Sat 12 Nov 2011
Reviewed by Dan Stumpf: Two 1940 Movie Serials.
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Reviews[7] Comments
MYSTERIOUS DR. SATAN [and] THE DRUMS OF FU MANCHU. Both Republic, 1940. Serials: 15 chapters each. Directors: John English & William Witney.
Back in Grade School I used to leaf eagerly through Famous Monsters and Screen Thrills Illustrated, tantalized by stills from old serials filled with costumed heroes, mad doctors, robots, and death rays, chock-full of perils to dazzle my pre-adolescent imagination.
As I grew older, my tastes remained pretty much pre-adolescent, the serials became available on video, and I discovered most of them were about someone trying to conquer the world with two guys and a truck.
That’s true of the later post-war serials, when everyone got a bit tired of it all, but Drums and Satan were made back when somebody cared about giving the kids a thrill, and each is fifteen chapters of constant action, delivered by the able directing team of William Whitney and John English, abetted by Republic’s hyper-kinetic stuntmen.
We get car crashes, plane crashes, robot crashes, leaps from cliffs, daggers, pistols, trapdoors, gloating … everything, in short, that a kid dreams his world will be filled with when he grows up.
The heroes of these things are your typical stalwart and two-fisted sort, but the eponymous baddies of these two efforts are memorable indeed. Doctor Satan (I guess some folks don’t care what they name their kids) is played by Eduardo Cianelli with the kind of dapper old-world charm you don’t see much in Mad Scientists anymore.
Cianelli is remembered best as the evil religious fanatic (“Kill for the love of killing!”) in Gunga Din, but he was playing suave Gangsters ever since Winterset in 1936, and he wound down his career as an ancient medicine man in the surreally bloated Mackenna’s Gold.
Fu Manchu, in Drums of… is a less showy part, written with stereotyped oriental reserve, but he’s played by Henry Brandon, who was probably the most notable movie villain you never heard of.
Brandon started out in the movies (as Henry Kleinbach) hamming it up as evil Barnaby in Laurel & Hardy’s Babes in Toyland. Before Fu, he did dirty duty in serials like Buck Rogers and Jungle Jim, and afterwards served as the character model for Captain Hook in Disney’s cartoon Peter Pan, but his most critically respected effort is probably his few scenes as Chief Scar in John Ford’s The Searchers.
November 13th, 2011 at 5:31 pm
Conquer the world with two guys and a truck.. HOHOHOHOO !
I love that.
The Doc
November 13th, 2011 at 5:44 pm
If you’ve seen any of the serials made in the 50s, you’d have to say that Dan got that aspect of them exactly right.
My brother and I saw lots of serials back then (the 50s), along with our friends, probably all boys. They did the job they were supposed to — to get us back to the same theater week after week. (Even so, I doubt if we ever saw one from beginning to end.)
I’ve never seen either of the two that Dan talks about in this review. They came along well before my time. He makes me want to, though!
November 14th, 2011 at 5:40 pm
Sounds like Pinky and The Brain to me.
But those serials might just spook around somewhere on the net, if you look, Steve !
The Doc
November 14th, 2011 at 5:57 pm
I’m sure both of these are easily obtainable. I’ve accumulated a lot of movies since DVDs were invented, but I’ve never gone after serials in any meaningful way. Mostly because of the time factor involved in watching them, which is a pretty lame excuse, considering all of the box sets I’ve purchased of year after year of old TV shows I didn’t watch then and will probably run out of time before I can do so now.
Time to reevaluate some priorities, I’d say!
November 14th, 2011 at 6:27 pm
Yes, that always reminds me of sometimes being in a bookstore, and getting the feeling of simply capitulating before the sheer vastness of what to read.
If that happens, I always choose one, or even more. Seldom the wrong ones.
Life is a series of choices, and we seldom make them ourselves.
You don’t have to have it all, don’t have to have seen, heard, loved ,eaten…it all.
And it can still be a good life.
The Doc
November 15th, 2011 at 11:04 am
I love these serials…well, I loved them when I sat entranced in a theater watching them – usually every Saturday at the 25 cent matinee. (Yes, I’m that old.)
I’m also a big fan of Henry Brandon, most especially since his hammy Barnaby (with dirty, icky fingernails)in my favorite Christmas film. His hand gestures alone are worth the price of admission. Ha! Though MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS was first seen by me on television. (I’m not THAT old.)
November 15th, 2011 at 8:18 pm
Yvette
Speaking of age, I think the price of admission when I was going to the Saturday matinee was 12 cents, for kids 12 and under. When it unexpectedly went up to 14 cents cents my brother and I would have been out of luck, except for my aunt. By pure chance she had given us a nickel to buy a box of candy, so we had enough to get in to see the movie — a double feature — with a penny to spare!