Well, after last week's trip to Alaska, it seems only fitting that this week we head back out to the heat of the wild west, so why don't we do that riding along with the Riders of Death Valley?
This was Universal's 51st serial of the talkie era, and as you might expect, by that point things had gotten rather formulaic. Nonetheless, Universal promoted this one as the first "Million Dollar Serial". Now I'll freely admit I have no idea how that price compares to other serials of the time, but it's hard to see where they could have expended that kind of budget, unless most of it went to the cast to get them to star in this rather standard shoot 'em up.
Actually, the idea that a large part of the budget went to casting is not all that far-fetched. When you have the likes of Dick Foran, Buck Jones, Charles Bickford, Lon Chaney Jr., Noah Beery Jr. and Leon Carillo all brought together for one serial, you do have the makings of some fine character acting. Unfortunately, those characters are saddled with names like Tombstone, Borax Bill, Butch, Smokey, Tex, and Trigger, along with a script that shows only a little more imagination than those nicknames.
So, is it a BAD serial? Well, no. The middle chapters do drag quite a bit, but it does pick up towards the end. But compared to last week's entry, it simply doesn't have that "bring 'em back next week" quality that is really requisite for a truly successful series. Especially when one considers the potential that could have been had with that kind of budget and those stars.
But, hey, how about if I let ya have a look at it and then you can decide for yourself. Below is chapter 11 (don't worry, there's actually a pretty good scrolling summary to get you caught up on the essentials), and if you decide you want to watch the rest, they're available here.
Riders of Death Valley is also available on DVD from Amazon:
Until next time, Happy Treasure Hunting,
-Professor Damian
Ok, kiddies, we're taking a step away from the superheroes today for a serial that's very simply just a good ol' adventure story.
Y'know, there are some things you really have to keep in mind when you are watching these old serials. First off, they were not designed to be high art. They were not made to have the highest production values, or to withstand critical analysis or to "stand the test of time" they were simply meant for one purpose - to bring the kids back to the theater the next week. This means they had to have thrills. They had to have a fairly decent mystery that moved along each week, whether or not it was even "internally consistent". And they had to have enough of a cliffhanger to give the kids something to think, talk, and maybe argue about until it was time for next week's show. And The Great Alaskan Mystery, while it may not be The Best Serial Ever, certainly fulfills those criteria.
So who was the first superhero to actually make it to the big screen? Batman? No. Superman? Nope. Although both of them would later have their own serials, the first was actually the Fawcett Comics hero Captain Marvel.
Now I know for some of you, Captain Marvel is gonna be kind of a "whozzat?" hero. Others may remember him from the 1970's Saturday morning TV show "Shazam!". Still others may know him from his current comics incarnation and wonder why I called him a "Fawcett Comics hero" instead of a DC comics hero, since that's who publishes his adventures today. The truth, however, is that the history of this hero, originally created as a rival to Superman, is rather convoluted. Fortunately, it's also not all that relevant to the subject of today's essay, the 1941 Republic serial version of the character, except perhaps as an amusing sidebar in that as William Witney, notes in his book In a Door, Into a Fight, Out a Door, Into a Chase: Moviemaking Remembered by the Guy at the Door, the previous Republic serial, The Mysterious Dr Satan was originally intended to be a vehicle for Superman, in which case he would have beaten his rival to the screen. As it turned out, however, National Comics (as DC was known at the time) pulled out of negotiations, the hero for Dr. Satan was changed to the Copperhead (a non-powered masked man) and the Captain Marvel follow-up became the first official comics-to-film adaptation.
Hiya, Kiddies! So here we are, back again for another look at the weekly serials that were a staple of the cinemas for quite a few decades, from at least the 1920's until the early part of the 1950's but this time we're going to take little different tack. Instead of taking an in-depth look at a particular serial and following it through to it's end, we're going to look at different genres and see how they were handled over the years by the differing serials. That way, you can not only get an over-view of the many different samples through the different genres' but of course, if you want to follow up and watch the complete serial on your own, you'll always have that option.
Fair warning, however. Because many of these serials are based on trademarked characters, their public domain status may not be as clear as with most of the movies we discuss. That's one of the unfortunate issues when we begin to discuss the public domain and underlying rights (and I'm not going to go into that whole discussion now, since it's sure to come up as part of the Public Domain 101 series resuming soon). I will, however, do my best to note which of these are still under copyright or in the public domain where it is clear.
