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Watching Any Good Serials?
Topic Started: Apr 12 2006, 09:28 AM (88,352 Views)
marlin lee
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Mantan
Oct 27 2008, 02:30 PM
I had to wait close to a year between viewing ...G-Men and ...vs.Crime, Inc.
I don't know what to advise. When I finished DICK TRACY'S G-MEN, I thought it was the best in the series. Now after watching two chapters of DICK TRACY VS CRIME, INC., I think it's a draw.
I really think both are among the best serials I've seen.
Currently up to Chapter 3 on DICK TRACY VS CRIME, INC. and up to Chapter 8 of NYOKA AND THE TIGERMEN and I remain a happy fool for the chapter play.
I'm through chapter 4 of vs. Crime Inc. and would also call it a draw with G-Men. I would however put Dick Tracy Returns above both because of the excellent job done by Charles Middleton as Pa Stark and a solid cast of serial heavies as his sons.
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Chandu
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Champeen of Justice and Seeker of Knowledge, but rascal at heart!
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I'm about three chapters into Mysterious Island and haven't managed to make much sense out of it so far. There are several entities striving to survive on the island, but none seem to be true villains. There's a group weirdos with lightning bolt shaped spears, who remind me of leftovers from The Phantom Empire who chase our heroes around, but I'm not sure why. There's also a guy in a fancy full face motorcycle helmet who seems to have his own purposes too, but he ain't tellin' no one what they are, and another bearded wacko who's looking out for his own best interests. So far, it's definitely a Mysterious Island indeed!
Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog. It's just little ol' me...
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The Batman
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I'm half-way through THE MYSTERY SQUADRON, not one of the best Mascots, but it still has its charms.
Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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George Kaplan
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marlin lee
Oct 27 2008, 08:04 PM
Mantan
Oct 27 2008, 02:30 PM When I finished [i
DICK TRACY'S G-MEN[/i], I thought it was the best in the series. Now after watching two chapters of DICK TRACY VS CRIME, INC., I think it's a draw.
I really think both are among the best serials I've seen.
Currently up to Chapter 3 on DICK TRACY VS CRIME, INC. and up to Chapter 8 of NYOKA AND THE TIGERMEN and I remain a happy fool for the chapter play.
I'm through chapter 4 of vs. Crime Inc. and would also call it a draw with G-Men. I would however put Dick Tracy Returns above both because of the excellent job done by Charles Middleton as Pa Stark and a solid cast of serial heavies as his sons.
Have to agree about Middleton as Pa Stark. He's fun in Nyoka, too. But if ...vs. Crime, Inc. is as good as ...G-Men, I won't be content until I start it. (Does that make me a Byrd watcher, or just a Byrd brain?)
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Black Tiger
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You can't go wrong with Crime Inc. It's my favorite Tracy serial (or feature for that matter).

I enjoy the mystery villain. the Ghost, his gimmick of turning invisible, the Council of Eight being popped off one-by-one,
action-packed fistfights and some excellent cliffhangers. John Davidson and Anthony Warde provide excellent henchmen support. The last chapter has one of the most unique and interesting fistfights I've ever seen, not to mention a spectacular finish.
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Pa Stark
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DICK TRACY VS. CRIME, INC.'s final two chapters were fantastic, which makes it one of the best finishes of any serial. At that time, Republic went all out in concluding their serials.
Honest and Lovable Pa Stark
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Black Tiger
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Of course chapter 15 of Dick Tracy Returns was great to see ol' Pa Stark get his :D
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Tal Chotali
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Pa, you nailed it. The final 5 minutes of Crime Inc. is what any kid that saw all fifteen weeks of this serial wanted: action, action and action!
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Chandu
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I’m through chapter six of Mysterious Island now and I forgot to mention in my last recap that there’s also a hottie and two henchmen, supposedly from the planet Mercury, running around the island in silly get ups with some kind of futuristic ray guns they can’t hit the broadside of a barn with. No idea what their mission might be either. Meanwhile circling the island is the unlikliest looking pirate I’ve ever seen in the person of Gene Roth. Now I like Gene Roth, but he just doesn’t make a very convincing pirate! He’s much more menacing in a business suit. The band of weirdos with the funny spears I mentioned before are dressed in black body stockings with cute little wrap around skirts, so I’ve taken to thinking of them as girly-men, because that’s the way they fight and act too! They worship an active volcano on the island, which I also forgot to mention. The wacko wild man kinda reminds me of Festus in Gunsmoke. Too bad they didn’t have Ken Curtis in the role!

