FLASH GORDON (1936 serial)

Professor Gordon has discovered that Earth is on a collision course with the previously unknown planet Mongo, sending cities into pandemonium, but Gordon hopes that Dr. Zarkov will be able to use his new rocket ship to reach Mongo and alter its course. Gordon's son Flash, a professional polo player, is flying home when his plane runs into dangerous conditions caused by Mongo's approach and the passengers are all given parachutes and told to bail out. Flash and Dale Arden, the young woman seated next to him, land in a field that just happens to be where Zarkov's ship is getting ready for takeoff. Zarkov takes the two with him to Mongo where they are taken to the throne room of Emperor Ming who has planned Earth's extermination. Zarkov plays up to Ming's egotism by suggesting he conquer the Earth rather than destroy it (allowing the earthlings to try and thwart his plans). Thus begins this 13-chapter serial from Universal which, based on a popular comic strip, is the granddaddy of science fiction serials. Along the way, Flash and his pals meet up with a number of colorful characters. Princess Aura, Ming's daughter, starts out as a villain with plans to claim Flash for herself and get rid of Dale, but after numerous plots of hers are foiled and she is betrayed by her father, she comes around to helping the earthlings out of various traps. Prince Thun, long-bearded leader of the Lion Men, who fly through the skies in small vehicles called gyros, becomes an ally. King Kala of the Shark Men (actually just humans who live in an underwater city) makes Flash battle a large octopus and might have turned into an ally, but after the underwater city is destroyed, his fate is left up in the air, so to speak. King Vultan and his Hawkmen, who have gigantic wings which appear to be part of their costumes rather than natural appendages, and live in a floating city in the sky, are enemies of the Lion Men. Vultan captures Dale, wanting her for his queen, and even subjects Flash to electrical torture, but eventually joins up with Flash and Thun and becomes very helpful (despite his bizarrely hearty laugh which sometimes sounds downright creepy). Finally, Prince Barin, rightful heir to the Mongo throne, throws in with our group to help, if Flash will help Barin get rid of Ming.

There are a number of fun things about this serial, and the fairly large number of characters is a definite plus. None of the men are allowed to be as handsome and hunky as Flash; Vultan and Barin are sort of beefy, in an out-of-shape way. The two women (in fact, the only women in the entire movie with speaking parts) are sexy—Dale is blond and innocent, Aura is dark and exotic. The action is non-stop; it all seems to be taking place in one long time period, as there are no day or night time markers except for one scene set at midnight. Unlike most later serials, there are few fistfights but several scenes of combat. In addition to the octopus, Flash grapples with an orangopoid (giant ape), wrestles mutants, engages in a Tournament of Death swordfight with a masked champion, tussles with a Sacred Tiger, and faces a giant lobster-clawed creature and a fierce Fire Dragon. He also gets drugged, has his memory wiped, is turned invisible, is stripped down to work in the atom furnaces (where he leads a mutiny), and is tortured by electric shock in the Static Room. 

The sets are spectacular, many of them recycled from earlier Universal horror movies. An impressive but utterly unnecessary scene of orgiastic dancing is pulled from the 1930 sci-fi comedy Just Imagine. The miniature effects involved in showing flight are primitive but charming, especially a short scene featuring the flying Hawkmen. There are a few weaknesses. It wasn't always clear to me where scenes were taking place, and the whole Shark Men sequence is a bit boring. Princess Aura, who toggles between good and bad, suddenly decides in chapter 12 that she's in love with Prince Barin, an unmotivated change that rings false. And Ming's plan to conquer Earth is never really brought up after the first chapter; mostly, he wants to force Dale to be his bride. [Slight spoiler: we are told that Ming basically commits suicide in the end—in a fairly effective scene—but this is left ambiguous so Ming can return in any sequels, which he does.]

Serials don’t require great actors. Best is Buster Crabbe as Flash; mostly, he looks either scared or uncomfortable, though he is an effective hero and looks good in his tight shorts (and even better in his shirtless scenes). Richard Alexander is quite good as Barin and Jack Lipson is fine as Vultan. The rest of the main cast is fairly weak. Some critics like Charles Middleton as Ming, but aside from his Fu Manchu-ish look, I found him artificial and somewhat low energy. Jean Rogers (Dale) is often reduced to shrill screaming, yelling Flash's name, and fainting; Priscilla Lawson has resting glower face as Aura. Frank Shannon is ineffectual as Zarkov, and it doesn’t help that the 62-year-old actor has to wear a shorty-shorts costume that makes him look pretty silly. Theodore Lorch deserves mention as Ming's high priest who skulks about a lot. Despite its age, this really is a high point of the serials genre; by the 1940s, budgets got cheaper, scriptwriters got lazy, and action scenes got repetitive. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the serials of the classic era, and cheap thrills can be had from even the worst ones, but if you're looking for the best the genre has to offer, this will do. BTW, the movie was given a subtitle, Space Soldiers, in the 50s when it was sold to TV, and that subtitle is on most of the home video versions, though never onscreen. In 1966, a condensed version called Spaceship to the Unknown was released to television, cutting the four hour serial down to 100 minutes, leaving out entire subplots like the Shark Men adventure, but it remains fairly coherent. [DVD]

SLIPPERY WHEN WET (1958) / BAREFOOT ADVENTURE (1960)

Bruce Brown broke into big time filmmaking with 1966’s THE ENDLESS SUMMER, a documentary which followed two young American men as they travel the world trying to keep summer alive by finding new places to surf. It was the rare documentary that became a commercial hit, and a few years later, Brown's ON ANY SUNDAY, a doc about motorcycle racing, was nominated for an Oscar. But Brown, himself a surfer, had made six short surfing docs years earlier and Turner Classic Movies showed some a while back. These aren't stuffy educational films with interviews, research, and a social agenda, they're just Brown showing surfers having fun devoting their summer days to going from beach to beach trying to catch the perfect wave. Shot silent with chatty casual narration provided by Brown, the bulk of the footage of both of these early short (70 minutes) films consists of watching surfers catch waves, fail to catch waves, and (quite often) wiping out. These films were not distributed theatrically, but shown in rented-out halls and theaters with Brown narrating live accompanied by a musical soundtrack playing on a tape recorder. These two make for enjoyable viewing. Brown never takes himself or his subject too seriously; SLIPPERY's narration starts by evoking the Bible's opening words, "In the beginning" with shots of sun, water, foam, and waves. Then we are told, "With civilization, there came the surfer with his urge to conquer these moving walls of water." A narrative of sorts follows, as Brown shows five young California men daydreaming about surfing in Hawaii. For example, Del Cannon pictures native women fanning him with palm fronds and feeding him grapes and bananas; and Henry Ford imagines himself cramming poi in his mouth and smearing it all over his face (as pictured below right). The five get to Hawaii and spend all their time surfing at various beaches. The surf footage is broken up with mildly humorous vignettes: two crabs carefully drag a cigarette butt on the beach down into a sand hole; the guys jump from waterfalls; when they rent a dilapidated beach shack, we see that all the cupboards and the refrigerator are filled with cans of baked beans. Despite the five being handsome WASPy types, they seem not at all interested in women. In fact, the only time we hear about women, they're called "Gidgets" and dismissed. Before the guys leave for Hawaii, they have a short misadventure with a would-be surfer named Mooks who wants to surf because a gidget has encouraged him to. He comically doesn't cut the mustard.

