SEA RAIDERS

SEA RAIDERS (12 chapter Universal serial/1941). Directors: Ford Beebe; John Rawlins.

The Dead End Kids and the Little Tough Guys join forces in this serial to take on a group called the Sea Raiders, who destroy Allied ships. Billy Adams (Billy Halop) and his buddies, including Toby (Huntz Hall) and Bilge (Gabriel Dell), are shanghaied by crooks, encounter the Raiders, and are eventually taken to their island headquarters. Billy has an older brother, square-jawed Tom (John McGuire), who's invented a new kind of torpedo, the plans for which are coveted by Tonjes (Reed Hadley), the leader of the Raiders. There are two women running around, the pretty Leah (Marcia Ralston, who resembles Merle Oberon), and the homely Aggie (Mary Field). One decent cliffhanger has one of the boys caught on a rope that is attached to a whale that's about to dive deep into the ocean, although another sequence features an octopus that doesn't appear to be in the same movie. [The same stock footage of a fight between a shark and an octopus later turned up in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.] The serial is hampered by the unfunny and irritating antics of the "kids," and the classical music on the soundtrack, such as The Barber of Seville, is always inappropriate. John McGuire had the lead in Stranger on the Third Floor.

Verdict: One of your lesser cliffhanger serials. **.

SH! THE OCTOPUS

SH! THE OCTOPUS (1937). Director: William C. McGann.

Allen Jenkins (pictured) has a rare lead role as a cop, Dempsey, teamed with irritating Hugh Herbert, who plays Kelly. The two find themselves investigating an alleged murder at a spooky lighthouse. (The body dangling from way high overhead in the tower, dripping blood onto Herbert, is a startlingly macabre touch). This has something to do with a mysterious crime leader, the scourge of the area, who is known as the Octopus. There is also a real octopus hanging around the lighthouse whose well-articulated tentacles float in now and then to close doors, turn off lights, and snatch people out of windows and into the ocean. John Eldredge plays the new owner of the lighthouse, and Marcia Ralston is a pretty lady, Vesta Vernoff, who is certain that her stepfather is the body dangling over everybody's heads. Despite (or because of) all these macabre, spooky touches, the movie -- based on that chest nut The Gorilla -- is never as funny as it's supposed to be, and hasn't got a strong enough story to hold one's interest. Elspeth Dudgeon is a riot as Vesta's old nanny, but you keep hoping that Abbott and Costello will show up to create some real laughs.

Verdict: Not a total stinker, but close. **.