Todd’s Serial Blog

Serial Fans all have their favorite cowboy hero.  Usually it comes down to  the personality of the actor that appeals to specific fans; laid back Johnny Mack Brown, cheerful Ken Maynard, stern Buck Jones, aggressive Don Barry or easy going Gene Autry, they all appealed to someone.  For me, I always liked jocular Dick Foran.  No matter how bad things got he could always find a quick laugh before having to whip out his gun and put things right.  Though a singing cowboy at Warner Brothers in the thirties, when Foran moved to Universal they es cued making him their answer to Gene Autry like Warner’s had and instead put him in Johnny Mack Brown’s black cowboy outfit to replace him in their serials.  And Winners of the West (1940) does play like a Brown serial, only with Foran’s more humorous take on cowboy heroing.

John Hartford (Edward Keene) has a grant from the Government to build his railroad through the territory known as Hellgate Pass.  The area is controlled by self proclaimed land baron King Carter (Harry Woods), who has no intention of letting anyone, not even the Government, take away what he feels is rightfully his.  King uses renegade half breed Snakeye (Charles Stevens) to stir up the local Indian tribe to attack the railroad work camps, as well as lead a group of outlaws disguised as Indians to raid stage coaches and wagon trains to prevent the railroad from getting needed funds and supplies.

Famed engineer and town tamer Jeff Ramsey (Dick Foran) is out scouting with his partner Tex Houston (Tom Fadden) when they spot a group of Indians on the war path, actually Snakeye and his men.  Riding to a nearby survey party being lead by Jim Jackson (James Craig), they arrive in time to warn the men so that they can drive off the attacking renegades.

Returning to camp they find one of Carter’s men trying to agitate the workers into quitting. Jeff tells the man to leave. He responds by pulling a knife.  Jeff disarms him and kicks him out of camp.  This last part is seen by Hartford’s daughter Claire (Anne Nagel) who had just arrived from back East.  She immediately berates Jeff for being a bully and he replies they don’t allow women in railroad camps, a clear indication that they will fall in love later on.

Carter sends word to Hartford to meet him in the nearby town of Blackhawk to discuss the railroad’s path.  Hatford and Jeff meet Carter and his creepy right hand man Raven (Trevor Bardette) in Carter’s office in back of his saloon.  Carter wants to be reasonable and implies that he can guarantee an end to the Indian attacks if the railroad goes around Hellgate Pass instead of through it.  Hartford refuses to move the planned path due to the excessive cost of going around the pass. After Hartford and Jeff leave, Carter sends word to Snakeye to tell Chief War Eagle (Chief Yowlatchie), who’s son had recently been killed, that he has proof that railroad men murdered him.

Later Tex is out scouting and sees a large war party riding for the work crew.  Tex gallops back and tells Jeff, who sends the crew back up the line on the engine.  The Indians attack and engage in a running gun battle with the men on the engine.  Jeff spots a brave climbing into their powder wagon and goes in after him.  The two men fight and Jeff manages to knock the other man off the wagon.  Just then the horses break free, causing the wagon to flip over with Jeff in it right in the path of the engine, which crashes into the wagon, setting off all the powder, which explodes in a massive fireball….

This is a pretty good serial full of action, with lots of cowboy and indian gun battles mixed with train crashes and saloon fights.  An interesting theme that runs throughout the proceedings is civilization vs wilderness.  The main villain states several times that he is going to keep the modern world from coming into his territory and the hero maintains that it is coming whether he likes it or not.  One could read the gradual build up to the final show down between Foran and Woods as an allegory for the expansion of civilization that spelled the end of the old West and brought about the modern world.

And what a showdown it is.  For twelve chapters they have of sized each other up, commented on the inevitableness of facing off against each other with drawn guns and even taunted each other on just how good they are.  One of the funniest encounters involves a hilarious game of one up manship in Chapter Six with them taking turns shooting the top off an oblivious drunk’s glass of beer every time he has a drink so that the glass is always just as tall as the amount of beer left in it.

