When it comes to western serials, I usually like ones that have an interesting twist. Plain old cowboys and Indians is never enough. I enjoy those odd additions, like the gender reversal in Zorro’s Black Whip (1944) or the outlandish science fiction plot of Phantom Empire (1935). Republic’s third serial release, The Vigilantes Are Coming (1936), fits nicely into this category with it’s combination of a masked hero seeking revenge mixed with a cowboys versus cossacks storyline.
The story opens in California in the year 1844. U.S. Army Captain Fremont (Ray “Crash” Corrigan) is leading an exploring expedition into the newly acquired Northwest territory and employs Don Loring (Robert Livingston) to scout for him. While Loring is away, Jason Burr (Fred Kohler) discovers there is gold on the Loring land. Making contact with Russian emissary Count Raspinoff (Robert Warwick), Burr makes a deal to set up California as a Russian colony with himself as territory Governor.
With the help of his henchmen, Burr kidnaps a mining engineer named Colton (Lloyd Ingraham) to run his secret mine under the threat of harm to his daughter Doris (Kay Hughes), who Burr keeps a prisoner at his fort. When Don’s father (Henry Hall) and younger brother (John O’Brien) discover the mine, which is being worked by peasant slaves, Burr has Barsam (Yakima Canutt) murder them and then openly takes over the Loring land.
Months later Don returns home with his friends Salvation (Guinn “Big Boy” Williams) and Whipsaw (Raymond Hatton) and discovers his family dead and the territory ruled by outlaws and newly arrived cossack soldiers. Taken in by Father Jose (Willaim Farnum), Don vows revenge and disguises himself with a mask and cape. Don attacks many of Burr’s men, leaving an eagle feather at the site of each attack, earning him the name The Eagle by the terrified henchmen.
After one such attack, The Eagle is chased by Talbot (John Merton) and Barsam. Losing them outside Father Jose’s church, The Eagle enters his secret underground hideout. Getting rid of his costume, Don takes on his other guise, of a milquetoast church organist. When Talbot searches the church for The Eagle, Don spots his father’s ring on Barsam.
Later when Barsam is out riding alone, The Eagle captures him. Forcing him into an Eagle costume and tying him to his horse, Don sends him riding toward the fort, where he is gunned down by his own men. Don, dressed in his organist clothes, then has Salvation and Whipsaw tie him to a burro and send him toward the fort.
Don is captured by Talbot and brought before Burr where he says the Eagle captured him and sent him to the fort with a message. Don has a note pinned to him from The Eagle declaring he will visit Burr in ten minutes. Enraged, Burr has Don thrown into his dungeon and then doubles the guard around the fort.
Once in the dungeon, Don takes off his organist outfit, revealing The Eagle costume underneath. Spotting an unbarred window high up above, The Eagle reaches it with his whip and easily climbs out. Making his way to Burrs office, The Eagle extracts a small measure of revenge on the man by mercilessly whipping him.
Burrs screams bring his men, who chase The Eagle out into the courtyard. Displaying an amazing athleticism, the masked hero continually eludes his pursuers and heads for a tall tower. Trapped on a ledge, The Eagle is shot at by the villains. Scrambling along the narrow ledge, The Eagle slips and falls off the tower…..
The one thing most serial fans voice about this serial are the horrible cheats with the cliffhanger resolutions. Chapter Five is almost as infamous as the crashed gate resolution in Chapter Seven of Undersea Kingdom (1936), in which the gate was never crashed into. In Chapter Four of Vigilantes, the hero gets knocked into a rock crusher and is clearly visible getting smashed in the stomach by the crusher and groaning in pain as the scene fades into the to be continued card, the resolution has him being pulled to safety before the crusher even descends. But that is nothing compared to the cheat in Chapter Eight. The previous chapter had the hero in a saber fight with five Cossacks. he trips on a chair, falls on his back and the final shot is of the Cossacks all thrusting their sabers at him. The resolution shows he never tripped, fell and was stabbed at; but simply vaulted over a desk to get away from them and escaped through a door. Boo!!!
Such complaints aside, the serial is very enjoyable with a fast pace and interesting plot twists. There is some excellent use of locations with many striking visuals that include the impressive church used by the heroes for a base, the tower that makes up the first episode cliffhanger peril, and an eye popping mountain climb made in the final chapter by Corrigan and his soldiers racing to the rescue. The serial has a larger than average cast with the screen filled with Cossacks, cowboy henchmen, slave workers, American cavalry soldiers, and the vigilantes of the title.
The early chapters focus on The Eagle banding farmers and ranchers together to fight Burr’s henchmen and Cossacks. After a few raids, the plot shifts to The Eagle trying to prevent Burr from learning the identities of the vigilantes with the use of spies, rescuing Colton and Doris from Burr’s fort and preventing gold shipments to make it to Raspinoff. The final chapters deal with attempts to get word the the US soldiers to prevent the Russian annexing of California, leading to a big blow out battle between the two armies. Quite a busy twelve chapters.