I’m almost halfway through the serial and still have no idea if there’s a plot, or if there is, what it might be. With all these folks running around the island, they can’t help but run into one another all the time and the plot seems to be in the recording of these encounters. Our heroes crash landed on the island in a civil war balloon and their goal is to survive and escape the island, but I have no idea what any of these other loonies are doing there.

In the last chapter I watched, it seems Gene Roth and his band of hearties have left some provisions stored on the island and have come back for them, but our heroes have already found them and are putting them to good use in order to survive. A gun battle ensues over the provisions and I noticed the heroes using some sort of a lever action musket?? They fire once and hand the rifle to a crony to reload. The reloading process is just the reloader levering another round into the chamber and handing the rifle back to the shooter. No ramrods, caps or balls here! The rifles themselves have some kind of big hammers on top to make them resemble percussion rifles, but I suspect they’re made up lever action Winchesters. This is by far the wackiest serial I’ve ever seen and it’s really been fun so far. Don’t miss this one if you haven’t seen it yet!
Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog. It's just little ol' me...
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panzer the great & terrible
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See message below. I wish there was a delete feature.
Edited by panzer the great & terrible, Oct 30 2008, 11:10 AM.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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panzer the great & terrible
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panzer the great & terrible
Oct 30 2008, 10:55 AM
Yeah, I agree that the last two Tracys are among the best serials, stock footage or no stock footage. IMO the way to watch Tracy is straight through, so you pick up on all the retreads, but then I am known for my obsession about how movies create the illusions, not about the illusions themselves.

Chandu, MYSTERIOUS ISLAND was my fave serial when I was a kid, and I think it holds up. It's sort of like a long STAR TREK episode. It was ahead of its time with a black character who has no stage black Stepin Fetchit characteristics and is just one of the guys, which was a large part of what I liked about it as a kid because I had friends of the African-American persuasion and it just seemed normal to me, which most movies didn't. That's one of the things nobody talks about -- how exotic the movies were because southern California might as well have been on another planet with its hard-core racism and rigid money-based class system, coupled with a peculiar tolerance for all sorts of madness, especially of the right-wing variety.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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mort bakaprevski
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panzer the great & terrible
Oct 30 2008, 11:09 AM
panzer the great & terrible
Oct 30 2008, 10:55 AM
That's one of the things nobody talks about -- how exotic the movies were because southern California might as well have been on another planet with its hard-core racism and rigid money-based class system, coupled with a peculiar tolerance for all sorts of madness, especially of the right-wing variety.
????????

Could you elaborate a bit on this???
"Nov Shmoz Ka Pop."
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Chandu
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panzer the great & terrible
Oct 30 2008, 11:09 AM
panzer the great & terrible
Oct 30 2008, 10:55 AM
It was ahead of its time with a black character who has no stage black Stepin Fetchit characteristics and is just one of the guys, which was a large part of what I liked about it as a kid because I had friends of the African-American persuasion and it just seemed normal to me, which most movies didn't.
He was so much one of the guys, I forgot one of the heroes was even black until you mentioned it. I might have still forgotten, had I not taken special notice when he appeared, because I thought he bore such a striking resemblance to Greg Morris.
Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog. It's just little ol' me...
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Mantan
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Currently watching both DICK TRACY VS CRIME INC as well as NYOKA AND THE TIGERMEN.
If I've been disappointed in anything about NYOKA it's been that Kay Aldridge has been less than gorgeously hot from the 1st chapter to the 7th. Finally in Chapter 8, Satan -Vultura's pet killer ape- shakes Nyoka off the rope she dangles from off the side of a steep cliff. She plunges dozens of feet below into a pool of water. After swimming to safety, with her wet hair clinging to her face and neck, she looked quite fetching. By the end of the chapter, hair dried again, she was back to her tired ol' gawky self.
Bummer.

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Stony Brooke da Mesquiteer
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Up to chapter 6 of The Three Musketeers. Fun and enjoyable serial. I wonder if Wayne will ever get used to riding a horse *L* A few fights between the musketeers and the Arabs have a musketeer getting on his hands and knees behind an Arab and another musketeer pushes the Middle Easterner. Just goofy fun.
It's like Rodney King used to say, "Can't we all get a bong."
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