BAREFOOT ADVENTURE features a couple of the same guys and the same locations. It lacks a story throughline but has slightly more fleshed out fictional vignettes. The longest and weirdest one involves Del Cannon breaking into a surf shop to make his own board in the back room and completely mucking things up. Near the end, the guys drive across an abandoned military base to get to a beach and wind up hitting a buried landmine which blows their vehicle to pieces, after they get to safety, of course. The explosion and the gutted vehicle are certainly real but the story and most of the footage look fake. Women are similarly ignored here, though there are a few brief shots of a female surfer joining in with the boys in the surf. One sequence of the guys mocking some female tourists taking hula lessons could be borderline offensive today. Brown’s facility with a camera is impressive, as are the abilities of the surfers. The recorded narration for this film was lost, so Brown recorded new narration in 1990, which sounds just as laid-back as that in SLIPPERY. What sets both of these films a bit above being just elaborate home movies are the scores, written by jazz saxophonist Bud Shank (who released dozens of albums between 1954 and 2009) and recorded by his band. The music is used very well, and current-day viewers may be surprised that it's a jazz soundtrack, without a bit of what we think of as surf music (like that of the Beach Boys or guitarist Dick Dale). ENDLESS SUMMER is essentially a more polished, less humorous version of these two films. Incidentally, despite both films having shirtless guys getting wet and hanging out together 24/7, their behavior is about as un-homoerotic as you could imagine, with the possible exception of that boy with the poi on his face. [TCM]

BATTLE AT BLOODY BEACH (1961)

During WWII, American Craig Benson (Audie Murphy) and his wife Ruth were honeymooning in Manila when the Japanese attacked and they became separated. Desperate to find her, Craig volunteers to work with the U.S. Navy on a submarine as they set out to liberate prisoners and freedom fighters from the Philippine islands. On the coast of one island, Craig sees a signal from shore, a torch waved by Marty (Gary Crosby), a radio operator who has remained free and living on the wreck of a ship. Marty joins him in his cozy set-up with two native women, lots of supplies, banana leaf cigarettes, and meals of monkey stew and fried grasshoppers. Craig has brought arms for any bands of guerilla fighters he can find. The first group they make contact with, led by the ineffective McKeever, wind up being mostly bandits, but a group of fighters led by the Filipino soldier Julio (Alejandro Rey) and a Black American boxer named Tiger (Ivan Dixon) kill McKeever, and Craig promises to give Julio the arms. He also agrees to take a small band of American civilians to Australia, but then discovers that one of them is his wife, Ruth, and that she is also Julio's lover. She is torn between the two, telling Craig that she'd feel like a deserter if she left Julio. Eventually, the group winds up trapped on the wreck by a band of Japanese soldiers. Can they shoot their way to freedom and work out the love triangle?

Despite the rather generic title, this is an interesting small-scale war film which focuses on a small band of people, mostly civilians and guerillas, trapped in a limited space rather than using a more traditional war movie template featuring a military platoon traversing a lot of ground. This allows some expanded character development—we get to know the soldier buddy, Marty, better than we might otherwise, though Ruth remains mostly just a plot point. However, as other viewers have pointed out, the romance triangle plays out against expectations: jealousy does not turn into violence, and Ruth's feelings aren't just about love but also about self-determination and loyalty. Murphy is his usual low-key reliable self and Rey, perhaps best known as Carlos on The Flying Nun, is fine as Julio, though Dorothy Michaels isn't able to make much of her role as the wife. The surprise for me in the cast was Gary Crosby, son of Bing (pictured with Murphy). He's quite good in a role that is part buddy and part comic relief. Though he's less important in the latter half, he helps spark the narrative in the first half. He's also not bad looking in a blond bear kind of way, though every so often, a camera angle will emphasize how much he looks like his dad which works against his mild sex appeal. In the finale, the fates of some of the characters are genuinely surprising, even if the resolution of the main romance story is not. Recommended. [DVD]

MARRIED TOO YOUNG (1962)

High school student Tommy, who works at Miltie's Garage, wins an auto race and is congratulated by his boss Miltie and his girlfriend Helen. A slick but slimy guy named Grimes tells him he deserves a better job but Tommy, rightfully suspicious, ignores him, even though Grimes says he'll be back one day with a solid offer. Tommy hopes to go to college when he graduates even though his working-class parents don't do much to encourage him. That night, Tommy takes Helen, from an upper-class background, out to a classy night spot, but when she insists on taking the floor for a solo sexy dance and is accosted by a drunk, the two leave. Helen keeps nuzzling Tommy, distracting him from his driving, so they go parking at a lover's lane. Leaping into the back seat, they make out forcefully (the most realistic scene in the movie) but Tommy stops himself from going any further. They impulsively decide to cross the state line and elope. Both are still living with their parents so they try to keep the marriage a secret. At the garage, Grimes and his hotsy gal pal Marla stop by; Grimes asks Tommy to take the car (with Marla in it) for a spin to check out the carburetor. While he's gone, Grimes flirts (unsuccessfully) with Helen, while Marla (somewhat more successfully) smooches on Tommy, leading to the couple's first fight. Helen's mom, over the moon about being accepted by the local country club, finds her daughter's marriage license, calls Tommy a nobody, and gets together with Tommy's equally disapproving folks to complain to the justice of the peace who married them. He tells them it is a perfectly legal marriage and criticizes the parents for fighting against the couple's happiness. At the parents' insistence, the two have a public wedding at City Hall, then move in with his parents, then her parents, but when they feel hemmed in by parental rules, Miltie gives Tommy a raise and encourages them to buy a house, which they do. But things don't get much better, and soon Tommy reluctantly agrees to do extra work for Grimes to do retouch jobs on stolen cars. This leads to fights, a cop chase, and a car accident. But improbably, with the help of a sympathetic judge, there's a happy ending for Tommy and Helen.

This teen melodrama was clearly made on the cheap and would be forgotten today but for two things: 1) Ed Wood, though not credited, is rumored to have rewritten the end of the screenplay (though the daughter of the credited screenwriter insists that isn't true); 2) the leading role of Tommy is played by Harold Lloyd Jr., son of the famous silent movie comic actor. Lloyd Jr. had a spotty acting career and did some work for his father on a couple of compilation films. He was gay and is rumored to have had a thing for rough sex which occasionally left him bruised up, though to be fair, I can find no authoritative source for this even though it's mentioned several places on the Internet. He eventually took to drink, had a stroke at 34 and died at 40. He was 30 when he played a 17-year-old here; he passes for younger than 30 but he's certainly no teenager. He's actually quite good, putting a lot of energy into his performance, perhaps realizing that something had to distract from the cheap production and weak screenplay. Jana Lund (pictured with Lloyd) is fine as Helen, also acting with conviction—she was good a few years earlier in HIGH SCHOOL HELLCATS. Their car make-out scene, as I noted, looks awfully real, and their married relationship also feels real—they're two kids who don't really understand what a marriage is all about, and are navigating blindly with no help from adults, except for well-meaning Miltie. 