Robert Livingston, in his first big staring role, is great in the lead role. He is stern and menacing when playing the masked hero (no laughing daredevil Zorro rip off here), while being humorously simple minded and jittery as the unassuming church organist, only showing his real cheerful and engaging personality, that was shown at the beginning of the serial, when alone with his sidekicks or heroine. There are two stand out dramatic scenes in Chapter One, his sorrowful and angry vow of revenge on learning about the death of is family packs a real emotional wallop rarely seen in the genre. His other big scene is his first confrontation with Kohler, where Livingston silently starts unfurling his whip. When Kohler threatens him of what will happen if he gets whipped, Livingston is truly chilling when snapping out a tightly clipped reply, his hate and rage just barely in check, and starts cracking the whip at the other man with a manic intensity.
Carol Hughes, Republic’s first real serial herione star, fares a little better in this outing that she did in the following year’s Dick Tracy (1937). Though a captive for a majority of the serial she serves a useful purpose of actually being a spy for the heroes, ferreting out information and sending it via a cage of carrier pigeons that are hidden in her room. It is nice to see her do more than look concerned about the fate of the good guys, though she does plenty of that too.
Guinn “Big Boy” Williams and Raymond Hatton make a great pair of mismatched, bickering sidekicks. Williams is big and boisterous while Hatton is small and cantankerous (I swear the man was born old and curmudgeonly). They spend most of their time arguing over who is better, smarter, etc; yet never let it get in the way of helping Livingston in the fight against the villains. Each are given some amusing stand alone bits, Williams passes himself off as a Mexicn peddler with his hat pulled out of shape around his eyes and a sarape pulled up to his nose and using the worst fake accent imaginable, that actually fools the bad guys and allows him to pass the pigeons to Hughes in Chapter Three. He uses the ruse again in Chapter Nine to get through a blockade and ends up losing the info he was trying to smuggle out in his rifle to a border guard. Hatton’s gets to top him in Chapter Five when he and Williams grab a Cossack and Hatton goes undercover as a “Roosian” (love their mis-pronunciations throughout the serial). The sight of Hatton, with a fake beard cut from their captive, trying to fake his way through a conversation with the head soldier is priceless. These two could have carried the serial by themselves.
William Farnum brings a great deal of dignity to his role as Father Jose, as he does to all of his serial roles, the man could play a gibbering idiot and make him the most dignified idiot to ever appear on screen. He is full of righteous indignation at every intrusion of Kohler’s henchmen to the church or abuse they heap on an unlucky peasant, and kindly conern over the hero’s thirst for vengeance. I also like the beatific smile he has when Livingston is playing the organ, tapping along on the palm of one hand with his fingers. It ’s those subtle things that always sell a part to me.
Fred Kohler is well cast as the unscrupulous Burr. Big and loud, he bullies his captives, berates is men and shoves everyone around him out of the way when he walks. If there was a dog around he would have kick it. Kohler’s villain is brutal and sadistic. When he discovers Hughes’ pigeons he takes unnecessary delight in detailing the trap he will set using them, and caps the scene with a self satisfied smirk, which is more effective than any amount of manical cackling from most other villains, like Theodore Lorch for example.
Countering Kohler is Robert Warwick as Count Raspinoff. Equally as diginified as Farnum, he is condescending and sarcastic to everyone, even Kohler, which Kohler takes because he needs the man and Warwick knows it. While Kohler is a straight ahead villain, Warwick is more duplicitous, acting only when he is guaranteed success, holding off on committing more troops or weapons until the full amount of gold is on hand and there is no chance of the US Army learning about their machinations. A true politican, he is only villain who gets off scott free, using diplomacy to allow him to take his country’s flag down and walk away after the battle is over, which makes for a more true to life ending than many other serials.
Since there are two forces at use by the villain, there are also two main henchmen instead the usual primary and secondary. Leading the cowboys is John Merton at his snide and ruthless best, his nonchalant response to Hughes’ protest when he locks Livingston in the church’s bell tower and sets it on fire is as cold blooded as you can get. Bob Kortman as the head Cossack gives new meaning to the term slow burn. He gets a little more frustrated and pissed off with each failure to capture The Eagle, but never goes over the top like James Craven would have. Though he does give voice to a menacing chuckle in Chapter Nine when he thinks he has finally succeeded in killing the masked hero.
The serial is a bit rough around the edges and not as slick as the studio’s later product, it is an enjoyable adventure full of derring do and comraderly humor, plus you get to see Yakima Canutt do his patented quick draw gun twirl in closeup, and there is nother cooler than that.
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