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Post by Lebowskidoo 🦞 on Jul 14, 2018 22:46:46 GMT
Here in Canada in the 80's there was a channel that showed them every Sunday morning, which is how I wound up seeing The Crimson Ghost (1946) and something with The Lone Ranger, not sure if that was a serial or just a TV show now. I saw parts of the Flash Gordon serial, but not all. But I can watch it on certain Roku channels, where I've recently seen Batman (1943) and just last week, Batman & Robin (1949). Batman was entertaining enough, I liked the cool opening credits, and it maintains your interest. It was made at the height of WWII, so it has some racist remarks for the Japanese. Batman & Robin had very little excitement, the actor playing Batman was miscast, he seemed bored in the role. I figured out the big villain reveal way before the final chapter. Neither one will impress the kids of today that grew up watching Batman and all his Bat-gadgets, the Batmobile is nowhere to be seen, Batman just shows up in Bruce Wayne's car! But it was the 40's, at least they tried. After that, I was either going to start the Superman serials or the Captain America one, but after reading about the new Shazam movie, I started watching Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941), the very first live action version of Captain Marvel (Shazam), and the very first live action comic book superhero adaptation ever. The quality is much better than some of the slapdash serials to follow, each episode is about 30 minutes long, 10 minutes longer than the standard to come, 20 minutes or so. Still watching it, the flying scenes are cracking me up, it looks like they just threw some poor guy into a scene and hoped he landed okay, but it's great and I'm enjoying it. I also picked up Zorro Rides Again (1937) on DVD at some garage sale, that's on deck for future viewing too. By the way, The Crimson Ghost has been adopted by American punk band, The Misfits, as the face on many of their T-shirts.
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Post by taylorfirst1 on Jul 15, 2018 1:50:42 GMT
I love the serials.
The Phantom Flash Gordon The Tiger Woman Nyoka the Jungle Girl And countless others.
What a fun part of movie history.
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Post by petrolino on Jul 15, 2018 1:57:51 GMT
In relation to the serials, I know of a great horror director, Jean Rollin, who ended his films on cliffhangers due to his love of serials. He had a specific passion for the work of Louis Feuillade. Unfortunately, some European audiences weren't aware of this at the time, unless they read related publications. This is unlike nowadays when everybody with an interest should know that Marvel Films like to create tantalising cliffhangers. Rollin worked as a comic book artist before he was a filmmaker, like his associate Roger Vadim.
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Post by BATouttaheck on Jul 15, 2018 2:12:25 GMT
I've told this story before but ….
Fella I know .. not a movie fan but a John Wayne devotee ... was telling me about this wonderful DVD he had bought that had some TV series that John Wayne had been in when he was very young.
Turned out that they were serials … took a while to explain that concept to the fella. He promised to lend me that DVD but moved to Oregon and took it with him.... nertz !
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Post by claudius on Jul 15, 2018 2:15:50 GMT
Oh! I forgot THE UNDERSEA KINGDOM in my list.
"Still watching it, the flying scenes are cracking me up, it looks like they just threw some poor guy into a scene and hoped he landed okay, but it's great and I'm enjoying it." Lebowskidoo, aside from the rear-projection scenes with Tyler, the 'poor guy' in the flying scenes was a mannequin. Oh well, better than the Animated Flying Superman they used in the two Columbia Serials. Hammon in his GREAT MOVIE SERIALS book, commented that although Captain Marvel and Spy Smasher were less popular than Supes and Bats, they had the better Movie Serials. It should be noted that Alfred the Bat-Butler was initially a portly clean-shaven depiction in his early appearances, William Austin (the Gryphon to Cary Grant's Mock Turtle in 1933 ALICE & Ginger Rodger's future ex-to-be in THE GAY DIVORCEE) in the 1943 Serial influenced the permanent slender, mustachioed image.
Although many of these serials were shown in edited feature films (THE PHANTOM EMPIRE for example), I remember several broadcasts on my Fox channel where they aired THE CRIMSON GHOST and ZOMBIES IN THE STRATOSPHERE Uncut (Opening and Closing) and colorized. The villain of the former Serial has adorned many a T-Shirt nowadays.
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Post by Lebowskidoo 🦞 on Jul 15, 2018 11:48:39 GMT
"Still watching it, the flying scenes are cracking me up, it looks like they just threw some poor guy into a scene and hoped he landed okay, but it's great and I'm enjoying it." Lebowskidoo, aside from the rear-projection scenes with Tyler, the 'poor guy' in the flying scenes was a mannequin. Okay, this information makes it even more funny than before for me!
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 24, 2018 23:57:25 GMT
I’m watching a great ‘40s serial right now— The Perils of Pauline, er, Nyoka, which snsurone mentioned in her OP. It’s a lot of fun, even if I feel I like Lorna Gray’s villainess even more than Kay Aldridge’s heroine. And it’s also got Ming the Merciless himself, old Laurel and Hardy foil/John Ford stock-company player Charles Middleton, in it! Like the Zorros, it’s a definite inspiration for Raiders of the Lost Ark: our heroes are off for a mystic treasure (here the Tablets of Hippocrates, which can cure every known disease!) and have to face lost temples, booby-traps, and some booable baddies. Great fun. Oh, and speaking of Indy there’s a bridge sequence that just had to have inspired Temple of Doom.
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Post by koskiewicz on Sept 25, 2018 0:42:38 GMT
...and also, "Commando Cody"
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