Anthony Dexter started at the top playing Valentino in a much-ballyhooed 1951 film and it was downhill from there. His role here as Grimes is important to the plot but minor, and he walks through it like an android set to "bland villainy," and his villainy seems unmotivated. Marianna Hill, who wound up with eighty acting credits, is Marla, who is likable when she's necking with Tommy's pal Mike (Cedric Jordan) and less likable when she’s with Grimes (she winds up back with Mike by the end). The mothers of Tommy and Helen seem youngish and energetic, but both of the fathers come off as drab and lifeless, not even able to work up any depictions of toxic masculinity. I enjoyed this largely due to Lloyd's committed performance. I watched this first mocked on Rifftrax, then I tracked down the original version on YouTube in a pristine widescreen print, which always helps. It's apparently available on Blu-ray, but I'm not sure I'd go so far as to purchase it. But I do recommend it to fans of the 60s teen exploitation genre. [YouTube]

THE CHINESE CAT (1944)

A businessman named Manning is in his study, playing a game of chess with himself when someone sneaks out of a secret passage and shoots him dead, but not before he can deliberately knock some chess pieces off the board, as though leaving a message about his killer. The door to the study was locked and the police make little progress with the case so it is declared closed. Months later, mystery author Paul Recknik publishes Murder by Madame, a thinly fictionalized account of the Manning case that singles out the widow as the killer. Manning’s daughter Leah is dating police detective Dennis, but his hands are tied by the DA, so she visits detective Charlie Chan and his son Tommy, who are only in town for 48 hours, for help in reopening the case. Chan runs into taxi driver Birmingham Brown, whom he encountered on his previous case and with Dennis in tow, they're off. The affair involves jewel thieves, a pair of twin brothers, a shuttered amusement park fun house, a bombing, a poisonous gas, some statuettes (including one of a cat), and the chess pieces from the opening scene. Chan and Tommy even endure getting beaten up and Tommy faints from poison gas before they wrap up the case. With all the incidents that take place, this one, the second in the series from Poverty Row studio Monogram, moves at an acceptable pace, but the low budget and uninspiring supporting cast hurt a bit. Sidney Toler (Chan) and Benson Fong (Tommy) are OK, and Mantan Moreland begins to make himself indispensable to the series as the scared but helpful Birmingham Brown. Joan Woodbury, Ian Keith, and Cy Kendall are the most familiar faces in the cast. The comic relief is fairly mild, and Tommy has a line that Charlie could use in his advertising: “When Chan takes the case, pop goes the case!” Pictured is Mantan Moreland freaked out by a funhouse skeleton. [DVD]

MY GUN IS QUICK (1957)

Private eye Mike Hammer stops in at a small diner and befriends Red, a young girl from Nebraska who came to LA to seek her fortune only to find a job as a stripper at a cheap club called the Bluebell (and, we suspect, some side work as a hooker; as she chats up Mike, the chef says to her, "Say, would you stop using this joint as your office?"). When tough guy Louis bothers her, Mike kicks his ass a little bit, then gives Red enough money to buy new clothes and take the next bus back to Nebraska. As they part, he notices she's wearing a large, ornate ring with the letter V. It's stuck on her finger but she assumes it's cheap costume jewelry. The next morning, Mike learns that Red was killed overnight, a hit-and-run victim, but when he finds out that her ring is missing, he suspects foul play. Police captain Chambers discourages Mike from getting involved, but they soon learn that the ring was part of a stash of jewelry called the Vanucci Jewels, stolen in Germany from the Nazis by Colonel Holloway. He got a jail sentence for his crime, but some of the jewels were not recovered. Hammer, ignoring Chambers, soon visits Red's roommate Maria, who introduces him to Jean, the Blue Bell's mute janitor and the man who gave Red the ring. He also runs across Louis again and chases him to the beach house of the wealthy Nancy Williams, just returned from a long stay in Paris due to an adulterous scandal. Louis works as her butler but she fires him and becomes friendly with Mike. While trying to dig up information on Holloway, Mike discovers that he rented Nancy's house while she was gone, and they both wonder if the jewels might be on or around her property. Eventually, Mike runs into Holloway (in a meeting clearly engineered by Holloway) and soon Holloway has hired Mike to find the jewels. However, a gang of French thugs are also looking for them, and things get quite complicated before Mike find the jewels, avenges Red, and makes sure the guilty parties get what they deserve.

Mike Hammer is a tough guy PI, created as a pulp fiction character by author Mickey Spillane. I won’t go into detail here about the character (go to Google), except to say that, for my money, Ralph Meeker gave the definitive Hammer performance in the 1955 noir classic KISS ME DEADLY. Robert Bray (pictured) takes on the role here and compared to Meeker, he gives a kind of made-for-TV performance. He looks more like a chemistry teacher or vanilla businessman than a tough dick; he's fine in fisticuffs scenes and he gets beaten hard enough at the halfway point of the movie that his black eye remains visible right up to the end (like Jake's nose in Chinatown). But mostly, he just comes off as awfully mild—and not nearly as sexy as Meeker was. He never really gets tougher than in the opening scene: when he calls his secretary Velda, she starts to bitch at him about being gone so long, and he snarls back, "Off my back, chick!" A noir atmosphere is attempted on occasion, most effectively in the opening scene and later ones in the club. We're made aware that Hammer has a moral code (he's against murder and casual sex) but unlike in genuine noir, nothing here really comes into conflict with his morals. It's strictly a B-production, with cheap sets that look a notch above Ed Wood's sets, except for the beach house which is fabulous. Other performers run the gamut from pretty good (Whitney Blake as Nancy, Jan Chaney as Red) to so-so (Pamela Duncan as Hammer's secretary Velda) to forgettable (Booth Colman as the cop, Donald Randolph as Holloway). There’s a long, long scene of a fairly low-key freeway car chase through LA. Still, adjusting expectations, I liked it OK. If nothing else, you do wind up wanting to know who has the jewels and who killed Red. Cast note: Later, Whitney Blake played Hazel's boss on the Hazel sitcom of the 1960s, and co-created the TV show One Day at a Time. She was also the mother of Meredith Baxter. [TCM]

COSTA AZZURRA aka WILDCATS ON THE BEACH (1959)

