While I mainly talk about recent 1 movies in posts such as this and this, there’s another era of film I love and that’s the 1930s and 40s. One subset of those films was the movie “serial”. A serial was a short subject that, like the cartoon or newsreel, was shown before the feature movie. Usually lasting about 20 or 30 minutes, they were shown in chapters and usually ended in some sort of cliffhanger designed to bring you back to the theatre the next week to see how the hero survived.
The movie serial format was borrowed from episodic fiction that was all the craze back in the late 1800s. I talk about my own foray into episodic fiction in this post.
The stories were basic, the villains were usually one-dimensional, and the heroes were stereotypical “men (and women) of action”, but that action was fast and furious. All in all, they were just a lot of fun to watch and a nice glimpse back to a simpler time. The serials were episodic television before there was episodic television.
Movie serials had a huge influence on George Lucas as you can see if you watch any of the Raiders of the Lost Ark films. You can also see a lot of movie serial influence in the original Star Wars, as well.
When my wife and I caught COVID a few months back, I had about three days where I lived on our couch. Due to a 101-degree fever, I couldn’t focus enough to write, so I started watching things on YouTube. After watching every episode of another love of mine, The Three Stooges2, I started watching a movie serial called The Green Archer starring the great Victor Jory. The story of a criminal mastermind who had a henchman that dressed up like one of Robin Hood’s merry men and shot arrows into anyone the boss told him to. The twist came when another Green Archer showed up, fighting for the cause of justice. Who was this second Green Archer who fought on the side of the law? You’ll have to watch and find out for yourself! It was a lot of fun and sent me down the movie serial rabbit hole.
The next three I watched all starred the great Bela Lugosi. The Phantom Creeps, The Return of Chandu, and The Whispering Shadow. In Return of Chandu, Bela actually plays a hero while in the other two he’s back to his villainous ways. I talked about these a bit on Twitter and Instagram (if you’re not following me there, why not?) and pointed out the fascination they seemed to have back then with robots and the power of invisibility, themes that show up in each of these films in one form or another.
In addition to the above, some of my favorite serials (with links) include:
The Phantom Empire: Gene Autrey, the singing cowboy, takes on an underground civilization that wants to invade the surface. And, of course, there are robots.
The Shadow: Victor Jory as The Shadow matches wits with The Black Tiger; an underworld mastermind who can, you guessed it, make himself invisible.
The Green Hornet: The Green Hornet and Kato fight mobsters and racketeers to keep the city safe while being chased by the police who think they’re crooks, as well.
The Green Hornet Strikes Again: More racket-busting action from the Hornet and Kato.
Radar Men from the Moon: Commando Cody battles invaders from the Moon with the help of his amazing flying suit and jet packs.
Being a huge fan of old-time radio, which I talk about here, enjoying movie serials wasn’t a huge leap at all and seems like a normal progression in appreciating entertainment from a bygone era.
I realize they’re not to everyone’s taste, but have you ever seen a movie serial?
If so, which one and what did you think?
Come back to this theatre next week for Chapter 12 of The Fyve Spot to find out!
Until next time—
1.‘Recent’ meaning anything from the past 40 years.
2. Foreshadowing for another article, maybe?
I used to love Fu Manchu and Hercules at the cinema (aka local fleapit). But they weren't serials as such. I used to love watching the old Batman serials on tv (same time, same channel)!
I used to watch Maine Public Television when I was a teen and I believe there was a regular program called Matinee at the Bijoux which used to show old serials - it was fun.