Serial of the Month: Man With the Steel Whip
In looking at the serials that Republic put out in the mid-fifties, they produce mixed emotions in me. On the one hand there is enjoyment in seeing stronger leading men than were used in the late forties; let’s face it actors like Ken Curtis and Harry Lauter bring a lot more to the table than Bruce Edwards or Larry Thompson can. On the other hand, the over abundance of stock footage and the use of older costumes and vehicles to match them, plus the much lower production values than the films the footage is culled from is depressing as it was becoming more obvious that the end was near (ironically at the time Republic’s serials still looked miles ahead of Columbia’s).
Man with the Steel Whip (1954) is a perfect example. You have a good strong leading man in Richard Simmons, but is use of the old Black Whip costume, plus the accompanying footage from Zorro’ Black Whip (1943) and the footage of it in Don Daredevil Rides Again (1950) leave little original action, or plot for this production.
The serial opens up with ranches being attacked by Indians. After scads of burning and pillaging has been committed, local trouble maker Crane (Dale Van Sickle) calls a meeting in the local saloon where he insights the men to go over to the local reservation and run the Indians on it out of the territory. He is interrupted by the arrival of rancher Jerry Randall (Richard Simmons) who argues that such an action would cause a war.
Jerry suggests that he goes to talk to the Chief (Pat Hogan) and see if they are even involved before the town resorts to vigilante violence. Crane calls him a lousy Indian Lover and takes a swing at Jerry. The startled rancher dodges the blow and proceeds to mop the floor with Crane. After winning the fight Jerry convinces the rest of the men to hold off on doing anything rash until he has talked to the Chief.
After Jerry leaves, saloon owner Barnett (Mauritz Hugo) takes Crane back into his office to patch him up. Once alone Barnett chastises Crane for letting Jerry get the better of him. Barnett is behind the attacks, using renegades along with a few gullible younger Indians from the reservation to give the town reason to drive the tribe off their reservation. He knows there is gold on their land and wants to claim it for his own.
Before going to the reservation, Jerry stops by the farm house of Nancy Cooper (Barbara Bestar), who teaches at the reservation school. Telling her what’s happening in town, she agrees to go with Jerry to the reservation. Jerry and Nancy arrive at the tribal village and when they explain why they are there, Indian brave Tosco (Lane Bradford), who is in league with Barnett, acuses Jerry of lying and challenges him to a ritual knife fight.
After Jerry mops the floor with Tosco, he and Nancy sit down with the Chief. He says that his tribe is not involved with the attacks, but that some of the younger braves may be being led astray by outside forces to leave the reservation. Jerry asks if they can be ordered to stay around the village. The Chief says it is difficult in these dangerous times and then tells the story of El Latigo, the Great Spirit who always appears to help the tribe in times of trouble. The Chief hints that if El Latigo were to reappear now, he is sure the braves could be convinced not to leave the reservation.
That night Jerry discovers a Spanish costume among his grandfather’s effects and decides to become El Latigo. Appearing before the tribe he proclaims himself to be their legendary Great Spirit and orders them to stay on the reservation. Scared by his commanding presence, they quickly agree.
Tosco sneaks into town and tells Barnett he can’t get any of the braves to go with him on the next raid, they are too scared by the appearance of El Latigo. Barnett says it is vital to have a few braves from the reservation along to legitimize an attack on the reservation and orders Tosco to use any means necessary to get them.
The next day El Latigo is patrolling the reservation border and spots a brave trying to sneak across. When the brave proves belligerant, El Latigo cowes him with a few cracks of his whip and the brave reveals that he was heading to help with an attack on a wagon train. Ordering the brave to return to his village and stay there, El Latigo rides to warn the wagon train.
Stopping off at Nancy’s first, he quickly explains the situation to her and has her ride into town to telegraph to the Army for help. He then makes it to the wagon train and warns them of the coming attack. They get the wagon’s circled just in the nick of time before the renegades attack. The camp is quickly surrounded.