The literal translation of this Italian title is azure (blue) coast, and is idiomatic for the French names Cote D’Azur or the French Riviera. It was apparently never released theatrically in the United States, but the English title given to this Italian film for television showings in 1967 is WILDCATS ON THE BEACH which leads one to think this will be an entry in the teen beach comedy genre. It is not. It is a romantic comedy of sorts, but not a lot of time is spent on beaches with people in bikinis or with muscles. It's concerned with the misadventures of four grown-up couples visiting the French Riviera. In lieu of a detailed plot summary, a roster of characters will suffice. 1) Rita is an American movie star who is in the middle of getting a divorce while her longtime lover Maurizio is leaving his wife for her, though he grows irritated when she asks him to stay out of sight during her constant encounters with the paparazzi. 2) Adelina is with her wildly jealous husband Leopoldo, a short guy with a big chip on his shoulders, always taking offense to anything that happens around him. The handsome Nicola, whose sister is friends with Adelina, flirts a bit with her, not particularly threatened by her ineffective husband. 3) Giovanna and Alberto are fruit vendors on the beach; she decides to try and get an audition with a famous director, only referred to as the Maestro though her husband is sure she won’t get it. They are both surprised when the director becomes interested in signing Alberto for a small part in the film, saying he looks like a young Jean Gabin—neither seems to notice that the director's constant companion is a young bleach-blond man who is always in a bikini. 4) The rich Carsoli (who may be an arms dealer) is having troubles with his wife Doriana, and Gino, a reporter assigned to do a story on Carsoli, flirts with her; eventually, Carsoli seems to agree to let her go, but there are strings attached to his offer.

Though there are times when the proceedings slow to a crawl, this is basically a fun comedy of sexual matters, though don’t expect any onscreen sex. There are some bodies in bikinis in the background, and at a strip club, we see a skinny drag queen named Bambi tease the audience. Despite the titillation we get in each story, traditional morality wins out in the end for all the couples. Things remain light, with the story of Rita and Maurizio being the most serious. The highlight of the film was watching the totally clueless Alberto (well known Italian comedy actor Alberto Sordi) get courted by the older, overweight gay director. The story manages to play out without getting too homophobic. The American actress Rita Gam (Rita), a familiar face in 70s TV shows, is quite good, as is Georges Marchal (Maurizio), whom I mostly know from peplum movies like SIGN OF THE GLADIATOR though in his youth he was very fetching in LUMIERE D’ETE. Franco Fabrizi is charming as ever as Nicola. I should also mention Elsa Martinelli, who made a number of Hollywood movies in the 60s, who is fine as Doriana, and Tiberio Murgia who is successful at making Leopoldo obnoxiously unlikable yet also a little sympathetic. Not as fizzy as its American title would have it, but not as melodramatic as it could have turned out. But with good looking people, colorful costumes, and the Riviera setting, it's fun. Pictured are Marchal and Gam. [YouTube]

THIRTY DAY PRINCESS (1934)

In the kingdom of Taronia, American banker Richard Gresham has a chance meeting with King Anatol XII at a mud bath. Anatol is searching for a solution to the country's economic woes. Gresham agrees to set up a $50 million bond loan, but he says the country needs to initiate a major public relations campaign in the United States to get enthusiastic backing. Anatol sends his daughter Princess Zizzi who is happy to leave the country for a while as she is engaged to Prince Nicholaus, a man she doesn't love. Upon her arrival in the States, shepherded by Gresham, Zizzi faints while being introduced to the press. Gresham says she is exhausted, but it turns out she has the mumps and can't travel. A small team of investigators is sent out on the streets of New York to hunt for a young woman who resembles Zizzi to take her place on the PR tour. Meanwhile, penniless actress Nancy Lane, who looks exactly like the princess, steals a sandwich from an automat. When she is accosted by two men, she thinks they're police but they are really Gresham's men. Gresham offers her $10,000 to pose as the princess for a month, and a bonus if she can pull off one extra twist. Newspaper publisher Porter Madison III has been running stories opposing the bond loan, so Nancy is expected to do some extracurricular work and charm Madison into backing the loan. The tour is a success as is Nancy's charm offensive with Porter. Meanwhile, complications pile up. An actor who knows Nancy recognizes her as Zizzi; Nancy's landlord suspects that Nancy has been kidnapped; the drippy Nicholaus shows up in the States, catches on to the ruse, and plants suspicions in Porter's mind. This being a forerunner to the screwball comedy genre, we know happy endings are in store.

Sylvia Sidney, not known for comedy, is the reason to watch this. She is charismatic and energetic in the dual role of Zizzi and Nancy (pictured above in both roles). Edward Arnold does a fine job as Gresham; given his persona in other films and the fact that he's playing a banker during the Depression, we might expect him to be unlikable (he tells Anatol, "We don't boast about being bankers these days; we're all in the doghouse!") but he's almost as appealing as Sidney. Reliable character actor Henry Stephenson is fun in the small role of the King (he does get to reappear briefly at the end) and Vince Barnett is fine as Nicholaus. The script is fairly solid and the repartee fun. The only minus is, surprisingly, Cary Grant as Porter. His character is one-dimensional—we don't even know why he is against the loan—and Grant seems uncomfortable in the role, never quite finding his footing. This was still early in his career, and he was apparently not happy to take the part in the first place and I think that shows a bit. There is a very amusing scene at a party where a slightly drunken Sidney starts toasting the past kings of Taronia, leading the partygoers to smash drinking glasses with each toast. An amusing trifle which Sidney makes worth watching. [TCM]

CHARLIE CHAN IN THE SECRET SERVICE (1944)

Detective Charlie Chan is currently in Washington D.C, engaged in wartime service for the government. Melton, an inventor working on a bomb that will be effective against German U-boats, opens a closet door during a cocktail party and drops dead, and his plans go missing. A secretive master spy named Manlich is suspected and Chan is on the case. Among the suspects: a wealthy matron, a war refugee, an unpopular economist, and a brother and sister pair; he uses a wheelchair but we discover that he can get around without it if need be. Two Secret Service agents are also present, as are Chan's son Tommy and daughter Iris who want to help out but, as usual, are mostly in Dad's way, despite extolling themselves as "hip cats of the younger generation." It's discovered that Melton was killed by a set-up that electrocuted him when he grabbed the closet light chain. But who did it and where are the plans?  Though the title promises adventure, this is basically an old dark house mystery set in a house that is not dark enough to generate much atmosphere.