When the two men finally meet each other for real, Foran out draws Woods, shooting his gun out of the other man’s hand.  Tossing his gun aside, Foran then engages Woods in one of the best fist fights ever done in a serial. Pummeling each other mercilessly, their fight ranges all over the villain’s ranch house living room, most of the furniture is reduced to kindling from being smashed at an opponent and at one point wood from the fire place is used as thrown weapons.  When it is over both men look like they have been a real fight.

As good as the fight is there is an odd bit of editing in it.  Right in the middle of the action the scene fades out and fades in on Charles Stevens to show what happens to him in a scene that could have just as easily have been shown after the fight scene.  Then the editor fades back in on the fight at the exact same shot he had faded out on.  It is a bizarre decision on someone’s part that really destroys the tension and excitement of the serial’s climax.

The serial also contains a real missed opportunity.  In Chapter Two Carter’s hubris works gainst him and he get attacked by Indians  after ordering them to kill any white man found out on the plains, not believing they would ever attack him.  He gets rescued by Claire and they immediately show an attraction to each other.  The first time I saw this serial I thought that there was going to an intersting subplot involving Cater romancing Claire as way to influence her father, but I was wrong. The next time they see each other, he kidnaps her to use as a hostage to bring Hartford under his control. Not as subtle or devious as romance, but it does give Foran lots of rescuing opportunities.

Foran gives a great performance as the tough but cheerful hero.  He can give a steely eyed glare as well as Tom Tyler to stare down a bad guy, and then engage in playful banter with his sidekick.  He also effectively conveys a sense of ultra coolness in the back outfit that Johnny Mack Brown, Lon Chaney and Peter Cookson never came close to exhibiting in their serials.  There is an unintended funny bit at the end of the serial where Foran is appearing in a suit, and looking uncomfortably selfconscious.  Nagel reveals to a visiting senator that they are married and Foran doesn’t look too thrilled about it.

Nagel, meanwhile is beaming during the scene.  She gives very forceful performance and is in on more action than most serial heroines.  When not getting kidnapped or being delegated to ride for help while “the men” deal with trouble, she is engaging in shoot outs with the rest of them.  A real spifire, she never skips an opportunity to express her opinion about the trouble Carter is causing, or berating her captors when caught by henchmen.  How Stevens and the rest kept from slapping her after some of her remarks is a mystery.  One the funniest moments is in Chapter Three when she says to Jeff after another of their bickering spats, “I called you a bully and a coward. I want to appologize.  You are not a coward.”  How could you not fall in love with her?

Tom Fadden is a hoot as the tough old Indian fighter sidekick.  An irrasible braggaert, he is constantly one upping Foran when it comes to tracking and fighting, but with the twist that he actually is as good as he claims, more than holding his own against attacking braves and renegades alike, usually with a mumbled complaint from under his breath.  He has a great bit in Chapter Five where Foran is fighting with a Carter spy and Faddens another one at gunpoint, saying” You shouldn’t stop a good fight, you never know when you’ll see another one.”

Harry Woods, in his final serial, gives a great villainous performance. Smart, tough and devious, he exhibits an almost debonair sophisticaton in his snazzy suit, with a wide streak of cruelty nestled underneath.  A big man, he never hesitates to use his size to intimidate.  His grudging respect for Foran’s ability adds a bit of humanizing depth to his character.

Main henchman Trevor Bardette more than holds his own against Woods as the sinister and off putting Raven, the only henchman Woods never berates, and at one point even excuses a failure, which he never does with anyone else. When Bardette fails to shoot Foran in Chapter Three, Woods quips “It’s not the first time a bottle has ruined a man’s aim”.  Bardette’s character is extremely off putting.  He is constantly flicking non existant dust off  his clothes, straightening pants and jacket creases or fixing his hat brim with the same intensity that he fondles his ever present knife.

The rest of the henchmen are a dependable bunch made up of Edmond Cobb, Roy Barcroft and Edgar Edwards.  But the stand out is Charles Stevens as his usual cowardly, greedy, double crossing half breed. Stevens swipes every scene he is in with sneaky eye flicks, sly smiles, exuberant gloating or an occasional blubbery cowering for his life when things go wrong.

