Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to In The Balcony. We hope you enjoy your visit.

You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Plus, you'll be eligible for the monthly $1 million prize. (Not really.)

Join our community!

If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Watching Any Good Serials?
Topic Started: Apr 12 2006, 09:28 AM (88,422 Views)
Sgt Saturn
Member Avatar
Charter Member
[ *  *  * ]
Quote:
 
In fact, the whole serial is cool, the stock footage is amazing aeronautic stuff I've never seen before (and I thought I'd seen ALL stock footage)


Surely, some of that aviation stuff is original footage. The Eagle's airplane has such a custom look that it almost has to be shot-for-this-serial. If it is stock from another film, I should love to see that film! I don't believe that this is after the fact doctoring of existing footage, either. Look at how clumsily they attempted to disguise the word "Navy" on the side of a supposedly civilian dirigible.

I agree that the aeronautic footage in this serial is top noptch, whatever its source.
The Ol' Sarge
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
JazzGuyy
Member Avatar
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
[ *  *  * ]
Hey Mantan (Can I call you that or do I have to say Mr. Moreland?),

Mix is pretty amazing in the Miracle Rider, considering that he was well into his 50s when he did this. I remember something about coming out of retirement to make this because they made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

I just finished Tim Tyler's Luck and agree that it is a very good serial. Certainly the best Universal I have seen (I haven't seen all the obscure stuff the rest of you have...yet). Good action, good acting, and decent plot. There are a couple of cliffhangers that are really unresolved and never explained. The Jungle Cruiser is a hoot. Did anybody notice that from the interior shots of the Cruiser, it would have to be 3 or 4 times as big as it appears to be from the outside?

I will probably start the Death Valley serial next, but maybe not.

BTW, Barrie Maxwell over at www.the digitalbits.com has a review of several serials in his latest roundup of classic movies on DVD. Barrie and the DVD Savant are my favorite "pro" reviewers.
TANSTAAFL!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Laughing Gravy
Member Avatar
Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
[ *  *  * ]
They're my faves too, and not 'cause they've both snuck in plugs for our own inthebalcony.com. It's 'cause they know what they're talking about; reading some pro reviewers writing about pre-Star Wars films can sometimes be... well, astonishing.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
rodney
Member Avatar
Charter Member
[ *  *  * ]
I'm about halfway through Jungle Jim. It's a really great serial!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mantan
Unregistered

JazzGuyy
Jun 13 2006, 12:00 PM
Hey Mantan (Can I call you that or do I have to say Mr. Moreland?),

Mix is pretty amazing in the Miracle Rider, considering that he was well into his 50s when he did this.  I remember something about coming out of retirement to make this because they made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

I just finished Tim Tyler's Luck and agree that it is a very good serial.  Certainly the best Universal I have seen (I haven't seen all the obscure stuff the rest of you have...yet).  Good action, good acting, and decent plot.  There are a couple of cliffhangers that are really unresolved and never explained. The Jungle Cruiser is a hoot.  Did anybody notice that from the interior shots of the Cruiser, it would have to be 3 or 4 times as big as it appears to be from the outside?

I will probably start the Death Valley serial next, but maybe not.

BTW, Barrie Maxwell over at www.the digitalbits.com has a review of several serials in his latest roundup of classic movies on DVD.  Barrie and the DVD Savant are my favorite "pro" reviewers.


Mantan is my given name but my street name is "Birmingham" ...or "Jeff".
I've even been called "Napoleon" -once.

I only have a couple of other Tom Mix movies - both talkies and from the same era, I think. One I can't recall the title of but the other is MY PAL, THE KING co-starring Mickey Rooney and Paul Hurst.
Pretty nice VHS copy, if memory serves.
I'd like to get more Tom Mix films on DVD.

He's great in MIRACLE RIDER. He has a nice larger-than-life heroic presence -even at this late stage of his career. The guy had to have been in a lot of pain from earlier injuries yet he's capable of providing some nice -if stiff- action sequences.

Quote Post Goto Top
 
JazzGuyy
Member Avatar
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
[ *  *  * ]
LG,

First you have to convince a lot of people under 30 that there were films before Star Wars. There are a lot of younger people who think there are no worthwhile movies made before the 1970s. The thing I find most troubling about many young people today is that they have no sense of history and little interest in correcting that problem.
TANSTAAFL!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Laughing Gravy
Member Avatar
Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
[ *  *  * ]
Well, case in point: There's a thread around here somewhere about The Digital Bits, one of the most read and most highly respected Internet resources for movie news and hardware info. Over the past several months, they've stated with all confidence that (a) the original King Kong was a "B-Movie", and (b) [answering a question about the current ownership of vintage short subjects] movie shorts and cartoons were "simply production and promotional tools. The shorts and cartoons were filler and not all of it is properly copywritten, so a lot of that stuff fell out of the studio's ownership. That and the fact that some of the shorts were produced in partnership with other entities and corporations, so ownership is divided and makes distribution a nightmare."