This is the first in a series of seventeen Charlie Chan films made by Poverty Row studio Monogram Pictures after 20th Century Fox ended their series. The phrase Poverty Row is a bit misleading. Basically, these studios made low budget B-films which often wound up as second features to A-films from bigger studios. The films are not necessarily poor in quality, as the word "poverty" might imply, but their cheaper budgets are in evidence. In this film, the bland sets, the stark lighting, the haphazard plotting, and a lack of star talent are all marks of a Monogram production. However, there is still Sidney Toler as Chan to help make the movie worth watching, though I also think this is the beginning of Toler's decline. For the first time, Chan seemed to be getting old. Toler turned 70 the year this film was released—his pace is slower and he seems less invested in the role, understandably perhaps as this is his twelfth outing as Chan. (It's noted in this movie that Chan has 14 children which could be a reason for the character's weariness.) Benson Fong made his first of six appearances in the series as Tommy. One other character is introduced who would appear in most of the Chan films that followed: the Black chauffeur Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland, pictured with Toler above). Here, he works for the wealthy matron; in his next film, he's Chan’s taxi driver, and later, Chan would hire him as a valet. The comic relief antics of Birmingham, usually in conjunction with whatever Chan son was present, are high points of the films. He introduces his trademark "Good gracious me!" remark here, often uttered almost directly to the camera. I admit the identity of the killer was a surprise to me. No one in the lackluster supporting cast is worth pointing out. [DVD]

COMMANDO CODY: SKY MARSHAL OF THE UNIVERSE (1953 serial)

Mr. Henderson, government official "in charge of all operations in outer space," is at Commando Cody's office and meets Cody's new assistants Ted and Joan, who have been hired to work on a top secret project: an atomic powered rocket ship capable of reaching any planet in the solar system. (I was pleased to see more security here than in the previous Cody serial RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON; in fact, Cody now wears a domino mask to hide his identity. Also, who the hell appointed Cody "sky marshal of the universe," which seems to be an official title?) When missiles were being fired at Earth from outer space, Cody developed a "radioactive cosmic dust layer" which was put in place above our planet to burn up any object heading toward Earth. As we later learn, a robed villain called The Ruler is creating this havoc from his headquarters on Venus, with some help from a band of henchmen on Earth. Cody has created a dispersal ray that allows his rocket to pass through the dust layer, and the bulk of this serial involves the Ruler's attempts to get his ships through the dust to invade. Over the twelve chapters, Cody and his team have to face an earth-melting ray (using footage from KING OF THE ROCKET MEN), destructive floods, germ warfare weapons, a lumbering robot, explosions intended to knock the moon out of its orbit, climate changes, hydrogen hurricanes, and a trip to visit the Queen of Mercury (!) before their final showdown with the Ruler. 

First, let's deal with the Cody character problem. Though the same Rocket Man suit is used in four Republic serials (ROCKET MEN, RADAR MEN, ZOMBIES OF THE STRATOSPHERE, and this one), only this and RADAR have a hero named Commando Cody, and he's played by two different actors. Here, he’s Judd Holdren who played Rocket Man Larry Martin in ZOMBIES. I like to think of all of them as Cody, but technically they're not, or depending on your viewpoint, technically they are. Next, there's the definition problem: is this really a serial? It was shot to be a 12-episode television show, but contractual problems obligated Republic to release it in theaters as a serial first. Later, it was shown on television during the summer of 1955. Some serials fans maintain that this is not really a serial, mostly because there are no cliffhangers—each episode is more or less self-contained, though there is an overarching arc story. (And the last two episodes are more directly linked.) My opinion: of course it's a serial. It was one long narrative shown in weekly chapters in theaters; the chapters are numbered and titled, though the word 'chapter' is not used onscreen. 

How does it stand up to the other Rocket Man serials? Even though I sometimes complain about cliffhangers—their predictability, their cheating visuals—I admit I miss their presence here. There are cliffhanger moments at the ends of some chapters, continuing characters, and plenty of fistfights. The sets are pretty much the same as in the other films, as is, of course, Cody's flight suit. Judd Holdren is at a bit of a disadvantage in the domino mask but I guess he's heroic enough. Aline Towne (Joan) was in three of the other serials and, as always, has little to do. Willam Schallert as Ted is surprisingly tentative and low energy. After a break in filming between chapters 3 and 4 (to film ZOMBIES), he was replaced by Richard Crane (as Dick, pictured at top left with Towne and Holdren), handsome and energetic, and well versed at decent comic relief (he played space ranger Rocky Jones in a 1954 TV show). Many episodes end with a sort of punch line delivered by Crane, my favorite being one in which he fantasizes about using the Ruler as a houseboy and having him whipped. Crane is definitely a plus. Gregory Gaye (The Ruler) has little to do except give orders to his thugs. He's pictured at right with Gloria Pall, credited only as The Moon Girl.

Our heroes have to face some interesting situations. One involves a second sun appearing in the sky (then a third and a fourth), causing Earth temperatures to skyrocket. In the following chapter, the Ruler puts our planet into a tilt, aligned with Saturn, causing the threat of a new Ice Age in the Northern Hemisphere. In addition to the Venus HQ (the same sets used by the villains in the other serials), the moon, Saturn and Mercury are involved in plotlines. The good guys use "insignia radios" pinned to their outfits to communicate. The bad guys use a huge machine which decodes secret messages from the Ruler to the chief Earth baddie (Lyle Talbot in a thankless and repetitive role). Of the three Rocket Man actors, I think I still like George Wallace (RADAR MEN) the best. I did miss the rough-and-ready feel of the other Republic serials—to call this production glossy is misleading, but it is on the shiny and clean side—but it’s fun to watch. [Blu-ray]

PLAYING AROUND (1930)

On his ship, Blackbeard the pirate is about to engage in a fight with a rival when a chorus line appears, a woman begins singing, and the camera pulls back to reveal that we are watching an elaborate production number called "You're My Captain Kidd" in a nightclub called the Pirate's Den. At a side table, low-level gangster Nickey Solomon (Chester Morris) is asked by the club's owner to judge a women's leg contest called the Pageant of Knees just as young Jack (William Bakewell) brings his long-time gal Sheba (Alice White) in for dinner. Jack is shocked at the prices—for a drink, he wants her to order buttermilk because it's the cheapest thing on the menu—and wants to leave, but Sheba enters the Pageant. Nickey chooses her as the winner and instead of giving a speech, she sings a song. Jack, a soda jerk who works for her father at a tobacco store, remains irritated the entire evening, but Nickey decides he's going to get her attention, and when the couple leaves, Sheba is impressed by Nickey's fancy car (with a goofy air-horn sounding horn that Nickey uses frequently and obnoxiously). The next day as Sheba tries to hail a taxi, Nickey pulls up and she hops right in. Angry at Jack partly because he hasn't asked for a raise, she starts going around Nickey, and doesn't care what Jack thinks about it. One night Nickey takes her out for a spaghetti dinner. Despite his fine clothes and lounge lizard manner, Nickey doesn't have the three dollars to pay for their meal, so he finagles it out of the diner owner, and even gets a hundred extra bucks to take Sheba out to see George White's Scandals on Broadway. Jack is waiting at her dad's apartment (where Sheba lives) to talk to her, but midnight rolls around and she is still out, giving Jack the occasion for the movie's best line, "Midnight doesn't mean anything to Sheba since she started skating around with this new sheik!" Eventually Jack is all washed up with Sheba, who accepts a proposal of marriage from Nickey, but needing more money, Nickey robs the cigar store and shoots the employee who is, unknown to Nickey, Sheba's dad. Jack witnesses the shooting and though he didn't see Nickey's face, he heard Nickey's car horn right afterward. Now can he get the police to believe that Nickey is guilty?

