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, Fearless Champion of Justice, tracks underworld leader Tarnack to a daring gold robbery on the open sea. He and his faithful friends go to thwart the crime when disaster strikes!”

CHAPTER 13: THE ELECTRIC ROOM

Tossing the gun aside in disgust, Tarnack orders his men to attack Doc. Everybody engages in a massive fist fight. Spotting an open cargo hold, Tarnack plays dirty and trips Doc into falling down it. Doc lands on top of a tiger cage, knocking it over and freeing the deadly jungle cat that was locked inside. Doc sits up and shakes his head to clear it. Startled by the low growl he hears, he turns in time to see the large predator jump on him.

Doc tenses himself for the animal’s attack and catches him as he lands. Doc furiously fights for his life against the much larger animal. Using ordinary wrestling holds he eventually manages to force the cat back into its cage and secure the door. A cargo net drops into the hold in front of him and he hears Monk tell him to hold on, they’ll get him out.

Grabbing onto the cargo net, Doc is pulled out of the hold. Ham tells him that Tarnack and his men used the diversion of throwing Doc into the hold to escape in their boat. Climbing back up the ropes to Doc’s gyrocopter, they head off in pursuit, but the villains have had too much lead time. The find the boat abandoned at the city docks, but Tarnack and the gold are gone.

Returning to his penthouse, Doc takes up his plan to track down Tarnack that was interrupted by the earlier assassination attempt as if nothing had happened. All of Doc’s inventions are powered by his newly discovered element Doc calls Polorarium, it is only found in the Artic Circle. The element gives off a very faint but distinctive radioactive signature. Doc sends out the Fab Five and Pat with newly cobbled together detectors and radios. They will take different sections of the city and report to Doc via radio their findings. Doc will then use their readings to triangulate Tarnack’s main headquarters.

Doc is not too surprised when he discovers that Tarnack’s main headquarters is the mansion of Herman Banker, where he had originally held the Fab Five prisoners at the start of the adventure. Doc muses at the cleverness of Tarnack, returning to a hideout that had already been discovered and abandoned, because no one would think of looking for him there.

Doc and his men prepare for action and don’t put up a fight when Pat says she is going along. Learning from past mistakes, Doc does not try to get in via the back door, but he and his men get in through a basement window. Creeping silently down a dimly lit corridor, they come to a large room where Tarnack is sitting behind a desk detailing a new crime to his men.

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.

“Tarnack is leaving Natalia behind! Has she served her usefulness? And what is he doing back in the Arctic Circle? Find out in ARCTIC PURSUIT, the next pulse pounding episode of DOC SAVAGE! At this theater next week!”

Tags: Fiction //