Todd’s Serial Blog

I’ve been watching a lot of jungle serials lately, I’ll give you one guess what April’s serial genre will be, and I am just amazed at how little attention has been paid to Robinson Crusoe of Clipper Island (1936).  Yes, I know it is not a great serial, many would even argue that it’s not really a good one either, but considering that all jungle serials from The Lost City (1935) to Panther Girl of the Kongo (1955) has a condescending imperialistic attitude that the natives can’t accomplish anything on their own, are easily fooled by unscrupulous villains and can only be saved by the intervention of a good white man or woman.  Yet here is this little serial where the hero is a Polynesian secret agent investigating sabotage on a South Sea island. Why is this film not mentioned in film history books? Heck even books on serials give it a passing mention at best. Why is that?  I would think that a mainstream film from 1936 that has a minority in the lead would get praised endlessly, but outside of serial fans most film fans and critics have probably never heard of it.

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One of my more geekier favorite things to do while watching a movie, is to spot actors who had appeared in serials.  One of my favorites is The Big Sleep (1946).  It is chock full of actors who were either stars in serials or regular players.  A brief list includes Tom Fadden and Ben Welden as a pair of mismatched thugs, Forbes Murray as a customer of illicit material,  Emmett Vogan as a patrolman, James Crehan as a medical examiner, Trevor Bardette as a garage owner and James Flaven as a police official (his scenes were deleted from the original version and have been restored on DVD). Of course the two big appearances are from Regis Toomey as DA investigator Bernie Ohls and Bob Steele as hired gunman Lash Canino.  I’m sure others have a favorite film full of sserial stars.  What’s yours?

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Here is a topic I have not seen on the message boards yet.  Just how is the economy affecting serial collecting?  Personally I’ve slowed down, though I still buy DVD’s I don’t buy as many as I used to or as often.  Most of the sites I usually visit don’t talk about whether or not people are cutting back.  But I have noticed one site that may be a harbringer of things to come in the fan community. Classic Cliffhanger Serials.com, a site that sold public domain titles on DVD for about ten dollars per title, and even less if you didn’t want to get their custome made DVD covers.  Their store clsed on the site a few months back and has yet to reopen.  There is also no mention on the site as to why it closed or if it is ever opening again.  The last time the site was updated was in August. If you go to Borders.com and try to order a DVD put out by Cheezy Flicks, they are out of stock and can be back ordered if you don’t mind waiting eight weeks, and has been that way since December. I have no idea what the state of the Serial Squadron or Down Under DVD’s sales are like but if what I’ve seen on other sites is any indication, they could also be experiencing difficult times due to the recesion.

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