THE MYSTERIOUS MR. M (1946 serial)

In the latest of a string of murders committed by someone who leaves a note signed "Mr. M," three small-time crooks are found dead in a river, their brains paralyzed by an unknown chemical. Police chief John Blair and detective Kirby Walsh are mystified, but we soon discover that the chemical is a drug called hypnotrine, a truth serum and mind control drug developed by Anthony Waldron, a man who has been assumed dead for years. Waldron, hiding out in his grandmother’s mansion, and being assisted by his brother Derek and sister Marina, is trying to get ahold of Prof. Kittridge's new invention, a super-engine that will allow submarines the size of ocean liners to be built (a fact that is explained in literally every chapter of this serial). Waldron is calling himself Mr. M, but soon, he starts getting phonograph records with whispered instructions from someone else using the Mr. M handle, who is masterminding his own search for the engine plans and blackmailing Waldron into working for him. As the police investigate, Kittridge winds up dead, and one of his assistants, Jim Farrell, is injected with hypnotrine by Waldron to help him—it turns out that Kittridge had farmed out the production of various parts of the engine to a number of people and companies, and the Waldrons have a long road ahead of them. As it happens, Jim's brother Grant is a government agent, and after Jim winds up dead during a confrontation, hypnotrine is found in his blood, and Grant vows to track down Mr. M. Grant and Kirby and Shirley Clinton, an insurance investigator team up under Chief Blair to find the engine plans first, and to bring Mr. M to justice, not knowing that there is more than one Mr. M.

Most of the above and more happens in the first chapter. It's thick with exposition but still manages to be exciting. More exposition follows, but a nice variety of locales and minor characters keep things moving fairly well over the next 12 chapters. At one point, Kirby is captured, injected with hypnotrine, and has an experimental electronic device implanted in his ear, allowing Waldron to send him orders remotely. Among the cliffhangers: an oil field set ablaze, a building set ablaze, a plane with an unconscious pilot, fisticuffs and car chases, and the apparent fatal shooting of a major character. The script is a notch above the average, though the plot recaps that open each chapter are delivered as exposition from one character to another (often someone reporting developments to the desk-bound Chief Blair) and that gets tedious. Oddly, in the onscreen billing for each chapter, the two bad guys, Edmund McDonald (Anthony) and Danny Morton (Derek), are billed first and third, far above the good guys, Dennis Moore (Grant) and Richard Martin (Kirby), who get seventh and eighth billing (second billing goes to Pamela Blake (Shirley) who gets a big action scene in the disabled plane). I liked the acting throughout, especially Morton and Martin; also Jane Randolph as Marina and Byron Foulger as the mousy lawyer Wetherby.

This serial came late in the serials era, though they were still being released through the early 50s, and this was the last one produced by Universal. The general view is that the later serials were losing steam, but I have not necessarily found that to be the case. I quite enjoyed SECRET AGENT X-9 and MANHUNT OF MYSTERY ISLAND, both from the late 40s. I think a bigger reason for the demise of the serial was television, where if the shows weren't exactly like serials, they were serialized, even if each segment was a stand-alone story. The plot of this serial contained more variety in incident than usual, with some plot strands lasting only a couple of chapters, and some characters came and went throughout—and one of the top-billed characters is surprisingly killed off before the last chapter. There is also a trick involved in the unmasking of the real Mr. M in the last chapter. I did like this, and I can actually imagine watching it again. At top left are good guys Richard Martin and Pamela Blake; at right, bad guys Danny Morton and Edmund MacDonald  [DVD]