So remember last month with I complained about how I had pre-ordered Cheezy Flicks’ The Monster and the Ape but its release had been pushed back to the end of June? Well guess what! The release date is pushed back again, this time to July 27th. i am begining to wonder if this DVD is ever going to get released.
I’m very excited about this. My Superman serial reviews were the basis for a new article on the serials as part of Matinee at the Bijou’s Superman celebration. You can check it out at…
www.matineeatthebijou.blogspot.com
Nat Levine had a knack for grabbing up former silent stars at just the right time when their star was still high, but not too high to put them out of a price range he could afford. Bob Custer was one such former silent star who was struggling in the sound era and headlined a serial for Mascot, Law of the Wild (1934), under Rex the Wonder Horse and Rin Tin Tin Jr in the credits of course.
Rancher John Selden (Bob Custer) owns a magnificent horse named Rex (Rex, the Wonder Horse). Local bad ass Lou Salton (Richard Alexander) wants to buy Rex and turn him into a champion race horse. John won’t sell, Rex is his friend. Not one to take no for an answer, Salter waylays John out on the trail, shoots his dog Rinty (Rin Tin Tin, Jr) and forces Rex to stomp John into the ground.
John and Rinty survive the attack and slowly recover. Months later John learns that Salter is racing Rex at the Aldmore Race Track. John and Rinty head out for Aldmore. Salton Learns that John didn’t die and is coming for him. He sends out his henchman Jim Luger (Edmund Cobb) to take care of him.
Luger hides in the brush along the main road into town and shoots John as he rides past, then skedaddles back to the race track. Coming along the road is local rancher Charles Ingram (Lafe McKee) and his daughter Alice (Lucille Browne) heading to see the races. They spot Rinty in the middle of the road, barking for help. Stopping they find John, who revives, having only been grazed by the bullet and knocked out. Telling them of Salter stealing his horse and racing him illegally, the Ingrams offer to drive him to the race track.
Back at the races, Rex easily wins the race, grabbing the attention of crooked racing promoter Frank Nolan (Richard Cramer) and his partner Raymond (Ernie Adams). Nolan decides to buy Rex, and if Salter won’t sell, then he will steal the horse.
Salter goes to Rex’s stable where Luger confronts him for his share of the winnings. Salter refuses to give him anything and fires the man. Luger pulls out a knife and stabs Salter, then sneaks out of the stable, not knowing that he has been seen by Nolan.
John arrives at the race track and makes it loudly and angrily known that he is looking for Salter. Finding him dead, the hot tempered cowboy pulls the knife out. Nolan picks this time to walk and “catch the man in the act”. Crying murder, Nolan brings a crowd to the stable and the Sheriff (Jack Rockwell) is called.
Nolan accuses John of murdering Salton. John pleads his innocence, saying he was merely coming to get his horse. Nolan then pulls out a fake bill of sale he had Raymond make up right after the race and claims that Salter had already sold Rex to him and John must have killed him in an attempt to steal Rex.
Realizing it’s a frame up, John grabs Rex and escapes, with Rinty’s help. The Sheriff and his deputies give chase, and John heads cross country to evade his pursuers. With the posse catching up, John tries to cross a train trestle when a fast moving train comes round the bend. Rex stumbles and and falls, tumbling John right into the path of the train…….
The stolen race horse plot was a popular one at Mascot. It was previously used in The Devil Horse (1931) and would be reworked with a polo plot for The Adventures of Rex and Rinty (1935). The first episode is a bit slow moving, especially for a Mascot, with little action, but there is an interesting twist where the person you think is going to be the main villain is killed in the first episode and replaced by a character introduced just minutes before.
The rest of the serial is a fast paced but standard Mascot plot of a falsely accused hero trying to prove his innocence while being pursued by both the police and the villain’s henchmen. This allows for plenty of action where Bob Custer can demonstrate the horse riding skills that made him a cowboy star, while showing Rex and Rinty rescuing almost everyone in the cast at some point during the Twelve Chapters. The chapters are filled with chases, fights and innumerable captures and escapes.
There is a major error that occurs during the course of the serial. The fake bill of sale and a piece of paper with Salton’s real signiture on it showing that the bill of sale has been forged get destroyed in Chapter Four, then inexplicably show back up in Chapter Eleven with no explanation of where they came from.
Having watched this serial I am hard pressed to understand how Bob Custer managed to stay working in sound film for as long as he did. The only reason I can come up with is he has a slight facial resemblance to Tom Mix, because his expression rarely change from a slight frown and he speaks dialog like he is reading his lines for the first time on a card just off camera. The script doesn’t help him either, as it has him constantly capturing the villain and then telling the man what his plans are. Custer then acts sort of dazedly surprised that the villain manages to thwart him every time.
Custer’s sidekick is another former silent star, comedian Ben Turpin as ranch hand Henry, who’s entire shtick comprises of his looking at the wrontg thing or person due to his being cross eyed. In fact the title of Chapter Three is The Cross Eyed Goon, which makes no sense as he was introduced in Chapter One where he wins a bunch of money by mistakenly pointing at Rex’s name when he was looking at the Ingram’s horse while placing the bet (Ha ha ha, what a knee slapper). Such lame comedy aside, he is a decent sidekick, helping the hero out of several scrapes.
Lucille Browne give a better performance than she did in Last of the Mohicans (1931), where she mainly looked frightened and screamed. Here she is a feisty character who doesn’t hesitate to grab a gun and use it. Threats bounce off her like water off a duck, and she makes it believable that she is tough enough to be running the family ranch for her father.
Richard Cramer injects a nice venneer of sophistication to his bruttish character. He seems equally at home among society people at the race track as well as the scummy looking bunch he employs to do his dirty work.
But the best villain is Edmund Cobb, in his biggest serial role. Though supposedly under Crammer’s thumb after he reveals he knows Cobb really committed the murder, Cobb never acts like he is a henchman. He struts and threatens people with the authority of someone who is convinced they are the one really in charge. I often got the feeling that, though never spoken, Cobb was always planning on killing Cramer and running the operation once the horse was recovered.
Of course the real stars are Rex and Rinty. Rex does his usual thing of running like the devil and giving a few affectionate head rubs to the hero. Rinty gets a large amount of screen time, outsmarting henchman, going for help and generally getting the less than sharp Custer out of innumerable scrapes. He rescues Custer so many times the serial borders on being camp.
Though not a great serial, or one of Macot’s best, it does have it’s moments, and is worth a look, even if it’s just to see how truly inept an actor Bob Custer was.
Copyright © 2007 Todd’s Serial Blog.
