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Watching Any Good Serials?
Topic Started: Apr 12 2006, 09:28 AM (88,310 Views)
toddgault
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Bob Custer was in Law of the Wild from Mascot, third billed behind Rin Tin Tin, Jr and Rex the Wonder Horse, who both deserved their top billing as they acted rings around not only Custer but most of the cast with the possible exception of Richard Alexander and Edmond Cobb.
Todd Gault..........Serial Buff
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riddlerider
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Ming the Merciless
Oct 20 2009, 12:21 PM
Lighten up on Richard Bailey as hero/criminologist "Lance Reardon"!

He's cut from that wooden school of Republic leading men that are Emperor favorites!

Hey hows a criminologist supposed to look and act?? I see Bailey carrying his role in the serial with no problem....and I love the sport coat! Restrained, tastefull...yet makes a visual statement.

I think Bailey worked in radio most of his career?
I'm with Ming on this one. Bailey is weak, but not a total disaster. His line readings aren't bad and he hits his marks without self-consciousness, but he's totally lacking in charisma and is clearly not a "physical" actor.

Excepting the turkey who turns out to be the Masked Marvel, Bailey's the first of the Republic-serial leading men who was largely an unknown chosen for his physical resemblance to Tom Steele (although, curiously, he's doubled by Dale Van Sickel in the first fight of the serial). Personally, I don't find him any more objectionable than KING OF THE FOREST RANGERS' Larry Thompson or THE BLACK WIDOW's Bruce Edwards.
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panzer the great & terrible
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I can't see any reason to argue about the relative inability of actors. Riordan is just a cardboard cutout; that's the point. Somebody may be worse, but so what?
Lame is lame.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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Black Tiger
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Amen, brother
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andarius
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CliffClaven
Oct 17 2009, 10:47 AM
andarius
Oct 15 2009, 03:25 AM
Chapter 3 of Batman & Robin was Robin's Wild Ride; he didn't have one, lol, but here's hopin' he will in Chapter 4!

The Wizard's collar looks like one of those things pooches wear to stop 'em scratchin' themselves! :D
One of the abiding quirks of serials: Chapter titles usually reference the cliffhanger at the end of that episode, not the one resolved at the beginning. Thus you might have the hero being dropped into a pit of alligators, then a title card tells you this will be continued in "Biplane of Death." You were then left to wonder how they'd get from alligators to a biplane in one episode.

Didn't care too much for Batman & Robin -- it felt too much like the cheap syndicated TV shows of my youth (the ones with endless talking in tiny interior sets and driving on dirt roads). Dick Grayson looked like a beefy barfly (his suit in chapter one screams Ladies' Night at Ye Olde Lounge), and I'm sure the old scientist was Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace. In fact, by that time most of the serial and B people were transitioning over to TV, so the look and feel was much the same.

But then, how could you top the first Batman? Shovelfuls of WWII propaganda, insane science and all-around goofiness. Still enjoy thinking about the villain's lair, concealed behind a carnival dark ride with a constantly on-duty barker . . . displaying Japanese atrocities for your amusement . . . located in a rundown, near-abandoned neighborhood . . . attracting only suspicious mobster types ("Two, please. We're together.").

And even with all the fuss about hand X-rays and the poor slob pretending to be a dummy 24/7, you got the impression tons of stuff was being delivered to a non-concealed loading dock out back.
Saw Batman in about 1966 at the Atherley in Southampton - where the episodes were edited together, there was a blast of music each time the Batman logo appeared at the start of a new chapter - it was very loud and quite jarring and startled a lad sitting behind me every time - he said a very rude Anglo-Saxon word which amused me after I recovered each time!

Saw it on TV many years ago (one chapter a day) - must buy it and watch it properly - one chapter a week - is there any other proper way to watch a serial? :D
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Black Tiger
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Yes there is. Any way you bloody well please. If you do watch too many chapters at once, it may be a bit too repetitious, however. I try for one a day - like vitamins.
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mort bakaprevski
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Couldn't agree with you more, BT. When I was a kid, I watched dozens of serials the "acceptable" way... because I didn't have a choice. That's the way the theatres ran 'em.

