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PETE HARRIS
SERIAL MADNESS: At one point, during last Tuesday's orgy of cliffhanger serial chapters at the New Yorker theatre, I found myself in a serious conversation with Don Daynard and Bill Black about the sequence in chapter 10 of The Crimson Ghost (which we were watching at that point) in which the truck driven by Linda Stirling goes crashing through the warehouse doors and plunges into the water below, In the low-angle shot showing the truck bursting through the doors, the back wheels fall off, but in the follow-up shot from above, the back wheels are properly in place. At any rate, that's what this conversation was about. And, it occurred to me later that if anything could demonstrate the hold that cliffhanger serials have on us, that conversation would do until something better came along, Or, it could just mean that we we're all absolutely bonkers.
I must say, though, that our entire contingent--Don Hutchison, Wally Seeley, Don Daynard, Bill Black and myself (sorry Parky Parkhurst couldn't be there)-thoroughly enjoyed the whole evening. But, I also must say that there was much unseemly laughter during some of the Columbia entries which included the '49 Batman and Captain Video, the absolute low point of which came when a flying saucer done as a superimposed animated cartoon rather than as a miniature made its appearance, Actually, it's stock footage from Columbia's Bruce Gentry, but in any event, it's an abysmal cop-out. Gene Roth's get-up as the evil Vultura in Captain Video also was good for a few guffaws, (Any fool know there was only one Vultura, anyway--Lorna Gray in Perils Of Nyoka, )
The evening was more than redeemed by such Republic entries as Captain Marvel, Spy Smasher, The Crimson Ghost, Captain America, Haunted Harbor (under its reissue title Pirates Harbor), Jungle Girl (with the great sliding floor cliffhanger), Zorro's Fighting Legion, The Mysterious Dr. Satan, Daughter of Don Q and Tiger Woman, The evening also included a chapter from The Clutching Hand (Stage and Screen, 1936) with Jack Mulhall as Craig Kennedy and The Miracle Rider (Mascot, 1935) with Tom Mix, but as far as our group was concerned, it was Republic all the way.
Thanks to the New Yorker's Gary Topp for bringing back a thousand and one Saturday matinees, It was a great night for serial fans!
* bl * PICTURES THAT TALK!!: There's another interesting evening scheduled at the Ontario Science Centre on Thursday, Dec, 9, at 7 p.m. when the Ontario Film Theatre will mark the 50th anniversary of Vitaphone by showing the original program first presented at New York's Warner Theatre Aug. 6, 1926. The films feature such people as Will Hays, violinist Mischa Elman, guitarist Roy Smeck and violinist Efrem Zimbalist and the feature movie is director Alan Crosland's Don Juan with John Barrymore, Mary Astor and Estelle Taylor.