Returns is a
sequel to The Spider’s Web, a 1938 chapter-play considered by many
serial fans to be the best that Columbia Studios offered. It was directed
by James W. Horne, a man whose name is anathema to about fifty percent of
serial aficionados…and a godsend to the other half. Horne’s experience as
a veteran comedy director (among his resume you’ll find Laurel & Hardy’s The
Bohemian Girl and Way Out West) had a tendency to drift into his
cliffhanger productions, often devising bits of intentional comedy that
die-hard serial fans have denounced as the work of the Devil. (In my
opinion—and I stress that this is my opinion only—comedy can only help a serial. Horne directed Captain
Midnight, one of my favorite entries among Columbia ’s
prolific serial output.) One member of the Serial Squadron,
who vehemently disagrees with my comedy cliffhanger thesis, nevertheless told
me in a chat session last night that if I continue to cling to my theory I will
positively adore The Spider Returns. Despite our disagreement, I value his
judgment and am looking forward to seeing it.
Galahad is pretty
much what the title implies; a romp with the famed Knight of the Round Table (played
by future Superman George Reeves) and his quest to recover the sword known as
Excalibur. It has its detractors and defenders and while I haven’t viewed
it yet, any serial that attempts to do something different always gets a vote of confidence from me (though Who’s
Guilty almost put the kibosh on that). Hopefully I’ll get a
chance to slip it into the DVD player soon, but this evening I turned my
attention to another serial purchased from Restored Serials, Republic’s The
Crimson Ghost (1946).
Republic Studios’ reputation as the go-to guy for
cliffhangers is, of course, legendary among serial fans—though I’ll risk
blasphemy here and state that while some truly fine chapter-plays were cranked
out from the “Thrill Factory,” some of them were so bad they made Columbia and
Universal’s product look like masterpieces. Many of the post-war
Republics are like this; you can find a nugget among the dross but you have to
look mighty hard. Well, look no further than Ghost—an engaging little vehicle that moves at breakneck speed with
energetic stunts and unique chapter endings to compliment its first-rate cast
and script.
Professor Chambers (Kenne Duncan) is a scientific genius
who’s developed a device known as the Cyclotrode, designed to detect and repel
atomic-bomb attacks which he intends to use for niceness instead of evil.
Unfortunately, a costumed villain known as The Crimson Ghost has other designs
on Chambers’ toy, and he kidnaps the good professor, placing him under his
power by placing a “control collar” around his neck that will make the
scientist bend to his will. (It also repels fleas and ticks for up to
three months…but as far as heartworms go, he’s on his own.) Chambers’
protégé, scientist and criminologist Duncan Richards (Charles Quigley), has his
hands full over twelve chapters trying to stop the Ghost’s diabolical scheme,
his identity unknown but is suspected to be one of four professors at a nearby
university to whom Richard reports in each chapter. Dunky is also
assisted by his lovely assistant, Diana Farnsworth—played by none other than
Linda Stirling, a.k.a. “Queen of the Serials.”
The mystery element of Ghost—who
is the person behind this costumed creep?—is one of the things that makes the
serial so entertaining; Republic cleverly concealed the villain’s identity by
having the Ghost played by a stuntman (Bud Geary) and voiced by several
actors—one of which is I. Stanford Jolley, who receives fourth billing even
though he has a tiny role as a man posing as a government-appointed
psychiatrist. The plot is also top-notch, Quigley is a likable (if
slightly stiff) hero, and Stirling is always lovely to look at…though I prefer
to watch her in cliffhangers in which she has more to do, like Zorro’s
Black Whip (1944) and The Tiger Woman (1944). I like how the
serial’s plot contains a few interesting twists: one of the major characters
snuffs it in the third chapter, and there’s a nail-biting sequence where
Quigley attempts an operation on Stirling to remove a
“control collar” bestowed upon her by the villainous Ghost. (Previous
attempts to remove these collars ultimately result in the deaths of the
unfortunates.) There are also some first-rate cliffhangers (my favorite
is in Chapter 10, “The Trap That Failed,” in which a truck containing Stirling
and one of the professors crashes through a wall of a warehouse and off the
pier to the water below—I saw the warehouse and just assumed that the Brothers
Lydecker would end up blowing it to smithereens) and slam-bang action sequences
(Quigley’s stunt double steps off a wall in order to leap upon his opponent in
the first chapter), and the ‘rents (who ended up watching it with me) enjoyed
it as much as I did; Mom in particular, who was enchanted by the fact that her
childhood hero, Clayton Moore, played the Ghost’s chief henchman.
(Hey—any serial that lets Moore
appear not only in a gas mask but a surgeon’s
mask, allowing the serial’s viewers to shout out “Who IS that masked man?” is
aces in my book.) Mom and I were also reduced to hysterics by the time of
the twelfth chapter, in which the villains are subdued with the help of a
ferocious dog named…wait for it…”Timmy.” (“Get ‘im, Timmy!”)
During the viewing of Ghost,
Mom started complaining that the only serials she ever sees Clayton Moore in
are the ones in which he’s the bad guy. (I guess she forgot about Jesse James Rides Again, which we
watched back in January.) If I can figure out what I’ve done with Perils of
Nyoka (1942), I’m going to try and put that one on for her later
this week—but if I’m unable to locate its whereabouts, we’ll have to settle for
the too-boring-for-words Jungle Drums of Africa (1953).
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