The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Serials were adventures intended for juvenile matinee audiences. They would be shown in theatres before the main feature in either twelve or fifteen weekly chapters of about 15-20 minutes each. Each chapter ended with the heroine tied to a railway track before an oncoming train, the hero hanging from the edge of a cliff by his fingertips (which gave rise to the term ‘cliffhanger’), falling from a plane or some such. The audience would have to wait to the following week where the means whereby they escaped would be revealed at the start of the next chapter (often with a lame resolution – they fell into a haystack, freed themselves or discovered a parachute just in time etc).
Though the principal focus was adventure, serials varied through a number of genres, including the Western, the G-Man film, various Comic Book Adaptations, the first ever Superhero Films and, of course, the Space Opera, which included classics like Flash Gordon (1936) and sequels and Buck Rogers (1939).
Budgets were low – effects scenes were frequently recycled and some episodes would be padded entirely with recaps. Plots were often repetitively stretched out around seeking parts for devices or retrieving purloined ones. Serials could be counted on for some great action set-pieces and stuntwork, in particular their frequent room-destroying fistfights.
The first serial was What Happened to Mary? (1913), the one that popularised the genre was The Perils of Pauline (1914). The genre was at its height during the 1930s and 40s. The last serial came out in 1956, the genre dying away with the arrival of television. The genre’s exploits and derring-do influenced later films, most notedly the Indiana Jones films.
The original and greatest of all SF serial adventures and a huge influence on George Lucas. Despite the primitive effects, this still has a marvellously rousing imagination that stands up today. Two serial sequels followed
The second of the Flash Gordon serials, which relocates action to Mars following the popularity of Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast. The film has a wonderful imagination that far outshines the tattiness of usual serial production values
Fifteen chapter serial about a villain who transforms into a dead pirate captain. Filled with wonderfully exciting action set-pieces and cliffhangers
This fifteen chapter serial was the second ever Superman film. It is a vigorously entertaining run through the comic’s basics and features the first screen appearance of Lex Luthor
Serial adaptation of the famous comic-strip superhero. One of the better serial comic-book adaptations, featuring some great cliffhangers and maintaining great faith to the comic-strip original
This is a standout serial based on the famous comic-book detective, featuring some of the best of all serial cliffhangers and action set-pieces, not to mention wonderfully creative super-science inventions
The third of the Flash Gordon serials, not quite at the heights of the previous two but with a colour and exoticism that was head and shoulders above the other serials of the era
A serial Tarzan adventure that stood outside the regular Johnny Weissmuller films. A producer formed a business partnership with Edgar Rice Burroughs and went to Guatemala to shoot
A twelve-chapter serial based on the comic-book superhero who these days is known as Shazam. Often regarded as one of the best of all serials, this has some decent action scenes and cliffhangers
Fascinating silent German serial undeniably influenced by the Frankenstein story about an artificial being who proves soulless, swears vengeance against his creator and becomes a dictator
The first screen appearance of the masked superhero The Green Hornet in a thirteen-chapter serial that was adapted from a popular radio series. Later remade as a tv series and feature film.
A 15 chapter serial that marks the very first live-action screen appearance of Superman. The superheroics and effects are painfully primitive today (where Superman flying is represented by animation) but the serial gets many aspects of the comic-book down right
A serial adaptation of the popular radio superhero, which gets the look of the character perfect but drops all his mystical powers
The second of the Rocket Man serials in which Commando Cody faces invaders from the Moon. This comes with the creative impoverishment of serials where the alien invaders are no more than regular gangsters.
An oddity from the heyday of the serial that has singing cowboy star Gene Autry discover the doorway to an underground kingdom on his ranch Made with a crude pulp vigour
A serial adaptation of Jules Verne’s classic desert island survival story, which adds invading aliens from Mercury to the mix
One of a spate of films featuring flyer heroes that were popular in the era. Adapted from a comic-book created by an actual World War I flying ace, this is a thirteen chapter serial but proves rather crudely made today
The first screen appearance of the famous comic-book stage magician superhero in a serial adaptation
Twelve chapter serial that introduced the character of the Rocket Man who appeared in several subsequent adventures. This has an enthusiastic pulp naivete but ends up mostly routine
Twelve-chapter serial that offers one of the first ever depictions of an alien invader on screen. The results are oddly mundane in comparison to the onslaught of great 1950s alien invasion films that came only a couple of years later
Captain America’s first screen appearance was this 15 chapter serial, although about the only common element with the comic is the costume. On the plus side, the action and cliffhangers are good, while Lionel Atwill chews scenery in grand style as the villain
Not to be confused with the Joel Schumacher atrocity, this was the second Batman film ever made, a 15-chapter serial. This is mostly worth watching as a novelty in its laughable attempts to approximate the superheroics of the comic-book in comparison to modern counterparts
A serial based on Chandu the Magician, a popular radio superhero who wielded magical and mystical powers. Featuring Bela Lugosi in the title role
A rather dull twelve-chapter serial in which a criminologist tries to stop the titular criminal mastermind tries to steal a device that can block electrical transmissions
A rather dull fifteen-chapter serial about the efforts a detective who sets out to stop Sombra, an Asian spy intent on stealing US atomic rocket secrets
A 12 chapter serial about the hunt for a criminal who operates with the use of an invisibility ray
Batman’s first screen appearance in a fifteen-chapter serial. This is a dull and impoverished adaptation of the comic-book, which sees Batman and Robin rewritten as being in the service of the US government fighting a Japanese invasion force