Todd’s Serial Blog

DOC SAVAGE: A COLUMBIA SERIAL IN 15 CHAPTERS

Producer: Larry Darmour
Director: James W. Horne
Photography: James S. Brown, Jr.
Script: Basil Dickey
George H. Plympton
Wyndham Gittens
Music: Lee Zahler

Cast:

Doc Savage: Larry “Buster” Crabbe
Pat Savage: Iris Meredith
Tarnack: James Craven
Natalia: Veda Ann Borg
Renny: Roy Barcroft
Ham: Tristram Coffin
Monk: Charles King
Long Tom: Guy Wilkerson
Johnny: William Bakewell
Brown: Ray Teal
Taylor: Al Ferguson
Butch: Jack Ingram
Karl: George Magrill
Wheeler: Dick Botiller
Meeks: Kit Guard
Lyle: Lester Dorr
DA Warwick: Forbes Murray
Inspector Nolan: Robert Fiske
Judge Watkins: Selmer Jackson
Tuka: Al Kikume
Narrator: Knox Manning

Recap: “Doc Savage, the Scourge of the Underworld, is unable to prevent criminal overlord Tarnack from committing a robbery due to Tarnack holding Pat a prisoner! Doc sends his men to foil Tarnack’s dastardly plan, which has dire consequences for Pat!”

CHAPTER 11: THE WINDOW OF DEATH

Returning to their newest hideout, Tarnack goes to a room where Pat is tied to a chair in front of a deadly looking gun. Tarnack explains that the gun emits a ray that burns through rock, demonstrating on a large rock resting on a table. Doc had obviously intended it for mining excavations, but Tarnack thinks it will do just as well as a method to show Doc that he is not a man to be trifled with. Turning the gun on, Tarnack starts to sweep its beam toward the struggling Pat.

Suddenly the door cracks open and a smoke bomb is lobbed into the room, instantly filling the room with smoke. Choking, Tarnack makes his way out of the room. When the smoke clears, Pat is startled to see Doc standing in front of her. She asks how he got there. Doc starts to untie her while explaining that he had the Fab Five stop Tarnack’s robbery and let them escape so that Doc could follow them.

Pat says that is very clever. Doc agrees until he finds that Tarnack had locked the door when he left and they are trapped in the room. Doc starts to work on the lock, when Pat suggests he should use his stolen mining ray gun to get out. Doc smiles good naturedly at her and says that’s a good idea. Doc aims the gun at an outside wall and burns a hole for them to escape through.

Tarnack had anticipated this and had his men stationed nearby to catch them. Doc tosses another smoke bomb into their midst and then escapes into the nearby woods with Pat. The henchmen follow them into the woods as soon as they can, stumbling around like true city slickers out in the country. Doc leads them on a merry chase, doubling back occasionally to come up behind one of them and knock them unconscious with a well placed hay maker.

Thoroughly spooked by this, they eventually run screaming from the woods back to the hideout. Tarnack is less than pleased with their performance and berates them mercilessly, even threatening them with the ray gun left behind, till he sees Doc had ripped the wiring out before he escaped. Tarnack ominously states that it is time Doc Savage was dealt with permanently.

Back at Doc’s penthouse, Ham and Monk are engaged in their favorite hobby, insulting each other. While they heap unflatteringly appraisals on each other, Renny, Johnny, and Long Tom ignore them, preferring to watch Doc pace back and forth thinking. Suddenly they hear a strange trilling whistle that stops Ham and Monk in mid insult, commenting that the musical sound signals that Doc has had a brainstorm. Doc quickly spreads out a map and begins to detail a complex plan to bring Tarnack out into the open.

On a near by roof, a man with a rifle takes careful aim at Doc through his penthouse window. Aiming directly at Doc’s head the assassin pulls the trigger.

“Has Tarnack finally succeeded in ridding himself of Doc Savage? Tarnack’s men are boarding a ship! Why? Surely they can’t be taking a vacation pleasure cruise! Don’t miss FANGED JEOPARDY! The next excitement laden episode of DOC SAVAGE, at this theater next week!”