During the confusion of battle El Latigo notices a renegade sneak into the camp’s powder wagon with a torch. He follows and starts knocking the stuffing out of the man. The torch gets dropped to the floor of the wagon and then kicked into the gun powder. The powder ignites while the two men struggle and the wagon explodes in a massive fireball………..
Let’s go with the bad and then end with the good, okay? As mentioned earlier there is an abundance of stock footage, not just from earlier Zorro serials, but a large chunk from The Painted Stallion (1936) is used in the middle chapters, along with some convoluted plot elements to get Simmons into “Crash” Corrigan’s old fringed buckskins. A problem with a lot of the action sequences is that new scenarios weren’t created to lead into the older footage, they just reused the same reasons to drop powder onto a passing wagon train, or to attack a farmhouse, right down to almost identical dialogue with just the names changed. I know serials are supposed to be economical, but that’s not cutting to the bone, that’s cutting into the marrow.
Speaking of reusing footage, there is another problem for me in that regards. All the actors have to wear costumes to match the footage being used, and they just never look right. Now I know some of you will say that’s just because I’ve seen the originals first and have those images in the back of my mind. Not so. I saw this serial years before I saw The Painted Stallion, and yet when Simmons put’s on the buckskin outfit he doesn’t look right. They look ill fitting, like he is wearing clothes made for someone else. Now you can over look it here because he stole them off a man smaller than himself, but his own clothes look like they don’t fit him either, especially his hat which looks ridiculously small on his head. When my wife first saw this she erupted in a fit of giggles, saying he looked like he was wearing a toy hat. Whenever I see the serial he makes me think of the episode of The Munsters where they go on vacation in a ghost town and Herman walks around wearing Eddie’s cowboy hat and cap guns, that’s how small they look on Simmons.
But enough of the complaining, on to the good stuff. Sticking with costumes for a moment, there is an intriguing premise that is subtlety hinted at but never actually discussed. The hero finds an old outfit in the attic and uses it to pretend to be a legendary figure to the Indians. One look at him and the entire tribe believes he is El Latigo, since he looks the way their legend says he is supposed to look. This implies that his grandfather was the original El Latigo and that his family has always helped the tribe in this way, but no one ever comes right out and says it. This idea is further strengthened by the Chief, who tells the hero the legend in such a way as to impress on him the desire to play the character, implying that he has always known about the secret even if the hero didn’t.
There is also an unintentional funny bit concerning the costume in Chapter Seven. The hero has had to use the costume for a ruse to protect his identity and ends up losing it. The next day he shows up in a new costume and thanks the heroine for making it. Now logically she would have probably been working it for days in case he needed a spare, but the way the dialog plays, it sounds like she whipped it up in a couple of hours.
This has some of the best acting in a late era Republic serial. As with most serials from this time, stunt men were playing the main henchman. This time it is Dale Van Sickle’s turn and he is more than up to the challenge. He is tough but not too bright, more interested in knocking back some of the boss’s private stock than the money he is making. Lane Bradford as Tosco is excellent, at key moments showing an inner struggle between his greediness to be chief and his fearful belief in the Great Spirit. Leading them, Mauritz Hugo shows a natural suaveness that barely conceals an innate cruelty that comes out more and more as his defeats mount.
Richard Simmons has a natual commanding presence on screen, which is immensely helped by that great voice of his and with his obvious athleticism makes a great hero, easily believable in the many fights he engages in. He looks pretty good sitting on a horse too. Barbara Bestar makes a good leading lady. She shows a lot of courage, getting into some tense scrapes as well as some in town investigating toward the end of the serial. She comes off as very intelligent which befits a character that is supposed to be a school teacher. And as mentioned before, she is quite the seamstress.
Most surprising is the appearance of Roy Barcroft, in his last serial. Barcroft is the town sheriff, but in a switch up that will surprise most first time viewers, he is an honest sheriff. Decked out with gray hair and a handlebar mustache, he plays an older man than he really is at the time, making the character gruffly irreducible, sort of a husky Gabby Hayes. He is amusing and ingratiating in the role, showing a real flair for comedy.
Though problems, mostly budgetary, keep it from being one of Republic’s better serials, Man with the Steel Whip isn’t the worst either, it’s more a middle of the road affair.