On an interesting trivia note, Roy Barcroft has stated that his favorite actor was Harry Woods, and that he patterned his own villainous performances in serials on Woods.  Winners of the West lets us see the two share several scenes, almost a passing of the torch.

Tags: Reviews by admin
No Comments »

Since the past month seems to be a month of remakes; The Wolfman, The Crazies; I thought I would highlight a serial remake.  Like the new versions of classic films I just mentioned, The Perils of Pauline (1933) has not fared well with the critics when compared to the original.

Professor Hargave (James Durkin) and his daughter Pauline (Evelyn Knapp), along with Hargrave’s overly nervous assistant Willie Dodge (Sonny Ray) are in China looking for an ancient ivory disc that contains a formula for making a disintigrating gas.  Also on the trail of the disc is Dr. Bashan (John Davidson) who is planning to use it for world conquest.   Both parties are hampered by the fighting that has broken out with rebels attacking the city.

Bashan’s right hand man, Fang (Frank Lackteen), has spotted Dodge and follows him to the Hargrave’s hotel. Dodge tells the Professor that he has located the temple of Tsai Tsin, where the disc is hidden.  The Professor decides to leave Pauline at the hotel while they go to the temple.  Pauline spots Fang trailing them.  Grabbing a gun, she heads out after her father.

Once on the street she is grabbed by some of Bashan’s men. Hearing her cries is Robert Ward (Robert Allen), a railroad engineer thrown out of work by the the conflict and heading to the nearest Army recruitment office when he passed by the alley Pauline was dragged into.  Jumping into the fray, he beats off the henchmen, grabs Pauline and heads for safety.  They are chased but quickly elude their pursuers.  Pauline thanks Ward for his help and tries to head for the temple without him but Ward insists on going along.

Hargrave and Dodge reach the temple. Bashan is already there, but lets them go inside so that they can find the disc for him, then he plans on taking it away after they come back out. Pauline and Ward arrive and head into the temple.

Everyone is attacked by the temple guards, but Ward and Harrave manage to defeat them while Pauline searches the temple altar and Dodge stands petrified and screaming.  Pauline finds a hidden drawer in the temple but it only contains half a disc.  Meanwhile the Army has started bombing the area and a bomb hits the temple, dropping the roof down  on them…..

I don’t know if you can really call this a remake, considering the only  simularities between this version and the original silent is the title.  The original was a story common to the day, an heiress mark for death by the supposedly kindly executor of her estate who wants her fortune for himself.  This version is updated to a pulp style exotic adventure popular in the early thirties.  Many critics have labeled this a weak serial, mainly due to it’s not being the Pearl White classic.  But I think it’s an unfair assessment.  Taken on it’s own The Perils of Pauline is an enjoyable action film.

The plot is a globe trotting extravaganza that takes the cast from China to the jungles of Borneo, then the deserts of India, before finally finishing in the good old USA as they have to locate the second disc and then get the formula translated.  Along the way they have to contend with angry natives, jungle cats, maurading gorillas, captive sharks, death trap laden temples as well as the ever present Dr. Bashan and Fang.

There is also a nice bit of romance between Pauline and Ward, with lots of flirting which is enhanced by the great chemistry between Knapp and Allen.   This is highlighted by a funny joke in Chapter Ten with Allen saying he has never been one to move very fast, prompting Knapp to quip that he hasn’t been doing too bad so far.

Allen plays a good solid man of action and is well complimented by Knapp’s brave and determined heroine.  Durkin is his usual stern and dependable self, giving off both a fatherly concern for Knapp and a scholarly excitement about the exotic areas they are passing through.

John Davidon and Frank Lackteen make a great villainous team.  Davidson, never looked more satanic then he does here with his huge widow’s peak and reptilian eyes, is equal parts clever and pompous, never missing an opportunity to gloat at the heroes when he has the upper hand. Lackteen effectively portrays the contradiction of being totally ruthless while being a coward, constantly cowering before Davidson when he has to report another failure.  It should come as no surprise that the heroes don’t defeat these two, they do themselves in.