This very early talkie, shot in 1929, highlights the best and worst of that short era. There are some impressively fluid camera shots, including the opening pull-back into the club and a later scene when Sheba goes running for a taxi, but the acting is stiff with actors still not comfortable with sound. (A silent version was produced but may not have been distributed widely.) Worst is the leading lady, Alice White, who doesn't deliver a single line with anything like depth or meaning. William Bakewell, playing a sort of juvenile role as the innocent pup who is always in the middle of a mild hissy fit, is only slightly better, but as peeved is his default emotion, he got on my nerves by the halfway point of the movie. Chester Morris, who was in his heyday (he was nominated for an Oscar for ALIBI that same year), is much better, but he doesn't display the slightly oily charm that would serve him well in other early talkies, and it's difficult to see what Sheba sees in him besides his nice clothes and slicked-back hair. The only other substantial part is Sheba's father, played competently by Richard Carlyle. A couple of other fun lines: Jack to Sheba, when she expresses sorrow that she failed to see through Nickey's facade: "Women can't be expected to judge human nature like us men"; Sheba referring to herself as "becoming a big league girl"; Sheba's insult to Jack, "Don't be an eggnog!" (I'm dying to use that one myself). Directed a bit unevenly by Mervyn LeRoy who would go on to a long career at MGM. Pictured are White and Bakewell. [TCM]

THE TROJAN HORSE (1961)

We're nine years into the fabled Trojan War, nine years after Paris from Troy abducted Helen from Sparta, and the Geeks have held Troy under siege since then. The Greek hero Achilles (I'll be including place name adjectives just to keep things clear for myself) has killed the Trojan hero Hector and disrespectfully dragged the body in the dirt behind his chariot. Aeneas, who has brought a wounded soldier back to Troy, believes that this war over Helen has dragged on far too long. When he is told that Helen is a symbol of Troy's prestige and glory, he replies "Helen is our gravedigger," which is hard to dispute. King Priam learns that Hector's body is to be left for the vultures, and decides to go to the Greeks to ask for the body. Aeneas plans to join him, but Paris, a bit of a passive jerk, is jealous of the respect that Aeneas has built up in Troy, so he orders Aeneas not to go, but Priam insists. At the Greek camp, Priam is given Hector's body, but in order to get Hector's weapons to give to his widow Andromache, Aeneas has to fight the Greek strongman Ajax. Aeneas wins, a victory which just adds to Paris's jealousy. Paris sends Aeneas off to build up an army, then sends his sister Creusa, pregnant by Aeneas, to Greece as a hostage to be held for a temporary truce. The Greek king Agamemnon also asks for chariots, gold, and a large quantity of wood for building purposes. If you've read Virgil (or have seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail), you know what's coming. Aeneas and his troops battle the Greeks, with Paris shooting an arrow into the Achilles' heel, killing him. The Greeks retreat, leaving behind a giant wooden horse, supposedly built to honor the god Poseidon. Priam's daughter Cassandra, known as a seer, warns that the horse contains the seeds of Troy's destruction, but it is brought into the walled city anyway. As we know, inside the horse is a group of Greek warriors, led by Menelaus (the legit husband of Helen), who, late at night, break out of the horse, set fire to the city, open the gates, and let in the Greek troops who wreak total destruction.

Despite having read some Virgil and Homer in my youth, I've never been clear about the Trojan War, but this adventure film presents its climax in a way that is easy to understand, even as it leaves out any mention of the meddling Greek gods. The budget for this peplum must have been higher than average, with spectacular sets, decent battle scenes, and huge numbers of extras—you often see the phrase "a cast of thousands" used in publicity for these kinds of films, and in this case, I'd believe it. The director, Giorgio Ferroni, made several sword-and-sandal movies (though his real classic is the small scale horror film MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN. He is clearly in his element here. Barry Atkinson, peplum expert, considers this film to be superior to the Brad Pitt TROY from 2004. The horse is impressive and the climactic fall of Troy is particularly well handled. Acting, rarely a strong area in peplum films, is adequate here. It's a little strange to have muscled hero Steve Reeves playing a character who doesn't prevail (Aeneas), though he does escape the destruction at the end and goes off with others to help found Rome. Actually, except for Paris, there really are no traditional peplum heroes and villains—there is good and bad in the actions of both populations. John Drew Barrymore has the relatively small role of Ulysses; Mimmo Palmara makes an impression in his few minutes as Ajax. For the record, Edy Vessel is Helen and Warner Bentivegna is Paris. The print I watched on YouTube is widescreen and in pretty good shape. Pictured are Palmara and Reeves. [YouTube]

CHARLIE CHAN AT MONTE CARLO (1937)

Detective Charlie Chan and his oldest son Lee are in Monte Carlo on their way to Paris where Lee is exhibiting a painting. French policeman Joubert is happy to (literally) run into them and takes them to the casino where he points out Savarin and Karnoff, bitter enemies in business as well as gambling. Gordon Chase, secretary to Karnoff, reveals to Joan, Gordon’s sister and Karnoff’s wife, that $25,000 of metallurgic bonds (the movie's MacGuffins) are missing, and he knows she took them to get out of some trouble. The problem is that Karnoff is sending his bonds by messenger to Paris in a deal to dump them and wreck Savarin. That night, the messenger is found dead in his car on the way to the airport, the bonds gone. Evelyn, Savarin's mistress, was seen near the car and falls under suspicion as does Savarin and, eventually, Al Rogers, a bartender at the casino to whom Joan was selling the bonds. Al also happens to be Joan's secret husband, separated but never divorced. Joubert gets Chan to help him track down the killer. This is the last Chan movie starring Warner Oland, who passed away just months after its release, and it's par for the course. The business with the bonds gets convoluted but the supporting actors make it fun to stick with. Oland and Keye Luke (as Lee) are the central attraction, of course, but just as good are Harold Huber, giving a pleasantly light-toned performance as Joubert, and Sidney Blackmer as Karnoff who walks a nice line between likable and suspicious. Robert Kent is handsome but bland as Gordon; George Lynn as Al is a standout, displaying a bit more personality than Kent in a smaller but important role. Virginia Field as Evelyn and Kay Linaker as Joan are almost interchangeable but they both give adequate performances. Sometimes the reveal of the killer is disappointing if it's a minor character with little screen time but here the reveal is surprising and satisfying. Pictured are Lynn and Linaker. [DVD]

MERRILY WE GO TO HELL (1932)

At a cocktail party, Joan (Sylvia Sidney), a young heiress who escapes to the balcony to avoid a masher, meets Jerry (Fredric March), a drunk reporter who really wants to write plays and who is still not quite over his previous relationship. They hit it off and she invites him to a party at her home the next day, but he arrives so late that everyone else has left. Joan’s father isn’t impressed with Jerry, and when he proposes to Joan, Dad offers Jerry $50,000 to leave her alone. The bribe doesn’t work, and at the engagement party, Jerry shows up late and very drunk. Despite the warning signs, the wedding occurs. For a time, Jerry gives up drinking and manages to write a play. It is accepted for production, but the leading lady is Jerry’s ex, Claire. On opening night, Jerry flirts a bit with Claire, gets very drunk, and back home as he passes out, calls Joan Claire. Her father calls Joan a doormat, and indeed Jerry puts the onus on Joan for stopping him from having an affair with Claire. Joan starts doing a fair amount of drinking herself, and surprisingly, at a party, Joan announces that they should have a modern marriage: “Single lives, twin beds, and triple bromides in the morning,” and she leaves with Charlie, a friend of the couple. The rest of the film is predictably melodramatic, with separation, a pregnancy, and a rushed and ambiguous ending that can be read as either hopeful or depressing.

