SKY RAIDERS (1941). 12 chapter Universal serial. Directed by Ford Beebe and Ray Taylor.
A fairly standard but reasonably entertaining serial with bad guys trying to get the secrets of a new plane away from the bad guys. The characterizations are a little more interesting than usual, and there's even a love triangle between hero Captain Dayton (Donald Woods from the Mexican Spitfire series) ) and buddy Ed Carey (Robert Armstrong from King Kong.) who both are hot for pretty secretary Mary Blake (Kathryn Adams). Armstrong even gives Miss Blake a hot lingering kiss at one point, a rare occasion in serials! Billy Halop (Eastside Kids) is along for the ride as a young wannabe pilot, Timothy Bryant. Eduardo Cianelli is the villain of the piece, the wonderfully named Felix Lynx. The bad guys employ an exact lookalike of Dayton for a couple of episodes, and there's a sinister countess (Jean Fenwick) who doesn't hang around very long. No really spectacular cliffhangers in this, unfortunately.
Verdict: Not so great. **.
A fairly standard but reasonably entertaining serial with bad guys trying to get the secrets of a new plane away from the bad guys. The characterizations are a little more interesting than usual, and there's even a love triangle between hero Captain Dayton (Donald Woods from the Mexican Spitfire series) ) and buddy Ed Carey (Robert Armstrong from King Kong.) who both are hot for pretty secretary Mary Blake (Kathryn Adams). Armstrong even gives Miss Blake a hot lingering kiss at one point, a rare occasion in serials! Billy Halop (Eastside Kids) is along for the ride as a young wannabe pilot, Timothy Bryant. Eduardo Cianelli is the villain of the piece, the wonderfully named Felix Lynx. The bad guys employ an exact lookalike of Dayton for a couple of episodes, and there's a sinister countess (Jean Fenwick) who doesn't hang around very long. No really spectacular cliffhangers in this, unfortunately.
Verdict: Not so great. **.
2 comments:
Well, it's not up to today's standards but it was the typical cliffhanger of that era. What I found interesting was that this was released BEFORE Pearl Harbor. The enemy spies were never identified as coming from a certain country, but I wonder if they had a premonition of things to come.
Some cliffhangers made during the same period are so well made that they hold up even against modern-day standards due to skillful editing, exciting cliffhangers and so on. Sky Raiders was mediocre but had its entertaining moments. I think the pre-WW2 period had a number of serials where enemy spies were operating on U.S. soil; I don't think anyone could have necessarily predicted Pearl Harbor but filmmakers probably realized that espionage would be a real possibility if and when the U.S. entered the war.
Anyway, thanks for your comments!
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