Terry and the Pirates
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Movie Reviews of Terry and the Pirates
Movie Review: WELL I THINK YOU'RE WRONG, R.B. MERHAR
Summary: 4 Stars
IN THIS 15-CHAPTER SERIAL, TERRY AND HIS FRIENDS ARRIVE IN THE FAR EAST ON A MISSION FOR SOME HIDDEN GOLD. ALONG THE WAY, THEY MUST FACE THE DRAGON LADY AND THE FANG. ALL 15 CHAPTERS OF THIS SERIAL WERE ENTERTAINING AND ACTION-PACKED. I DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THIS SERIAL. GET THIS ONE NOW. DON'T LISTEN TO THE OTHER REVIEW.Movie Review: Directed by James Horne, so serial fans know what to expect!
Summary: 3 Stars
This adaptation of Milton Caniff's comic strip is a jungle serial produced by Columbia in 1940. William Tracy plays teenage Terry like radio's hapless Henry Aldrich, complete with brash confidence and adolescent voice. Granville Owen is one of the better serial heroes, playing Terry's adult protector with firm jaw and resolute manner.
Director James Horne, best known for his Laurel & Hardy comedies, throws in some noteworthy touches, most of them on the silly side. Horne instructs Sheila Darcy, playing a tribal queen, to over-emphasize her lines like a third-grader in a class play (thankfully she drops the stilted delivery later on). John Ince also chews some scenery as the queen's high priest. Most of the cast members are invited by Horne to slice a little ham here and there, and they respond with enthusiasm: listen for Tracy's ludicrously high-pitched shriek of terror, and for cowboy-villain Dick Curtis (of all people) and his incredible dialect as an Oriental warlord named Fang! Horne even adds comic business to some of the fight scenes (Tracy subdues a combatant by robbing him of his pants; Owen slugs someone and hurts his fist). And it's fun to watch a serial hero actually being ANNOYED by his sidekick for once. When Tracy says something dumb, the disgusted Owen repeats the remark in true Oliver Hardy style!
To Horne's credit, he stages the cliffhanging perils nicely and employs some very effective silent-serial technique (like a memorable shot of a hand reaching up from the floor, desperately groping for the switch that will stop a death trap). Also, some serials have the characters walking away from calamity wihout batting an eye, but Horne allows the heroes to be visibly shaken and unsteady after surviving the more serious perils. This may not be one of the best adventure serials of all time, but between the thrill scenes and the dopey scenes there's plenty to hold the attention.
VCI transferred this film to video just in the nick of time; there are scattered instances of blemishes and slight decomposition. The decay totally ruined the soundtrack of one episode, so VCI recreated the Chapter 5 track with appropriate music and re-enacted dialogue (the actors imitating William Tracy and William Irving are right on the money!). Overall, the picture and sound are very good, especially considering the rarity of the subject.
As a bonus, the DVD contains episode #1 of the "Terry and the Pirates" TV series from 1952. The emphasis on adventure and international intrigue reminded this viewer of a first-season "Superman" show (some of the music here was actually used in the "Superman" series). William Tracy appears in this, too -- now he's Terry's co-pilot and sidekick.
Like 'em or leave 'em, it's good to see these Columbia serials on DVD.
Movie Review: Serial Killers
Summary: 3 Stars
One of many newspaper comic strips to be serialized for the big screen, Terry and the Pirates brings Milt Caniff's characters to blazing B movie life. As with most releases from VCI (The Phantom, The Green Archer, et al) no effort has been made to improve the quality of obviously ancient prints; these DVDs offer you a chance to see classic material at about the quality you'd get from you local terrestrial TV station. A trip down (faded) memory lane, these are worth the money, but keep your expectations, like the price, low.Movie Review: Mickey Rooney and the Pirates
Summary: 2 Stars
I expected that Terry would be the hero. Imagine my disappointment when Terry turned out to look and act like Mickey Rooney. The actual hero is his friend and assistant Pat Ryan. Ryan is played by the tall and very handsome Jeff York (aka Owen Granville) who strides through the "jungle" in a true serial-style swashbuckling manner while Terry acts like a movie sidekick. The action takes place in a jungle called "Wingpoo." Wingpoo sometimes looks like a California canyon and sometimes like my mother's backyard in Connecticut. To add realism, stock footage of herds of running animals is added. The footage never matches anything else. There is an exploding volcano which looks rather like a chocolate lava cake. The archvillain tells his henchmen that they had better go about in disguise. So they don what look like striped beach robes and put leopard spotted pillowcases over their heads. No sense of fashion. You would think that the bulky robes would catch on the jungle vegetation. But there is little vegetation where the action takes place (where it looks like mom's yard). The Asian villains have villas in the Wingpoo jungle. They are furnished with 1940s-style chinoiserie. I think it's odd that Asians would decorate their surroundings with stereotypical and demeaning silly fat little "Chinese" ceramic figures and lamps. The fights are often deliberately(sometimes not so deliberately)funny. A villain comes through a doorway at the start of a fight and falls down for no discernible reason, etc. Oh, well. As someone in the film says, "The natives are behaving oddly." I like serials. But this one hasn't got much to recommend it. For a better treatment of the Terry and the Pirates characters, I recommend the old TV series available on DVD. "Mickey Rooney" plays the sidekick in that series. Better casting.Movie Review: A Very Poor Example of the Classic Cliffhanger
Summary: 1 Stars
This certainly has to be one of the worst examples of the classic cliffhanger I have ever seen. The poor quality of the picture and sound track are enough to spoil any redeeming qualities the picture may have had --- if it had any. Very weak plot development combined with non-existant character development (many key character barely speak) and so cheaply done that it looks like they picked a wooded area in southern california and dressed it up with a few potted tropical plants to give it that "jungle look". Believe me, it does not! I own about 100 old cliffhanger serials and this is by far the worst I have ever had the displeasure to view. Don't waste your time or money on this one.
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