Undersea Kingdom is the second serial from Republic Studios, not a "film." Still, it's one of my favorites, so I thought I'd give it a mention. If you watched the trailer (see previous post), you know that this serial has "everything you want: mechanical men, . . rocket submarines, rocket aeroplanes, earthquakes!" It also has disintegrator rays. And, speaking of rays, it has Ray "Crash" Corrigan, too. Plus Lon Chaney, Jr., and the alleged comedy of Smiley Burnett, of which the less said, the better. You have your super-weapons and robots in the same society with guys riding horses and having sword fights. What's not to like?It's all quite similar to the first Flash Gordon serial (which is certainly deliberate), and I like it just as much (no matter what MST3K) might do to it. There's no need to describe the plot, which is just about like any other serial. You either go for this kind of thing or you don't. I do.
9 comments:
Crash Corrigan saves the world, dressed as a Mardi Gras Queen. Great Stuff!
Hey, wait! I thought it was Gene Autry saving us from the invading robot hordes (of two or was it four robots). You caught CLIFFHANGERS, Bill, that quickly cancelled NBC series in the latest '70s that had as one of its elements a tribute to this kind of thing exactly?
Wow. I mean wow. I saw this, I think on my public tv station, on Saturday mornings when I was a kid. This was about the time I was watching Michael Nouri as Dracula on the Cliffhangers show that Todd mentioned.
I had completely forgotten about the Undersea serial until you put up the poster. I think I had folded into the memory of watching old Flash Gordon on the same channel.
Come to think of it -- I bet that station reran the serial after the criminally underrated vonSydow/Topol/Queen Flash Gordon was in the theaters.
You know I love this one.
Dan, there was a PBS package called MATINEE AT THE BIJOU that was probably the umbrella for UNDERSEA KINGDOM at the time...
I, too, love loopy serials like UNDERSEA KINGDOM. Soon, all of this stuff will be available from "the cloud."
I'm not sure I've even heard of this but I'd like to see it.
Can't find that trailer, Bill. Link, please?
Don't know what happened, Rick, but it's there now.
Post a Comment