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52 A PRACTICAL MANUAL OF SCREEN PLAYWRITING
but shapely hero. Of course, he does arrive, in the nick of time— to coin a cliche— and, after a desperate brawl with the baddie's mobsters, succeeds in succoring the fair maiden.
This leads us into what is called the "middle action." This fight with the tough guys must always be a sadistic, knock-'em-down, drag'em-out ruckus. Balsa-wood chairs are smashed over heads, breakaway tables are broken to bits, plaster-thin pottery is scrambled into shards and sugar-glass windows are broken. Then various and sundry gymnastics are indulged in by the hero and the toughest tough guy— always performed by doubles, in long shots (intercut with close-ups of the real actors) , so as to make them unidentifiable. These invariably end with the tough guy landing a lucky, one-punch knockout blow on the hero's chin.
The girl is then spirited away by the henchmen and the place is set on fire with our hero still unconscious in it. But he recovers in time to avoid cremation and undauntedly lopes out to chase the heroine-snatching villains.
This is where the high spot of the chase comes in. It should run for about seven minutes of film and should call into play the use of any vehicles that move, and the faster the better. By this time, nine minutes of the serial should have elapsed, so that when the hero reaches the baddie's hangout, he should have about two or three minutes of time to become embroiled in still another fight with the henchmen, in an attempt to save the girl from a fate worse than death. Once again the hero should receive a lucky clout on the jaw. Once again he finds himself chin-deep in a manhole situation. Once again the girl is whisked away as the water slowly fills the manhole, to kill off the hero for certain this time.
It should be obvious from the foregoing that the accent in serials is on action. One inflexible rule in the making of serials is: Keep it moving! Only a minimum of dialogue should be written— about seven hundred words per episode— and only enough to carry the plot forward. There must be no idle repartee, no wisecracks.
Characterization, of course, must be sedulously avoided. The hero must always be a clean-living, typical American lad. The leading heavy, or menace, must always be sinister and suave. And his henchmen must always be "dirty dog" heavies, with leering countenances, innumerable facial scars, and heavy eyebrows. The heroine must be blonde, frail, comely, capable of displaying a perpetual "badge