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Watching Any Good Serials?
Topic Started: Apr 12 2006, 09:28 AM (88,336 Views)
The Batman
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cinemalover
Apr 3 2009, 07:05 AM
I have never seen the Secret Code. What is it that really makes it stand out? It sounds like I should put it on my "must acquire" list.
Thanks.

For me, CL, it is the uniqueness of the serial. The villains use secret codes (duh) to carry out their schemes and the good guys use their own secret code-breaking ways to solve the cases. From what I remember, it is fun and fast-paced.

In addtion, at the end of each chapter, a military guy (an actor, I'm sure) demonstrates a different code-making procedure and the way to crack it. Fun stuff.

I highly recommend that any serial fan have a copy of THE SECRET CODE in their collection.



Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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Laughing Gravy
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Plus, Paul Kelly is arguably the best actor to ever star in a serial, and he's real good in it. Plus, it is action packed, has an honest-go-goodness superhero in it, and... well, yeah, there are those code things at the end. Priceless.
"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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The Batman
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Laughing Gravy
Apr 3 2009, 07:17 AM
Plus, Paul Kelly is arguably the best actor to ever star in a serial, and he's real good in it.


Yes, indeed!!

Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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JazzGuyy
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Just started watching this. Pretty good action but the plot seems to be the old one about the good guy pretending to go bad so he can infiltrate the enemy camp. Lots of stock footage of things being destroyed (supposedly by the Nazi spies and saboteurs.) All the bad guys seem to have bad German accents. You would think the enemy would only send spies to the States who spoke fluent American English. I hope you guys are right and it improves.
TANSTAAFL!
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The Batman
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JazzGuyy
Apr 3 2009, 09:36 AM

the plot seems to be the old one about the good guy pretending to go bad so he can infiltrate the enemy camp.

Hey, Jazzy, the serial is from 1942, the plot was a little fresher back then!

Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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The Batman
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JazzGuyy
Apr 3 2009, 09:36 AM

Lots of stock footage of things being destroyed

Disgusting! I cannot believe a serial would stoop so low as to use stock footage!

Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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panzer the great & terrible
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Action, action, and more action; a hero who can act, Broadway star Paul Kelly; and cool little lessons on codebreaking at the end of each chapter.

Spencer Gordon Bennett directed this one all by himself after almost 30 years of directing serials, and his experience shows.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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cinemalover
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You guys are elevating my estimations of Columbia's product. Just prior to watching the Shadow I watched the first Spider serial (for the first time) and really enjoyed it also. For so many years I've brainwashed myself with the Republic serials that's it's nice to be exposed to a different, and very entertaining, style from another studio. Look out Columbia serials, here I come!

I also have an appreciation of Columbia because I just got the series of Jungle Jim movies and am watching them for the first time since childhood (forty years or so). Nobody could wrestle a rubber shark or tango with a stuffed lion like Johhny W.!!!!!
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The Batman
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Glad you have managed to break away from the Republic-style. Nothing wrong with Republics, I love 'em too, but you can't eat the same thing every day.

Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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panzer the great & terrible
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...and whatever you say about Columbia serials, they're not formulaic. They careen off in all directions. Even the ones that aren't quite great, like The Monster and the Ape, are still hugely entertaining.
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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Mouth Breather
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The only tiny criticism I have is that every chapter has the same plot. Germans make a plan & leave hero behind, hero escapes captivity and foils plan, then breaks back into German hideout. Of course if you watch one episode a week (or more like a month as I do), this won't bother you. Much. Of course kids love seeing the same story every week.
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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The Black Commando is one of the few masked serial heroes that actually had a good reason to wear a mask (and no, it's not because he was ugly). Were his identity known, his undercover activites would have been compromised.

Most other masked heroes were just as tough on crime in their civilian identities.
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panzer the great & terrible
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Good point. Tigre. For once there is the teeniest logic to a serial.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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JazzGuyy
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One thing I note about all the Columbia serials I have seen is that they seem to call for even more suspension of disbelief than the average serial. For instance, the villains shoot volleys of shots at the Spider at nearly point blank range and never hit him or buildings and rooms collapse on the Shadow and he emerges totally unhurt. Heroes in Republic serials do occasionally get wounded or need some patching up.
TANSTAAFL!
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Stony Brooke da Mesquiteer
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I watched The Spider's Web and The Shadow around the same time and they both have some exactly-the-same cliffhangers!
It's like Rodney King used to say, "Can't we all get a bong."
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