If there is anything disappointing about the serial (outside of the outrageous rascism portrayed by a kindly safarai leader in the jungle section, explaining “You got to be tough with these babies,” when refering to how to treat his native bearers) it is the extremely unfunny antics of Sonny Ray.  His comedy antics makes Lee Ford look like Harold Lloyd.  He bounces between emitting  a high pitched screech and running around frantically during action scenes to constantly offering his resignation at the first sign of danger.  Oh the hilarity!

He is also at the center of one of the most irritating scenes in the serial, Chapter Nine, The Mummy Walks,  which doesn’t feature a mummy.  While the good guys and bad guys are skulking around a museum to swipe an important item needed for the translation, Sonny trips and falls into a tub of white wash, rolls around it, then climbs out and stumbles around with his arms waving frantically.  The bad guys see him, scream “A ghost!” and knock each other down trying to get away (while also inspiring James Horne’s entire serial output six years later).

Sch criticsm aside, this is an enjoyable adventure from Universal’s early sound period, and well worth a look.

Tags: Reviews by admin
No Comments »

Happy Valentines Day Action Lovers! Like last year I thought I would spotlight a romantic serial, or as romantic as a serial can get. And for all of the hack and slash of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ work, all the books were at their core romances with the hero and heroine going through various hazards and long spells of separation to have the books end in a clinch.

The Son of Tarzan opens with a quick 3 1/2 minute recap that tells how Tarzan (P. Dempsey Tabler) was raised in the jungle by apes, discovered by Jane (Karla Shramm), goes to England with her to claim his title as Lord Greystoke and leaves his hated enemy Ivan Pauovich (Eugene Burr) to the mercies of the jungle.

Settled in England, Tarzan and Jane have a son they name Jack (Gordon Griffith), who Jane does not want to learn of the jungle, even though he seems to have inheirited his father’s love of the jungle and a rather aggressive attitude when playing, like climbing high trees and wrestling his scared tutor into submission on the estate lawn.

Meanwhile, back in the jungle Paulovich finds and befriends Akut (actor unknown), one of Tarzan ape friends, and when he is eventually rescued, he takes Akut with him and tours England with his “trained ape” to make money. Jack sees an ad for a local showing and wants to see the ape. Which Jane immediately forbids and Tarzan reluctantly agrees with her.

Jack sneaks out anyway, but Tarzan spots him and follows. During the show Akut notices Jack’s resemblance to Tarzan and jumps into his box seat, which causes a riot. Tarzan arrives and quells the crowd. Recognizing Akut, but not Paulovich, Tarzan pays the man an exorbitant amount of money to ship Akut back to Africa. Then takes Jack home to be grounded for disobeying his mother.

Paulovich on the other hand has recognized his old enemy and plots his revenge. On the day Akut is to be shipped off, Paulovich approaches Jack at the Greystoke estate and asks if he wants to say goodbye to the ape. Jack readily agrees and accompanies him to Paulovich’s room where Akut is chained up.

Paulovich immediately attacks Jack and ties him up. He opens a trap door that leads directly to the river, where he plans to throw Jack’s body after he killshim. Grabbing the struggling boy, Paulovich starts to choke the life out of him…….

I have always found it interesting that up until Johnny Weismuller became The Movie Tarzan, that most of the adaptations followed Burroughs’ original concept of an articulate, educated British nobleman/ jungle lord  They also stuck close to his plots as well.  Son of Tarzan follows the book fairly accurately, starting a little slow with the young Korack (so dubbed by Akut who couldn’t pronounce Jack) getting to Africa, meeting and rescuing a kidnapped French girl from Arab slave traders (their meeting in Chapter Three is unintentionally hilarious.  While the two ten-year-olds introduce themselves and indulge in small talk, Akut is seen off to the side mercilessly pummeling her Arab guard to death), growing up together and falling in love while battling the slave traders, savage natives and Paulovich.  They are of course separated for extended periods of time before being reunited with each other and Korack’s parents.

