Last week, I taunted you with visions of ancient superhero movies – serials, as they were called back then. Today we’d call them really low-budget webcasts. Here’s a few more worthy of your consideration, and this time we’re delving into a trio of iconic heroes from the pulps and newspaper strips – and now, of course, comic books.
The Shadow is the best-known of all the classic pulp heroes, and for a very good reason: many of the more than 300 stories published were quite good. Walter B. Gibson created something magical – a series with a lead character who had plenty of secrets but no secret identity, aided and abetted by a slew of agents who had no idea who their master was. The character’s popularity was enhanced massively by a highly successful radio series, one that gave The Shadow an alter-ego and a female companion and took away most of his agents.
The Shadow is the best-known of all the classic pulp heroes, and for a very good reason: many of the more than 300 stories published were quite good. Walter B. Gibson created something magical – a series with a lead character who had plenty of secrets but no secret identity, aided and abetted by a slew of agents who had no idea who their master was. The character’s popularity was enhanced massively by a highly successful radio series, one that gave The Shadow an alter-ego and a female companion and took away most of his agents.
- 11/26/2014
- by Mike Gold
- Comicmix.com
Kudos to Vci Entertainment for once again making some rare serials available. Their latest DVDs are the Universal serials The Green Hornet (1940) and The Green Hornet Strikes Again (1941). Although the movies were released less than a year apart, the role of Britt Reid—the crusading publisher of the Daily Sentinel and secretly the masked crime fighter, the Green Hornet—was played by different actors. The first starred Gordon Jones, usually seen in comedy roles and who would later play Mike the Cop on the Abbott & Costello TV show. For the second serial, Universal brought in Warren Hull, who was no stranger to costumed heroes, having portrayed Mandrake the Magician in a serial and the pulp favorite character the Spider in another chapterplay; Hull would also star in The Spider Returns that same year. Jones speaks as Reid, but in a clever move, whenever the Hornet puts on his mask, the...
- 8/12/2009
- by no-reply@starlog.com (Dan Scapperotti)
- Starlog
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