Badmovies.org Forum

iam a big serial fan , ill be getting the seial the haunted harbor. i just found a movie ihave not seen in years ,the name is captain clegg or night creatures. is thereanyone out there that likes serials. oh and what are the rules here ???

I have never watched any of the old serials, but I would like to buy a few on DVD.  The rules here are simple: have fun, but avoid insulting other contributors or posting anything that is offensive, abusive or illegal!

Yes, as to whether I liked serials. Believe it or not, when I was a kid, they were still showing serials in theatres. The problem with that was, despite the low ticket prices, the family financial situation was, that I couldn't go to the theatre every week, so I would often miss out on several of the chapters.

Then, they started showing motion picture serials on television. At least they were free, but, the problem with that was that you had to make an effort to see it each week.

Of course, they've for the most part have stopped showing them on television, but, at least they are available on dvd and vhs for your enjoyment.

There are any number of books on the subject, even the latest is badly out of date, but, as they stopped making motion picture serials around 1956, it probably doesn't matter.

And welcome to the board.

My favorite serial is Dark Shadows.  It's about this family in Collinsport Maine, it focuses on characters that are vampires, witches, werewolves, warlocks, you name it.  There's even a plot about Frankenstein's monster.  As someone once said, the story lines just went barrelling out of control, and it was teriffic.   Very weird show.  It's from back in the late '60s early '70s.  It's on DVD, there's like 15 sets out now (40 episodes each), and there'll probably be 25 or 30 sets by the time they're done.

I just finished watching "Radar Men From the Moon," which was an astonishingly entertaining serial. It was also my first. The idea of serials on DVD is brilliant, but I, honestly, cannot watch all of the chapters at the same time.

I'm hoping to pick up "Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe" sometime soon, that or "Undersea Kingdom."

Mr. Hockstatter wrote:

> My favorite serial is Dark Shadows.  

"Dark Shadows" isn't a serial, it's a horror soap opera (to get technical).  Serials were usually no more than 12 episodes and showed one episode a week in theaters before the feature.

My big brother was very fond of these and had VHS copies of a couple of them.  The only one I have seen all of is Captain Marvel.  

The theatre in my home town used to show them before the movie on Friday night sometimes back in the 60's.  The only one I remember from that was The Purple Martian .  The Martian was the bad guy  and looked like a professional wrestler from the 40's.  I don't know why they had purple in the title , it was black and white.

If you like these you should check out the DVD of J-Men Forever.  It takes footage from several old movie serials and cut them together with some new footage to make a story  (all the dialogue is replaced).  It was done by a couple of  guys from Firesign Theatre and it's a hoot.  You'd be surprised by who shows up in some of those things.

When "Matinee at the Bijou" still came on the local PBS station I used to watch it with my dad. He grew up during the later days of the serials, so that show was a sentimental favorite of his. I remember watching serials like "Zorro's Fighting Legion" and "The Phantom Empire", and enjoying them. They were exciting enough with its mix of action and cliffhangers for "drama" to suit my interest at that age.

A couple of years ago, America One was showing serial episodes, roughly three a night so that you could watch an entire story in four days. Kind of a neat approach to reusing the serials. Too bad by the time I got in the habit of watching every night, they redid their schedule yet again (Horse TV and CFL football, in primetime). There was a pretty good one with a masked hero who reminded me of the Shadow, battling a criminal empire run by he usual Asian stereotype that had some kind of scheme involving smuggling. Lots of skulking around and fistfighting in warehouses followed. Wish I could remember the name or even if I have the plot right.

>The only one I remember from that was The Purple Martian.

Purple Martian or The Purple Monster Strikes?

I do believe it was the The Purple Monster Strikes, the lead is billed as a Martian. I noticed that Amazon has it on VHS, but it generally gets terrible reviews. No wonder I don't remember much about it.

Anyone here seen Zombies of the Stratosphere? Parts of this one shows up in J-Men Forever, the parts with Leonard Nimoy.  The costumes look similar to the Martians in The Purple Monster.

Well okay then, I withdraw my submission ;)

My favorite cereal is Cheerio's in milk.

Oh!  You meant serials!
Hehe!



Post Edited (10-02-04 19:58)

>I do believe it was the The Purple Monster Strikes

I saw that one a few years ago on SciFi. I don't remember much of it either, other than the name. :)

Sure, I've seen Zombies of the Stratosphere --
My favorite serials have to be any of the Dick Tracy ones -- acting not so sharp, but the stories!  Talk about "plot-driven" . . .
Phil Proctor & Peter Bergman were the Firesign guys behind J-Men.  Phil says they would've liked to have used even more clips from more different serials, but they had to be sure they were only using Public Domain stuff so as not to get in legal trouble.
Zombies was recut into a 2hr. feature-film that we used to show on our old "Movie Maesoleum" show because it was Public Domain.
peter johnson/denny crane