The "modern marriage" aspect of this film seems to have been at least partly inspired by 1930's THE DIVORCEE in which Norma Shearer suggests a similar arrangement, though she goes farther by kicking her husband out of her love life. But this pre-Code romantic melodrama adds the complication of alcoholism, and at one point, it feels like it's anticipating the 1950s DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES about a couple who both fall into drink. That plot strand is dropped when Joan discovers she's pregnant and stops drinking. If you're familiar with domestic melodramas of the 1930s, there will be few surprises in how this plot plays out, though the ending is not exactly straightforwardly "happy." [Spoiler: while separated, Joan has the baby—Jerry hears about it from a newspaper column—but there are complications that leave the baby dead and Joan very ill. Jerry shows up demanding to see her, and in her delirium she has been calling for him. They are reconciled in the hospital room, but we are not necessarily confident that enough has changed for them to work things out.] The lead actors, as directed by Dorothy Arzner, are very good. Sidney does not, in fact, act like a doormat most of the time; despite her petite frame, she is strong and solid. March is especially good at being both charming and (sometimes) repellent, and his drunk scenes are not overdone, possibly thanks to Arzner's direction. The supporting cast is adequate, though no one is given the opportunity to shine. Skeets Gallagher is fine as a peppy pal of Jerry's and Cary Grant, in a very early role, has the small part of Charlie. Given the focus on drinking and extramarital sex, this could not have been made after the Production Code went into effect in 1934. The title comes from a snarky farewell greeting of Jerry's that grows more ominous throughout the movie. Pictured are March and Sidney. [TCM]

ZOMBIES OF THE STRATOSPHERE (1952 serial)

Larry Martin is an inventor and scientist who has a jetpack that allows him to fly through the air (and therefore, according to the government, he's an expert on interplanetary affairs). G-man Steele asks him and his assistants Bob and Sue to investigate the appearance in the skies of an alien spacecraft. We see it land and Martians (with pale skin and tight sparkly jumpsuits) disembark. With help from some hired earthling thugs, they transport materials to the home of Prof. Harding who is being blackmailed to help the Martians. The population of Mars is dying off due to the thinning of the atmosphere, so the Martian plan is to set off an H-bomb explosion strong enough to send Earth spinning out of its orbit and allow Mars to take its place closer to the sun. But the Martians, led by Marex and his underling Narab, still need to get their hands on materials to finish building the bomb. In the way of Republic serials, most of the twelve chapters feature attempts at robbery (of both uranium and cash to get more uranium) and mayhem that Larry and Bob—and Sue in the unlikely event that she's around—try to thwart. Marex has a headquarters in a cave that can only be accessed by an underwater passage from another cave, so get ready for lots of scenes of Martians and humans going slowly back and forth underwater from one ladder to another, and at least one underwater fight scene. A remote control robot is used by the bad guys to pull off a bank robbery and to threaten our heroes, but nothing can keep the heroic Larry down for long.

This is the third of Republic's four Rocket Man serials. All the heroes have the same rocket suit (and the same plain office with an electronic grid along one wall so at least once in each serial someone will fall against it and get fried, or nearly so) but most have different names. The first was Jeff King (KING OF THE ROCKET MEN), and this movie came after RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON which featured George Wallace as Commando Cody; here, it's Judd Holdren as Larry Martin, but he's Cody in all but name. The generally accepted reason: ZOMBIES was planned as a Cody serial, but when Republic signed up to produce a Cody TV show, they had to change this guy's name, picking the blandest name possible. Holdren does get to be an official Commando Cody for the TV show which also became the fourth serial. Despite a great title, this is the least of the four serials in quality. Part of it might be that the shots of the Rocket Man leaping in the air, flying, and landing, which were very effective in the first movie, are used over and over again in each succeeding serial and come to feel tired. Judd Holdren is more emphatically heroic than Wallace was, but I miss Wallace's somewhat quirkier personality. The always drab and interchangeable sidekicks are particularly drab here: Aline Judge, who was Joan in RADAR, is Sue; Wilson Wood, who had a small part in RADAR, is upgraded to play Bob. Lane Bradford is oddly mild-mannered as Marex but his performance works; Leonard Nimoy, the future Mr. Spock, is in many scenes as Narab but only has a few lines of dialogue, though he gets to shine (sort of) in the final chapter. John Crawford is a standout as Roth, one of the main thugs, and he even gets a chapter heading summary card to himself (see right). One cliffhanger involves a runaway coal car which may have influenced the similar scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In another cliffhanger, everyone's guns run out of bullets at the same time.  The fight scenes are, as par for the course for Republic and their stable of stunt men, pretty good. There is a lot of stock footage used from earlier serials (even from a western). Despite being watchable, this was still a disappointment for me as it just didn't live up to the cool title. The 70 minute condensed version is reviewed here. Pictured at top left are Nimoy and Bradford. [Blu-ray]

HERCULES AND THE TYRANTS OF BABYLON (1964)

3000 years ago, Babylon was ruled by a triumvirate of three siblings: Salman Osar is the bald, goateed sinister-looking brother; Azzur is the older, bearded, and slightly wiser brother; Taneal is the sexy sister who looks out only for herself. They build up their state laborers by having their army capture citizens of surrounding lands to be slaves, and among a batch of newly acquired female slaves is rumored to be Esperia, Queen of the Hellenes, though she hasn't yet been identified. The brutal Salman Osar just wants to have his way with her; Azzur wants to marry her for diplomatic reasons; Taneal wants her dead, seeing her as a threat. Then Phaleg, the king of Assyria, presents himself to the Babylonian rulers and gives them heaps of riches in exchange for all their female slaves. He claims to want them to repopulate Assyria but he really just wants Esperia. But the rulers are upset by reports that one man is acting as a protector to vulnerable folks in the region. Sure enough, legendary muscle man Hercules is doing said protecting, and we see him single-handedly stop a raiding party by tossing huge boulders at the soldiers from the hills. But Hercules is also on a personal mission: to save Esperia, who is apparently his mistress, from both slavery and forced marriage. 