So, where shall we begin? Well, with the release of last year's Green Hornet movie and films based on The Green Lantern, Thor, Captain America, and The X-Men all coming out in the first half of this year, it seems like 2011 is at least going to start out as the year of the superhero in the cinema. (At least as far as the big blockbusters go.) So, since superheroes were also a long-standing staple of the Saturday matinees, that seems like as good a place to begin as any.
And so we reach the end. Finally we get to to just how Flash and his Space Soldier compatriots conquer the universe. What exactly does it means? What will be the cost? And what exactly will happen to Ming and his evil minions? Well, there's only one way to find out:
Apparently it's true: war changes everyone, even merciless emperors!
Along with watching the progressing chapters of this serial, for the first few weeks now we've also been talking about some of the changes that were made between the first two series and this one. This week we come to one that may at first seem merely a matter of semantics, but actually, I think, reflects the changes going on not only in Flash's world, but in the real world beyond the screen.
Running a bit late with the post today, so just a quick note before we jump in to this week's chapter: you may have noticed that the title cards, instead of saying simply "Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe" actually read "Flash Gordon - Space Soldiers Conquer the Universe". This change was actually made in the 1950's when King Features Syndicate bought the TV rights to all three of the Flash Gordon serials from Universal Pictures. Since there was also at the time an ongoing Flash Gordon TV show, King made the change in order to distinguish their product. In TV listings, these shows would simply be listed as "Space Soldiers Conquer the Universe". These title cards were then subsequently used for many of the early home video releases from which these embedded episodes were taken.
Ok, let's hurry along and see how Flash and company are going to survive that avalanche...
So today we begin our look at the third and last of the Flash Gordon serials starring Buster Crabbe as the titular hero, and this installment begins with both changes from and similarities to what has gone before.
Once again, the story begins with the Earth falling prey to a mysterious attack, only this time instead of meteors, it's a plague which falls from the sky. Once again, the hand behind the attack is that of Ming the Merciless, the ruler of the planet Mongo, but this time we are shown a Ming who is less Yellow Peril and more European dictator. And once again it is Plash Gordon, Dr. Zarkoff, and the beauteous Dale Arden off to confront Ming and save the planet, but something seems a bit different about Dale this time out, too.
Like the serial itself, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on a long winded introduction - we'll have plenty of opportunity to discuss the serial in depth as we go along. Instead, I'm gonna throw you right into the action with chapter one. Enjoy, and until next time, Happy Treasure Hunting!
So Tuesday we took a look at the 1914 serial The Perils of Pauline which was one of the first cliffhanging serials and starred Pearl White as the eponymous Pauline, and I figured today it might be fun to take a peek at a film that could be considered sort of a follow-up.
By 1947, the popularity of the serial film was beginning to fade, as television began to move into peoples' homes, and attendance at the Saturday matinees, at which these shorts had become a staple, had seen a sharp decline. As a matter of fact, just a year before, Universal had shut down its serials department (along with it's B-pictures unit) to concentrate solely on feature films. This was the beginning of a change not only in the way films would be produced, but in the way that the public saw the movie-going experience and what they expected when they went to their local theaters.
Y'know, there are certain cliches that one thinks of when they think of the old movie serials: the fair damsel tied to the railroad tracks by the dastardly villain only to be rescued at the seeming last instant, the hero trapped inside a burning house, the runaway car speeding too quickly along a twisting mountain road, and, of course, the giant boulder rolling faster and faster down a hill as our poor protagonist tries to find a way to avoid being crushed. (What, you thought that was an Indiana Jones original? Sorry, nope.) Well, like they say, all cliches start somewhere, and this serial, starring Pearl White as Pauline, is where a good many of them had their beginning.
So, longtime readers may be wondering what's going on with the Flash Gordon Serial that I'd been posting chapters of each Sunday. Well, long story short, it turns out that my source for the serial was mistaken, and it was actually still under copyright. Therefore, no more chapters will be posted, and all previous chapters have been removed.
Of course, that leaves the obvious question of "what now"? Well, that's where you come in, kiddies! Over on the right hand side of the page, I've set up a poll with the top five candidates, and the one that gets the most votes by midnight on Friday 6/25 (yep, that's this Friday) will be the next Sunday Serial.
For those of you who may not be familiar with some (or all) of these serials, I've listed them all below, along with some basic information and a link to the IMDB page for each one.(Just click the titles to go to IMDB.)