When I wrote to them and corrected their statements, they were quite patronizing, patting me on the head and in essence saying, "Thanks, grandpa, but we know what we're talking about."
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
George Kaplan
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
[ *  *  * ]
JazzGuyy
Jun 13 2006, 01:00 PM
I just finished Tim Tyler's Luck and agree that it is a very good serial.  Certainly the best Universal I have seen (I haven't seen all the obscure stuff the rest of you have...yet).  Good action, good acting, and decent plot.  There are a couple of cliffhangers that are really unresolved and never explained. The Jungle Cruiser is a hoot.  Did anybody notice that from the interior shots of the Cruiser, it would have to be 3 or 4 times as big as it appears to be from the outside?

Yeah, love that futuristic Jungle Cruiser, especially when they fire it up and you hear the coughing of Jack Benny's Maxwell under the hood.

My favorite moment so far occurs in Chapter 7, when one of Spider Webb's henchmen climbs up the cliffside to capture Tim in the cave. A roving gorilla tosses the bad guy off the cliff (which suddenly seems about a mile higher). We see the reaction shot of Spider and his gang: they look up, and then, as one, they look down--apparently following the poor guy's descent. Unfortunately, their reaction comes BEFORE the gorilla tosses the guy off the cliff!

Fun serial all around.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Laughing Gravy
Member Avatar
Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
[ *  *  * ]
Because of all the good talk about Tim Tyler's Luck, I've acquired a full-size poster for it and scheduled it as one of this year's FNF serials. The gang should love it!
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Laughing Gravy
Member Avatar
Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
[ *  *  * ]
P.S. I've got some info about upcoming serials from AC Comics now posted at In The Balcony
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Laughing Gravy
Member Avatar
Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
[ *  *  * ]
Just finishing Flying G-Men (tons of fun) and Perils of the Royal Mounted (blogged weekly right here, of course). The only Horne talkie serial I haven't seen is The Spider Returns, and I hope somebody'll dig up a good copy of that one of these days.

I'm also watching AC Comics' DVD of Don Daredevil Rides Again, an excellent DVD of a less than excellent serial. I also have received AC's Dick Tracy Returns, which I'll review one of these days. Oh, and watching the so-far-fairly-routine The Hurricane Express for inthebalcony.com/matinee. And don't forget, we've got Red Barry starting in a couple of weeks, right after we finish Royal Mounted. At last -- a fedora serial!

"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
marlin lee
Member Avatar
Charter Member
[ *  *  * ]
Just watched the 1st chapter of The Squadron release of The Fighting Marines. Very good print of what looks like it will be a good serial. I especially like that the hero and the sidekick are both going after the same girl.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Laughing Gravy
Member Avatar
Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
[ *  *  * ]
It is a good serial; it's similar to but I think better than the more highly regarded Fighting Devil Dogs.

By the way, as long as I have your attention, Alpha is releasing Queen of the Jungle with ex-Our Gang leading lady Mary Kornman on Aug. 22.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
rodney
Member Avatar
Charter Member
[ *  *  * ]
Tonight, we're finishing up JUNGLE JIM, which is a really fun serial that I've enjoyed a lot (the VCI print is quite nice as well). Next, I start Bat-Man. It's been some time since I've watched a Republic serial, but I'll probably get that urge soon when I get the Republic Confidential books (and the Valley of the Cliffhangers supplement) in a couple of weeks.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
The Batman
Member Avatar
Charter Member
[ *  *  * ]
I have just finished up the very excellent and highly entertaining BURN 'EM UP BARNES. Thanks for the recommendation, LG; this serial was a hoot from start to finish. After viewing BEUB, I realized why Frankie Darro is the prominent name on the DVD case and not Jack Mulhall. The kid was amazing in this one. A little early to call it, I still have to watch over 200 serials to see them all, but I nominate Frankie Darro's performance as the best sidekick in a serial. Ever.

Over the past couple of weeks I have received practically all of AC Comics’ serial output, so I think I will go with one of them next. Probably SPY SMASHER, as I still have not seen that one.

Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Free Forums with no limits on posts or members.
Learn More · Sign-up for Free
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · Continued Next Week · Next Topic »
Add Reply