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Watching Any Good Serials?
Topic Started: Apr 12 2006, 09:28 AM (88,419 Views)
Mantan
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Got the ADVENTURES OF SMILIN' JACK dvd from Grapevine, too. Pleased with the quality and the serial's fun, too.
I'm also watching THE RETURN OF DICK TRACY (AC Comics)- a truly great serial.
I think the original vhs copy I had of this was so lousy I never finished watching it.
This is one of the best serials I've ever seen.
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Jerry Blake
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"I dunno, Jerry, he didn't have any budgetary or time constraints that other serials directors didn't have. And Jesse James Rides Again had Clayton Moore and Linda Stirling, serial veterans both, who probably helped him keep things moving."

I disagree as to the budgetary and time constraints; it's obvious that FLYING DISC MAN FROM MARS, for instance, wasn't being allotted the same budget as ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL had been ten years earlier. If you check out some of Republic's Fu Manchu TV episodes directed by William Witney, you'll see that they look and feel identical to a Brannon serial from the early 1950s, with little or no resemblance to Witney's great 1930s and 1940s serial work. They're competent and swiftly paced, but don't feel imaginative or exuberant like the Golden Age serials.

I also dispute the idea that Moore and Stirling would have "helped" Brannon "keep things moving;" serial actors had pretty much zero influence on the director's work, from all I've heard. It's not as if Brannon didn't know what a serial was; he had been on the Republic set as assistant prop master for quite a while before becoming a director. As Witney put it in a TEMI interview, when asked about Brannon, "Hell, Freddie was no stranger. He'd been Roy Wade's assistant in the prop department and knew plenty. I know a lot of people think he wasn't a great director, but he knew his way around OK."

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panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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The thing is, most FOOFs don't care about direction. It's mainly a subject for people who have actually done some directing, but it's not of great interest to the average bear.

I personally would love to go on all day about directors, but I find that few people want to follow me there. Take a look at the number of people who have visited my Anthony Mann thread compared to the number who visit andarus' threads. Tells a story, doesn't it?

Oh, FOOFS? It's a term from the Sixties:

Friends
Of
Old
Films
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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riddlerider
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One thing to remember about Republic serials -- actually, this was true of most low-budget productions, even those made at the major studios -- is that shooting schedules generally were unyielding, and if a director was sick or otherwise incapacitated, the producer would assign another contract director to handle the day's work. In most cases the production manager and the d. p. already knew which scenes were to be filmed where, and how, so filling in wasn't that big a deal.

It's been so long since I saw JESSE JAMES RIDES AGAIN that I have no memory of one fight being better than another, so if there's a significant difference I'd attribute it to a substitute director -- and at this point in the studio's history, that most likely would have been Yak.

For years, serial aficionados worked on the assumption -- and I don't remember when or how it became prevalent -- that on the serials they did together, Bill Witney generally handled exteriors and/or action sequences and Jack English the interiors and/or dialogue sequences. Various "experts" swore up and down that Witney had to have directed such-and-such a fight, and English had to have directed such-and-such a conference-room scene. When Bill started appearing at conventions, he quickly put the lie to those suppositions: English, he said, was just as proficient as he at outdoor stuff and action. We all learned that to our satisfaction when chapters of DAREDEVILS OF THE WEST surfaced in the mid '70s.

Chapter One of DAREDEVILS (which, unfortunately, was not put into circulation by Nostalgia Merchant because it lacked sound) has one of the most amazing extended action sequences I've ever seen in a serial: an eight-minute tour de force, shot up in Lone Pine, that begins with Indians pursuing a wagon, which finally pulls into a campsite under siege by other Indians. A protracted gunfight begins; eventually several Indians penetrate the circled wagons and fisticuffs ensue before they are killed and the other savages driven off by the cavalry. If this sequence -- which has an incredible running insert I've never seen duplicated in any other serial or feature film, A or B -- had appeared in a Witney-English serial, everybody would swear that it was directed by Witney. But it was English all the way.