Now that I'm in control, I'll watch 'em any way I want to... & boy do I have some creative approaches!!
Edited by mort bakaprevski, Oct 22 2009, 10:36 AM.
"Nov Shmoz Ka Pop."
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Barcroft
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Exactly BT. You buy a serial and at your leisure you watch 1, 2, or the whole enchilada at one sitting but you are right about the repetition. Back in the day when serials were shown in Theatres you had to abide by 1 chapter a week because that was how things were done.
Barcroft
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panzer the great & terrible
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You guys have a right to your opinions, but I think serials are dull as hell when you watch a lot of chapters in a row.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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andarius
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panzer the great & terrible
Oct 22 2009, 10:26 PM
You guys have a right to your opinions, but I think serials are dull as hell when you watch a lot of chapters in a row.
Yep, can get a bit samey - once a week is, IMHO, more fun cos ya gotta try to remember what happened last week - almost impossible with something like the Green Archer! :D
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Stony Brooke da Mesquiteer
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I tried to watch them a day apart, and that was pushing the bore-o-meter.

I tortured myself for a while, by rewatching last week's chapter, then the current chapter, in the same sitting. I did that for about 2 serials. I watched them a week apart though.

Has anyone seen Dick Tracy Returns?
It's like Rodney King used to say, "Can't we all get a bong."
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riddlerider
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I've said this before, but it bears repeating: we're damn lucky that home video affords us the latitude to watch serials any way we choose to. Decades ago, Black Tiger and I probably saw more than a hundred serials for the first time in complete-in-one-night screenings with the NYC film society to which we both belonged. In most cases the prints had been rented or borrowed for one day only, so watching all 12 or 15 chapters in a single sitting was our only option. And we hated to skip a serial screening because we couldn't be certain we'd ever get another bite at that particular apple. I got used to that approach, and didn't mind it so much when the serial was good (or short, like the post-WWII Republics). But sitting through 15 straight episodes of something like CHICK CARTER, DETECTIVE or HOP HARRIGAN was like enduring Chinese water torture.

Two weeks ago, for the first time in many years, I saw a serial that was new to me in one day: DAREDEVILS OF THE WEST. It was run at the Lone Pine Film Festival on Saturday afternoon, in two six-chapter chunks separated by an hour-long break. Although I enjoyed the serial immensely, I found myself wishing I could watch it in smaller doses. The repetitive situations got to be comical after a while -- how many different ways can you come up with to knock a six-shooter out of someone's hand? -- and there was so much action that I actually hoped the characters would take a break, step back, and talk things over now and then. Had I seen all of DAREDEVILS in a single sitting back in the day, the repetition wouldn't have bothered me a bit. I'd have been thrilled from first frame to last. But after all these years of leisurely watching video copies of serials, I've gotten soft -- just ain't the trouper I used to be.
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Pa Stark
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Riddle Rider, remember Nashville 75? I sat through 69 chapters in the first two days, then burned out. That and Houstoncon 73 were two of the greatest experiences of my life.
Honest and Lovable Pa Stark
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CliffClaven
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I tend to fall into a rhythm of three, maybe four chapters at a shot -- about the length of a basic B movie -- then come back to it a few days or sometimes weeks later.
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riddlerider
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Pa Stark
Oct 23 2009, 03:58 PM
Riddle Rider, remember Nashville 75? I sat through 69 chapters in the first two days, then burned out. That and Houstoncon 73 were two of the greatest experiences of my life.
I sure do remember Nashville '75, Pa. One of the best film festivals ever! Met many great people there, a few of whom -- Jennifer Holt, particularly -- became friends and correspondents. I saw more Westerns than serials that year; something like eight or nine the first day alone.

The '73 Houstoncon was the first convention I attended outside the NY/NJ area, so, yeah, I'll always remember that one too. Especially the palpable sense of anticipation surrounding the then-recently-uncovered Spanish print of THE LONE RANGER RIDES AGAIN.

Remember, too, how we talked in those days about the "lost" Republic serials? We never expected to see the two King of the Royal Mounted serials, ADVENTURES OF RED RYDER, or DAREDEVILS OF THE WEST, much less the first Lone Ranger.

What a difference a few decades makes....


Edited by riddlerider, Oct 24 2009, 07:12 AM.
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