Roy Rogers. Tex Ritter. Gene Autry. Singing cowboys. No, today's mixed genre exploration is not about the intersection of musicals and westerns, though we could certainly do that. Instead we're going to take it a level deeper, shoving one of these cowhands into an underground world, take away his six-guns and replace them with ray guns, and pit him against robots and a long-lost race of people. In other words, we're going western/science fiction with Gene Autry in the serial The Phantom Empire
For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of serials, for now let's just say that there was a time when going to a movie involved much more than just seeing a feature film. Instead, an afternoon or evening at the movies might involve seeing a cartoon, a short subject (often some kind of exotic travelogue), a chapter of the latest serial, and then either one feature or perhaps even two (thus giving rise to the term B-movie, as they were designed to play the second half of a double-bill). The serial would be usually anywhere from 12-15 parts, normally about 20 minutes long (though the first part, which had to introduce the characters and set-up was often longer), and a new "chapter" would be shown each week. Basically you can think of them as something like today's TV shows 24 or Lost, where a complete story would be told over a series of weeks. The main differences being that since televisions were not the household fixtures they are now, the serials would be shown in theaters, and each chapter would generally end with a cliffhanger in order to draw the audience back the next week in order to find out how the hero (or his sidekick or companions) managed to survive the predicament they found themselves in.
Ok, so that brings us to The Phantom Enpire. In it we find Gene Autry as the owner and head of the Radio Ranch, a dude ranch from which he makes a daily radio broadcast. Along with the usual assortment of ranch hands (who also double as radio personalities, Autry also has as friends two teenagers, Frankie and Betsy Baxter (Frankie Darro and Betsy King Ross) who, with their friends like to pretend to be the Junior Thunder Riders, the knights of an unknown city whose horses sound like thunder when they ride.
The only problem with all of this is that unfortunately neither Gene nor the kids know that there really are Thunder Riders. You see, 100,000 years ago, the lost city of Mu sank 25,000 feet below the surface of the earth, and its inhabitants, known as the Muritanians, now live in a fantastic underground city, full of towering skyscrapers, elevators that can take them to the surface, and robots to do their bidding. The city is ruled over by the evil Queen Tika, though there are forces within her empire that are plotting to overthrow her. When it's discovered that Autry's Radio Ranch is situated on the land where the Muritanians passage to the surface opens, Tika plots to kidnap Autry so that he will lose his radio contract and the ranch will be deserted so the Muritanians can continue their ongoing raids on the surface world without fear of discovery.
Yet another twist in the story is that someone on the surface world already knows about the Muritanians and the Thunder riders. That someone is Professor Beetson, an evil mastermind who has built a criminal empire and plots to invade Muritania to seize the radium they are using as a power source. Of course, the evil professor also wants to run Autry away from his ranch so that he can have unimpeded access to the entrance to the Muritanian underground.
Autry finally comes into conflict with the secret race when Tika sends the Thunder Riders to kidnap Betsy and Frankie in order to draw Autry into her lair. From there it's a cavalcade of wonder and excitement as the cowboy and his companions must learn how to deal with this futuristic land and find a way to escape. There are plenty of ray gun fights, explosions, cheesy robots and other thrills in each chapter as the kids and their hero must attempt not only to survive, but to topple the evil queen's empire and ensure that the Muritanians and surface people can live in peace.
Here's a trailer:
All right, I guess it's time for the skinny:
Title: The Phantom Empire
Release Date: 1935
Running Time: 12 chapters, 245 min total
Black and White
Starring: Gene Autry
Directed by: Otto Brower and B. Reeves Eason
Produced by: Nat Levine
Distributed by: Mascot Pictures
All twelve chapters of The Phantom Empire are available to watch or download for free here.
If your preference is DVD, it's available in that format from Amazon: Phantom Empire.
Or, if ya just want to rent it, it's also available from Netflix: The Phantom Empire
And if you've seen this serial (or have any other recommendations for serials you'd like to see tackled in my upcoming serials week), whether you agree or disagree with my take, be sure to let me know by clicking on the "comments" link below. Feedback (about the film or any other aspect of the site) is not only welcomed but encouraged.
Until next time, Happy Treasure Hunting,
-Professor Damian
Welcome to Professor Damian's Public Domain Treasure Chest. Each day I, your humble host, will post information on a movie or T.V. show in the public domain along with links to where you can watch them online (for free) or purchase them on DVD. For more information on the public domain check out my public domain primer (to be posted soon, keep watching this spot for a link) or the public domain entry at wikipedia. Also be sure to check out the great resources available at The Internet Archive. Also each week I'll update The Master List of Public Domain movies and shows I've discussed so you can easily find them. Also, you can contact me with comments, suggestion, complaints or praise by clicking here.
.
