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Watching Any Good Serials?
Topic Started: Apr 12 2006, 09:28 AM (88,287 Views)
panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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I love that one too. It's got more action than any ten other pictures.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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toddgault
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Just started The Last Frontier. Seen it several times, not a great serial but i love Chaney's accent as The Black Ghost.
Todd Gault..........Serial Buff
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JazzGuyy
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I'm watching "Roar of the Iron Horse". Another villain trying to stop the railroad being built serial. Nothing original about it but better than most Katzman-era Columbias.
TANSTAAFL!
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Black Tiger
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Missed Miss Mend on TCM. The title sure didn't sound like anything I'd ever want to see.
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Stony Brooke da Mesquiteer
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Sapient Balconeer
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The section of Miss Mend that I saw when TCM 1st aired it was fast-paced.
It's like Rodney King used to say, "Can't we all get a bong."
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The Batman
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Black Tiger
Sep 9 2010, 08:23 PM
Missed Miss Mend on TCM. The title sure didn't sound like anything I'd ever want to see.

Never judge a book by its cover, BT.

MISS MEND is as exciting and fast-paced as any silent (or sound) serial that I have seen.

In addition, the Russian perspective on early 20th century America is fascinating.

And...no repetitive ceiling crashes in this one.

Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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The Tiger might consider that a minus.

The Russians never have had much sense of salesmanship. If you wanted to sell a lot of copies, would you call your book The Brothers Karamazov? I'm sure the guys at Flicker Alley know they could have sold more copies with a more commercial title, but they've got too much integrity to mess with the original; and at least Miss Mend sticks in your mind.

Whatever, this picture belongs in every action lover's collection. It's magnificently photographed and edited at a breathtaking pace, with an oddly modern feel.

Besides, Flicker Alley is doing a great job and deserves our support in this recession.
Edited by panzer the great & terrible, Sep 10 2010, 08:15 AM.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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The Batman
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panzer the great & terrible
Sep 10 2010, 08:14 AM
This picture is magnificently photographed and edited at a breathtaking pace, with an oddly modern feel.


Agreed, the print they used for this is beautiful.

Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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The Batman
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panzer the great & terrible
Sep 10 2010, 08:14 AM
Flicker Alley is doing a great job and deserves our support in this recession.

Darn right they are and they do.

Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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Pa Stark
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panzer the great & terrible
Sep 6 2010, 07:52 AM
If plot means two fights per episode, it's better-plotted.
Hey, Ma and I get into more fights than that.
Honest and Lovable Pa Stark
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Sgt King
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Transferred my feature version of "Trader Tom of the China Seas" onto DVD yesterday.
I hadn't watched this one in 19 years and, even tho it's one of Republics last, it moved fast enough and I enjoyed it. Mostly due to action and great cliffhangers from SOS Coast Guard, Drums of Fu Manchu and some good Lone Pine "mounted troops on horses" action scenes from the 1937 Republic feature "Storm Over Bengal."
It has the two trains, head-on crash from "Drums" and it's pristine.
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panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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That's a find. Who knew?
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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CliffClaven
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Just finished Tailspin Tommy and the Great Air Mystery -- I'd have to rate it "eh".

Despite the use of a lot of non-stock arial footage and some ambitious dirigible scenes early on, it fell right into stock formula: Good guys and bad guys have bases in some exotic clime that looks like undeveloped Southern California. Constant variations of: good guys get captured and have to escape; or bad guys attack good guys' camp; or they meet in the middle and there's a plane crash the good guys can walk away from.

The "mystery" was the identity of a helpful masked pilot who flew a plane with a pretty nifty eagle paint job. It would vanish (sort of) with a trail a smoke and a slide whistle sound. Since he doesn't have an alter ego anywhere near the action, and since they keep mentioning a character they left behind in America in Chapter One, and since the actor is featured in the opening credits of every episode, the big reveal is really sort of pointless and they know it, instantly getting back to the business of flying back and forth between good guy and bad guy camps.

Things take an unexpected turn in the last couple episodes. It plays like they ran out of script and swiped somebody else's, wrapping up the story on a cannibal island. Lots of stock-footage dancing natives and hands beating drums, a few unpersuasive inserts of a leopard, and no airplanes. But they do close with a stock shot of a slick monoplane flying home (so why did everybody spend the whole serial rattling around in frail-looking biplanes?)

The first Tailspin Tommy was a lot more fun, if technically less slick. Tommy was a small-town wannabe who lived with his just-folks parents (how many serial heroes had families of any kind, aside from convenient millionaires or scientists?); aviatrix girlfriend Betty had a day job at the airport greasy spoon and would actually go on a date or two with Tommy (these tended to end in cliffhangers, but the thought was there). Oh, and there was something about a rival airline. But under this veneer of normalcy the story was literally all over the map: a mad scientist came and went in maybe two episodes; a gig in Hollywood was padded with scenes from WWI epics; and a major earthquake was tossed in for some reason. Not great, but charmingly random.
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The Batman
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Nice review, Cliff. I agree, my rating for TTatGAM is: meh.

Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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Sgt Saturn
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Yeah, but it does have Jean Rogers.
The Ol' Sarge
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