  I admit I would have loved to have seen Batman face off against The Joker in his first serial, maybe even played by Charles Middleton (his trademarked “Heh!” would been perfect for the character), but I just have doubts that it could have worked given the time period in which the serial was made.

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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, Fearless Champion of Justice is hot on the trail of criminal mastermind Tarnack! Having tracked Tarnakc to his lair, Doc and his Fabulous five seem to have the upper hand when Tarnack turns the tables!”

CHAPTER 14: ARTIC PURSUIT

They are all startled by the appearance of Doc and the Fab Five. Tarnack yells at his men to get them. A fight breaks out while Tarnack stays behind his desk watching with a mounting combination of fear and frustration. His men are all defeated and Tarnack turns tail and runs away. Doc and his men quickly chase after Tarnack.

They see him go through a door and pile through after him, only to discover that they are in an empty room with a locked door on the other side. The door they came in through slams shut and locks itself. Tarnack’s voice comes through a loud speaker, triumphantly sneering that Doc has made his last, fatal attempt to try and stop him, there is no escape from this room, and he wishes them a pleasant death. The sound of huge generators starting up come to them as two wall panels open, one on either side of them, revealing control panels covered with large metal coils. Suddenly massive arcs of electricity aimed at the trapped heroes start shooting back and forth between the panels.

Long Tom recognizes the configuration of the panels. Snapping off the antennae of his radio, he jams it into one the panels, forcing the next spark to travel up the metal antennae in specific trajectory at the other panel, hitting a specific spot causing an overload that shorts out the electricity in the entire house. The door to the room was locked electronically and now swings open letting them out.

Tarnack, realizing he has been outsmarted again, grimaces in frustration and orders his men to retreat out of their secret exit. Natalia trips and twists her ankle. Unable to walk on her own, Tarnack decides to leave her behind, saying that’s what she gets for being clumsy. Doc and his men find Natalia, but Tarnack and his henchmen are long gone.

Doc wraps Natalia’s ankle then takes her back to his penthouse. Pat and Natalia have a heart to heart talk along the way and by the time they get back to the penthouse Natalia apologizes for all the things she has done and now wants to help. The Fab Five all scoff at her sudden turn around, Monk and Ham are especially vocal in their protests, citing the gassing they got when they first met her. Doc is more than willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and accepts her offer of friendship.

Natalia tells Doc that Tarnack is planning to loot the Fortress of Solitude again, only this time he is going to destroy it after he has gotten everything he can out of it. Doc gets everyone to his private plane and they fly to the artic, where they again stop at Tuka’s village. He tells his friends that Tarnack is only a day ahead of them and lends Doc many warriors to help him.

Farther up the trail, Tarnack comes to a narrow pass that can only be crossed one at a time. Knowing Doc is behind him and will probably be at the head of his party, he has his men set up a spiked bear trap to drop on the first person to go through the pass.

Doc and his party come to the narrow pass. Doc stops and looks about him, sensing something is wrong, but can see nothing out of the ordinary. Telling everyone to stay back, Doc proceeds through the pass. He trips a cord strung low across the pass, triggering the trap, which drops down on him.

“Tarnack is in the Fortress of Solitude! Will he be able to loot and then destroy this famed bastion of science? Find out in JUSTICE TRIUMPHANT! The Fifteenth and Final Chapter of Doc Savage, at this theater next week!”

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For quite a while I have been buying commercially available serials through my local Borders store.  It was quick and easy.  I simply order the title I wanted on their store computer and when the DVD arrived at the store I paid for it.  No fuss, no muss.  So of course that kind of business model is just completely unworkable and has to be fixed.  Now you don’t order it and then pay for it when it arrives.  Now you have to actually buy it first with a credit card (which I don’t have anymore and is a long and painful story about why that is that I’m not going to go into) and then you have the option of either getting it shipped to your home for an added charge or picking it up at the store.  So if I want to buy a serial through Borders I have to first buy a gift card (which you can only use once as they don’t reload), buy the serial, wait for it to arrive, and then take it home where I have to cut it out of it’s ultra secure packaging.  I’m not sure if this is a case of biting the hand that feeds you or being told that they don’t want your business.  Whichever it is, I’m sure they feel that the executives who made the change feel that they have streamlined the process and increased revenue.

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