Todd’s Serial Blog

Broadway dancer Norma Taylor never really made it big in films.  Coming to Hollywood from the stage she had small roles during the thirties in films like The Girl Habit (1931) and Waterfront Lady (1935).  More often than not she would be an uncredited dancer in such films as The Girl Friend (1935) and Coronado (1935).

Her biggest film role was playing Gene Autry’s love interest in his first starring feature film Tumbling Tumbleweeds (1935). Taylor’s only serial was Mascot’s The Adventures of Rex and Rinty (1935), helping Rin Tin Tin, Jr. and Kane Richmond protect Rex the Wonder Horse from the machinations of cruel ranch owner and polo cheat Harry Woods.

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Finding information about B-Movie actor Pat O’Brien is difficult, mostly due to most searches bring up the more well known star of The Front Page (1931) and Angels With Dirty Faces (1938).  That O’Brien never made a serial.  But Pat J. O’Brien did.  A popular actor in the waning days of the silent era in The House of Terror (1928) and The Freckled Rascal (1929),  once talkies came in, O’Brien became a staple of serials and B-Westerns.  His Westerns include Outlawed Guns (1935), Hawaiian Buckaroo (1938) and Bury Me Not On the Lone Prairie (1941).

He was also a popular supporting player in Universal serials.  He had a small role in Buck Jones’ The Roaring West (1935) as a cowhand.  Next he played Milt Howe, the older friend and mentor to the title character in Tailspin Tommy in the Great Air Mystery (1935).  Tim Tyler’s Luck (1937) had O’Brien playing a big game hunter who had been attacked by villain Spider Webb and teams up with the serial’s heroine to lead  an expedition into the jungle after him.  His final serial role was as a henchman in Johnny Mack Brown’s Flaming Frontiers (1938).

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