Despite its lackluster title, this is one of the better sword and sandal movies of the peplum era. It has a strong and clear narrative, decent acting, a muscular lead, attractive women, and a couple of nice battle scenes. Hercules is played by Peter Lupus (pictured), a bodybuilder and actor best known for his role in the original Mission Impossible TV series (and credited here as Rock Stevens). He has a very impressive body and his acting is a notch above most other muscleman actors; he's good in most of the fight scenes as well (he kicks ass and takes names), though no one could have brought any sense of realism to the silly boulder-tossing scenes—he's better when tossing people and using weapons. Helga Liné is very good as Taneal; Anna Maria Poloni, as Esperia, is attractive but remains a flat character, and Taneal's role is stronger. Two scenes stand out. One, a riff on the famous "I am Spartacus!" scene has the female slaves tied to stakes in the boiling sun, and when asked which one is the queen, they all start yelling, "I am the queen!" The other is a battle between Hercules and three champions which is supposed to be for show until Herc discovers that one of the champion's clubs is actually a spiked mace. Finally, a point I've touched on in previous posts. It is difficult to separate the relative worth of a movie (in terms of recommending it to others) from the experience of watching it. This, like so many peplum films, was shot in widescreen but is generally only available in a pan-and-scan print (or, even worse, a squeezed distorted print), and it's usually not in very good shape. This one is good enough for me to consider watching it again if it shows up in a clean, widescreen presentation. [DVD]

CHARLIE CHAN IN HONOLULU (1938)

It looks like I have given myself two summer projects for my blog. One is to get through a backlog of serials I have been watching over the past few months, starting with the Republic Rocket Man serials. The other is rewatching some of the classic era Charlie Chan movies, occasioned by my finally catching up on the later Chan films with Roland Winters. The generally accepted Charlie Chan film canon consists of over forty films made between 1931 and 1949. Three different actors played Chan. The first and best known is Warner Oland; after his death, Sidney Toler took over, followed by Winters. Because the Oland movies are generally better known and remain fresher in my memory, I'll probably focus on the Toler films with a few Olands sprinkled in here and there. HONOLULU, the first Chan movie made after Oland died, is Sidney Toler's first. Die-hard Oland fans don’t care much for Toler, but honestly, I don't see a great deal of difference between them. Toler is a little feistier and, in his first few films, a bit lighter on his feet than Oland, and of course, both are portly non-Asian actors done up in varying degrees in yellowface elements. I give a slight nod to Oland just because his films at Fox are generally of a higher budget—many of the later Toler films, done for B-movie studio Monogram, suffer from a lower budget. 

Chan is a globe-trotting detective throughout the film series, but his home base was Hawaii and, appropriately for a new beginning, this is set in Honolulu, with the opening scene showing Chan eating dinner with his large family. His oldest son Lee is away at art school but his #2 son Jimmy is adamant about following in his pop's footsteps as a detective. Son-in-law Wing arrives with news of the imminent birth of Charlie's first grandchild, so most of the clan heads to the hospital, but Jimmy takes a phone call meant for his father to investigate a murder on a freighter. Claiming to be Charlie, Jimmy, accompanied by his younger brother Tommy, heads to the docks. Among the passengers who are being detained on the ship: a bank secretary who was supposed to deliver $300,000 in cash to the murdered man, a psychiatrist who pretends to be hard of hearing and who claims to have a live brain in his luggage (and because he's played by George Zucco in mad doctor mode, we believe he might), a rich widow, an animal keeper who is guarding a large shipment of zoo animals in the hold, and a San Francisco cop who is transporting a handcuffed criminal. Eventually, Tommy is exposed just as the group is about to dump him in the drink, but his dad arrives in time to save his son and take over the case. Chan soon discovers that few of the people on the ship, perhaps even the crew members, are what they claim to be, but Chan eventually gathers all the suspects in a room and reveals the killer and the motive. This one is enjoyable, with Victor Sen Yung (pictured with Toler) making his first appearance as Jimmy Chan; he went on to do eighteen Chan movies, though in the later entries with Roland Winters, his name was Tommy. George Zucco is always a welcome face and he keeps us on our toes here—is he an insane bad guy or a goofy good guy? John King is the possible love interest for the secretary (Phyllis Brooks), assuming that she is cleared of suspicion. The entire supporting cast is solid, including Richard Lane, Marc Lawrence, Robert Barratt, and Philip Ahn. At times, the film threatens to approach the pace of a screwball comedy, and it generally works. [DVD]

RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON (1952 serial)

There has been a series of explosions of unknown origin, generated with atomic power, destroying military and industrial properties. Government agent Henderson seeks help from Commando Cody, a civilian research scientist whose main claim to fame is the jetpack outfit that allows him to fly in the air. Atomic activity has been observed on the moon, so Cody, with his associates Ted and Joan (and a pilot named Hank whom we don't see much of) head up there in his experimental rocket, wearing their street clothes, to see what's what. They find Retik, ruler of a small populace living in a city (with architecture out of ancient Rome), making plans for a full-scale invasion of Earth due to the thinning out of the moon’s atmosphere (with the moon landscape, complete with clouds, looking like that of California). Retik has been using a powerful atomic ray gun to cause the destruction on Earth and Cody pumps nitrous oxide into Retik's lair to knock everyone out so he can steal the ray gun, which is powered by the moon element lunarium. They don't get it and head back to Earth where they are set upon by Krog, Retik's chief underling, his henchman Graber, and a handful of thugs. What follows is a series of chapters involving Krog using robbery to get funds, Cody going back to the moon to get some lunarium, and Retik eventually coming to Earth himself to ensure his plans are fulfilled. Of course, they're not, and despite atomic ray guns and earth-melting weapons, it's old-fashioned guns and fistfights (and the jetpacks) that help Cody beat the moon men.

This is a quasi-sequel to KING OF THE ROCKET MEN, using the same jetpack and some of the same sets and effects (like the flying scenes and the melting earth), but with a different lead character, as Commando Cody (George D. Wallace, pictured) replaces Jeff King. ROCKET MEN is probably the better movie with a more diverse repertory of characters and cliffhangers, though this one has space travel and a more interesting lead actor. Wallace is a bit doughy looking and sometimes overarticulates his lines, but both his looks and his delivery grew on me. He has an air of confidence that inspires his cohorts. The rest of the actors are nothing special. William Bakewell makes little impression as Ted; Aline Judge is a little better as Joan, but she has to remain subservient. When Cody questions why she should join them on the trip to the moon, she replies that someone has to make their meals, right? Later, as they leave the moon, the first thing she does in the ship is to get coffee for everyone. Both main villains (dumpy men in long robes) inspire little fear, though Clayton Moore (later TV's Lone Ranger) is effective as Graber, the only henchman to survive to the end. Roy Barcroft as Retik is incredibly bland. The best fisticuffs scene isn't on the moon, but in Al's Cafe back on Earth. Like ROCKET MEN, this has an ill-fitting title; men from the moon (who look every bit like slow, stocky earthlings) are present, but I don't remember anything about radar coming up. A 100-minute condensed version put together for TV in the 1960s, RETIK THE MOON MENACE, crams in a surprisingly good amount of the plot—one entire chapter of RADAR is a recap episode—though I must admit that the constant action with little downtime wears one down. Still, watching RETIK might be the way to go if you have a low tolerance for serials. Also known as Rocket Man 2. [Blu-ray]