Halloween Alternatives: Part Three
Dick Tracy (1937) Chap 12–I know, I know, what am I doing suggesting a recap chapter for Halloween viewing. Mainly because the recap shows all of the spookiest scenes from Chapter One when a mad scientist turns the hero’s brother into a sociopathic killer and ends with the good guys hearing the slow steady approach of the mystery villain right before the lights go out and hero Byrd is shot.
Gang Busters (1942) Chap 12–A standard cops and robbers plot enlivened by the addition of all of the villain’s henchmen being reanimated dead men. This chapter has a truly shocker of an ending when the hero is captured and the villain turns him into one of his reanimated dead men.
The Crimson Ghost (1946) Chap 4–The last great mystery villain serial by Republic. This episode features a drugged man used as a decoy so that henchman Moore can swipe some heavy water from the hero, Quigley. When Quigley chases him into the basement of an abandoned
building it turns out to be a trap. The villain taunts Quigley through a mounted skull with glowing eyes before the room is filled with poison gas.
Mysterious Mr. M (1946) Chap 8–Universal’s final serial is a slam bang affair with some of the best action they ever put on screen. This episode features an assassination attempt with a dart gun hidden in a cigarette lighter, and the hero’s side kick, who is under the villain’s control due to his hypnotic drug, gunning down the hero when he tries to prevent a kidnapping.
Mysterious Doctor Satan (1940) Chap 5–After the title character shows off his robot by having it kill a double crossing henchman, immediately followed by one of villain Cianelli best sinister speeches, the masked hero tracks him down, where he ends up facing the mechanical monstrosity and getting crushed against a post.
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