Griffith plays the title character for the first four and a half chapters, then the story jumps ahead ten years and the character is taken over by Kamuela C.Searle for the rest of the serial as an adult Korack.  Once he steps forward the action picks up with Korack and Meriem (played by Mae Giraci as a child and Manilla Martan as an adult) getting capture and escaping from any number of enemies, human and animal.  There is also an exciting subplot in which Paulovich lures Jane to Africa and tries to sell her to the slave traders, which causes Tarzan to throw off his three piece suit, strap on a loin cloth and starts kicking jungle butt while not caring about taking names.

Then around Chapter Twelve the serial shifts gears from action to melodrama, with Meriem getting separated form Korack, who all but disappears from the serial while he wanders jungle mourning his loss while she ends up at the African estate of Tarzan and Jane who take her in and she is romanced by an effete English nobleman.  Korack’s reappearance in the last chapter leads to an an exciting conclusion and also contains the infamous accident that is still heavily debated to this day among fans.

In the last chapter, Korack is tied to a stake and about to be burned alive, when an elephant grabs him and the stake, pulling it out of the ground and walking off with it.  Stories differ as to what happened, actor Searle was crushed by the elephant’s grip, Searle was partially trampled on camera, Searle died instantly, Searle survived but eventually died from his injuries (his official cause of death in 1924 was listed as cancer).  No one really knows what really happened, watching the serial you can’t see him get injured during the scene (according Harmon and Glut when the story that Searle had died during filming came out, attendance went up considerably by people interested in glimpsing the macabre incident on celluloid.

The acting is decent for the most part, Searle gives an excellent performance as Korack, the slim muscular actor with wild hair looks the part of a jungle wild man, and his expressive eyes contain a startling soulfulness.  His scenes of mourning in the later chapters is truly heartbreaking.  Griffith, who had played a young Tarzan in Elmo Lincoln’s original version of Tarzan of the apes (1918) does a good job of playing the young Jack as an excitable and energetic son of Tarzan.  His best scene is an amusing one in Chapter Two when he sneaks Akut aboard an ocean liner disguised as his grandmother and plays it perfectly straight.

Tabler as Tarzan is not as good, mostly do to his less than muscular physique. He’s okay playing the English nobleman in his three piece suits and even has an exciting fight with several thugs on the lawn of his English estate in Chapter Four, coming close to exhibiting a jungle savagery when attacked.  But his believabilty in the role is severely damaged when he strips down and reveals a sunken chest and pot belly, which is not what you want to see in a Taran flick.  Thankfully his sans pants scenes are kept to a minimum.

Martan is excellent as the adult Meriem, making her vivacious and energetic.  She has two really good scenes.  One in which she is captured by Paulovich’s men and one of them makes his intentions toward her very clear and her faces registers a combination of fear, disgust and defiance. Her other scene is later in the serial when she is living with the Greystokes, and a monkey steals her socks and shoes when she puts her feet in a nearby pond.  She angrily climbs up the tree and chastises the monkey for his prank.

Schramm does a good job playing a dislikeable character.  To be fair she is playing Jane the way she was in the early books, shrill and weepy, more concerned about her social standing than making sure her son and husband were happy. It wasn’t until the mid-twenties that Jane morphed into a character with more use than just being a damsel in distress, who’s only function was to be rescued by Tarzan.  Her best showing was in the book Tarzan’s Quest in which she takes charge of a group of stranded plane passengers and leads them through the jungle to safety, coming off as a female Tarzan.

As main villain Paulovich, Burr gives a stereotypical sniveling coward performance, but again this is how the character was written in his three appearances in the book series. Much better is Frank Morrell as Sheik Amor Ben Khatour, leader of the slave traders.  He is sleek and sinister, and is a real menace in the serial’s middle chapters, where he chews up the scenery marvelously, making you wish he was the main villain instead of Burr.

While I have never been a fan of silent films, the over the top acting that emerge during the Expressionist movement of the twenties that came out of Germany being one of my main dislikes. I did find myself enjoying this one and found it to be one of the best adaptations of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Tags: Reviews by admin
No Comments »