Brannon was basically a "traffic cop" director, competent but uninspired. This is not just my opinion; it's also the opinion of several people who worked with and for him. That's not to say, however, that he occasionally couldn't have outdone himself. But I tend to doubt it.
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The Batman
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riddlerider
Aug 18 2006, 09:07 PM
Brannon was basically a "traffic cop" director, competent but uninspired.  This is not just my opinion; it's also the opinion of several people who worked with and for him.  That's not to say, however, that he occasionally couldn't have outdone himself.  But I tend to doubt it.

RR, I am just finishing up Zombies of the Stratosphere and must say you are being too kind. I have never looked forward to scenes of stock footage from other serials, until now. Those were the only good things about this snore-fest.

Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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riddlerider
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Bringing the thread back on topic....

I just began THE PHANTOM RIDER (the 1936 Universal), an old favorite from early '60s TV and the first Buck Jones film I ever saw. I have a sentimental attachment to this one, and I'm enjoying it just as much now as I did when I was 11 years old.
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witneyenglish
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I've been watching the Republics' in order (minus Daredevils of the West) and I am up to Secret Service in Darkest Africa. I've started it up for the third time, but I am really having a hard time getting through it. I know it's a pretty good serial (I've watched it before) but don't know if I'm having Republic burnout of not.

I remember reading in Alan Barbour that WWII was Republic's golden age, but I really prefer the pre-war stuff (up to about Spy Smasher) as really top-notch Republic.
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Laughing Gravy
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I've only seen SS In Darkest Africa once, but it's been one of my faves since then. I think maybe to watch Republics and not get burned out, you can only watch one chapter a week, 3 or 4 Republics a year. Or maybe you'll still get burned out.
"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
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DickFlint
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I always vary the type of serial I watch.. I will watch an old Mascot western ,then, perhaps, a later Republic crime serial, then a Universal western, perhaps a Republic spy story, then an old independent and so forth. I find that if I mix them up, I don't get burned out on any one type of serial. Even the poorer serials seem interesting for at least a few chapters.
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panzer the great & terrible
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I AM burned out on serials so I'm reading these suggestions with interest.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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riddlerider
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DickFlint
Aug 27 2006, 10:21 AM
I always vary the type of serial I watch.. I will watch an old Mascot western ,then, perhaps, a later Republic crime serial, then a Universal western, perhaps a Republic spy story, then an old independent and so forth. I find that if I mix them up, I don't get burned out on any one type of serial. Even the poorer serials seem interesting for at least a few chapters.

I do the same thing. It's the best way to avoid burnout. Before PHANTOM RIDER I watched JUNGLE GIRL, and before that I watched FLYING G-MEN, and before that I watched GALLOPING GHOST. I reckon the next one will be a silent I haven't seen in ages -- maybe THE MASTER MYSTERY, or LIGHTNING HUTCH.

Of course, days and sometimes weeks go by when I don't watch any serial chapters. But every now and then, if I'm really enjoying something I haven't seen in years, I may watch four or five chapters in a row. On the average, I go through 20 to 25 serials per year. Theoretically, that would give me nearly seven full years to cycle through the whole collection, but I've never approached it that methodically. There are some serials I watch every couple years. Others -- like PHANTOM RIDER -- have been collecting dust on the shelf for 15 years or more. I recently found my VHS copy of DESPERADOES OF THE WEST, which I bought the week it came out. It's still shrink-wrapped; never could bring myself to sit through the damn thing again.
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panzer the great & terrible
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Serials do help you see the difference between bad and unendurable, and that's an important distinction. Nixon was a bad president. Bush is unendurable.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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riddlerider
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panzer the great & terrible
Aug 27 2006, 06:53 PM
Serials do help you see the difference between bad and unendurable, and that's an important distinction. Nixon was a bad president. Bush is unendurable.

Just can't leave well enough alone, can you?
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Bonga
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Nixon was The Phantom Creep of the presidency. Bush is The Clutching Hand.
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marlin lee
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Just finished chapter 1 of The Serial Squadron release of The Sign of the Wolf. Looks like this is going to another fun early sound serial.
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