BY JOHN M. WHALEN
There was a time once, in the far long ago, when
a kid, on any given Saturday, could take a quarter from his allowance and spend
an entire afternoon at his local neighborhood movie theater. The “Saturday Matineeâ€,
as it was called, was a weekly event that usually included the showing of a
couple of cartoons, a bicycle race, a Three Stooges short, a double feature, a serial
and a popcorn fight or two. Serials, in case you don’t know, were short,
two-reel chapters of a story that usually ran for 12 chapters, each chapter
ending in some kind of a cliffhanger in which the hero of the story seemed to
face imminent doom. You’d have to come back the next Saturday to learn how the
he got out of it.
Several studios produced serials during the Cliffhanger’s
heyday, which spanned the period from the 1930’s to the 1950s. They leaned
heavily on newspaper comic strips for their sources. Universal brought Flash
Gordon to life in perhaps three of the best serials ever made with Buster
Crabbe in the starring role. Columbia released a couple of Batman serials as
well as Superman, the Phantom, and Mandrake the Magician. But the studio that
produced more serials than any other—and some would argue the cream of the crop—was
Republic Studios. In terms of production values, scripts, stunts, and clever
cliffhanger chapter endings, no one else came close. And without doubt, one of
Republic’s best was “Daredevils of the Red Circle†(1939).
“Daredevils of the Red Circle.†What a great
title. Has certain ring to it, doesn’t it? You might wonder how they came up
with a title like that. Well, first of all, you need to know that as the story
begins a deranged criminal has escaped from prison. Harry Crowl, who refers to
himself only by his prison serial number, 39013 (pronounced Thirty
Nine-Oh-Thirteen) was sent to prison by millionaire philanthropist Horace
Granville (Miles Mander). Crowl has vowed revenge on Granville, and has
dedicated himself to destroying all of the wealthy industrialist’s various
properties. Crowl is played by none other than Charles Middleton, best known as
Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon chapter plays. Said to be a really nice
guy in real life, Middleton’s craggy face, hollow eyes and deep menacing voice
kept him in demand as one of the best movie villains ever to appear on the
silver screen.
As the story opens he has already set his sights
on the Granville Amusement Center as his next target. It so happens that a trio
of circus daredevils is appearing there, including aerialist Gene Townley
(Charles Quigley), escape artist Bert Knowles (Dave Sharpe), and strong man Tiny
Dawson (Herman Brix). Quigley is a barely known actor who never gained much of
a reputation but he does a good job here as a true blue hero. He probably could
have been cast as Captain Marvel if he’d had a better agent. Dave Sharpe was
one of Republic’s best stunt men, and although he was doubled for some of the
more dangerous stunts this time around, in this one he took quite a few flying head-first
leaps and had an abundance of fist fights. Herman Brix played Tarzan in an
earlier serial filmed in Guatemal and later had a fairly distinguished acting
career after he changed his name to Bruce Bennett.
But let’s get back to explaining how they
came up with the serial’s title. Thirty Nine-Oh-Thirteen’s men set fire to the
Granville Amusement Center which results in a personal tragedy for the trio of
acrobats. Now out of a job anyway, they offer their services to Granville to
help track down Thirty Nine-Oh-Thirteen
and bring him to justice. Granville has a daughter, Blanche, (Carole Landis)
who lives in the Granville Mansion with her father. Granville is a sickly old
man who can only communicate with visitors by telephone from inside a sanitized
room on the other side of a glass barrier. (Did you know Blake Edwards wrote a
character like that in one of his scripts for an episode of “Peter Gunn� Guess
he was a Daredevils fan.) There are a couple of big surprises in the first
chapter alone, including the fact that Granville isn’t exactly who he appears
to be. As the story progresses chapter by chapter, the Daredevils receive help
from a mysterious, cloaked, and hooded figure who creeps around the Granville
mansion leaving cards with clues and hints written on them, all of them signed
by someone calling himself The Red Circle. Thus the title “Daredevils of the
Red Circleâ€.
For 12 thrilling chapters, the daredevils,
using their individual skills and strengths, manage to escape Thirty
Nine-Oh-Thirteen’s fiendishly clever machinations and death-dealing devices. Among
other perils, they avoid drowning in a flooded tunnel, being burned alive, gassed
to death, blown up, and disintegrated by a death ray. Will they finally capture
Thirty Nine-Oh-Thirteen and discover who is the mysterious Red Circle? You won’t
find out until Chapter 12, “Flight to Doom,†where all is revealed.
“Daredevils†was directed by William Witney
and John English, the team that turned out 17 of Republic’s 66 serials. This
was number 14 for them. Witney handled the action scenes, English did the
dialog scenes. The script was by written by five screenwriters including Barry
Shipman, Franklin Adreon, and Ronald C. Davidson, all veteran serial writers
who were adept at devising clever and believable cliffhanger chapter endings.
Kino Lorber has done another terrific
restoration job on the Blu-ray of “Daredevils of the Red Circle,†just as they
did with Roy Rogers’ “Sunset in the West,†reviewed earlier. The picture
quality of the 1080p transfer from a 4K scan is outstanding. A lot of the
serial was filmed outdoors in various locations around Los Angeles, all of
which look great in high def. It’s a fascinating look at LA before it was
ruined by the freeways, over-development, traffic congestion and
overpopulation.
Informative and entertaining commentary on
several of the chapters is provided by film historian Michael Schlesinger on a
separate audio track. The disc also includes some trailers for other KL Studio
Classics releases. I recommend you get this one. Just make sure you have plenty
of popcorn and soda pop on hand. I guarantee once you start Chapter One, “The
Monstrous Plot,†it will be hard to switch it off. Thirty Nine-Oh-Thirteen and
the Daredevils will keep you hooked for the whole three and half hours.
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John M. Whalen is the author of "This Ray Gun for Hire...and Other Tales." Click here to order from Amazon.