TERRY AND THE PIRATES (1940 serial)

Dr. Lee has brought a small expedition to the jungle village of Wingpoo to look for evidence of a legendary lost civilization. His assistant Pat and Lee's young son Terry have arrived bringing "important documents" (as we told at the beginning of every one of the 15 chapters of this serial), but Lee has already gone into the jungle. The local governor is more interested in daydrinking than in helping Pat and Terry find Lee, and we discover that the governor, and seemingly half of the Anglo villagers, work for local warlord Fang (described as a "sinister half-caste"). But with the help of two men—Connie, their faithful Asian assistant, and Big Stoop, an imposing local magician and man of few, if any, words—Pat and Terry persevere. Fang attempts to befriend Lee, whose men were attacked and killed. Fang wants to find the Temple of Dawn, sacred to the followers of the ancient god Mara, enslave the natives by claiming to speak for Mara, and steal the untold riches buried beneath the temple. In doing so, he would set himself up at odds with the Dragon Lady, the rightful ruler of Mara's followers. Lee discovers his agenda and escapes with Fang's men in hot pursuit. Drake, a local plantation owner, and his daughter Normandie join up with Pat and Terry to fight Fang, but the Dragon Lady is skeptical of their motives and for a time has them captured. However, Fang outfits a large statue of Mara with a record player and sound system to make the natives believe that Mara is talking to them. When Mara suggests a revolt against the Dragon Lady, she joins Pat and Terry to fight Fang. Eventually, in grand serial style, all the characters and plot points come together at the Temple when Fang makes one last play for the hidden treasure.

I'd rank this a bit above the average serial, though it can't avoid the doldrums of the middle chapters that affect most of these movies. There is a lot of action throughout with exposition (and narrative logic) kept to a minimum--in fact, the plotline involving Dr. Lee's search for an ancient civilization more or less vanishes by the end with the focus on the treasure which, oddly, seems to consist of a single large diamond. The serial's chief asset is Granville Owen (later in his career known as Jeff York) who plays Pat. He's handsome and athletic and holds his own in the regularly scheduled fisticuffs, but he's also got a bit more personality than usual: he can be cranky and impatient, even manic, and often reacts in irritation to the antics of his young pal Terry. At times, I felt his performance was almost a parody of the traditional serial hero. William Tracy as Terry is often a liability. The actor was 23 playing a teenager, and speaks in a rather shrill, exaggerated way that sometimes seems calculated to be comic relief, but not always. I liked Tracy as the ambitious bicycle messenger in THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (made the same year), but he plays Terry in the exact same way and the mannerisms that worked in that Budapest-set romantic comedy don't travel comfortably to the jungles of Wingpoo. Dick Curtis (Fang) is irritatingly one-note in his villainy and Sheila Darcy (the Dragon Lady) is too colorless for a role that should be mysterious, and even a little femme-fatale-ish. The very tall Victor DeCamp (as Big Stoop) and the very short Allen Jung (as Connie) are fun, though not given enough to do; both are pictured at left. A hulking gorilla named Bombo pops in and out as needed. (Owen and Tracy are pictured at top right.)

Fang's Leopard Men look menacing enough in interior scenes, but their costumes consist of leopard masks and striped bathrobes, and in exterior location shots, they seem more silly than threatening. The record player device is used well (including a twist on it in the final chapter) and the sets are OK. A brief instance of a ritual of human sacrifice seems thrown in just to take up some narrative time. The action, as I've noted, is pretty constant--during one 20-minute chapter, I counted fist fights breaking out an average of every three minutes. The cliffhangers are generally fine, though the oddest thing about this serial is that each chapter ends with a post-cliffhanger preview of the next chapter. Yes, we know that our heroes will always get out of imminent danger, but the added preview negates the tension built up by the crocodile pit or the exploding cabin, or wherever it is Pat and Terry are stuck. My favorite line is delivered by Normandie, the distressed damsel who is given to loud shrieking when in danger. In Chapter 5, when she goes off to find Pat and Terry, she says perkily to her father, "You know I can take care of myself--see you at breakfast!" after which she promptly falls into an animal trap and is menaced by Bombo. Despite being a couple of chapters too long, I'm glad I stuck with this. [TCM/YouTube]