Category: Directed by Lambert Hillyer
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Dracula’s Daughter starts as a comedy. With Billy Bevan’s bumbling police constable, there’s nothing else to call it. Sure, the opening deals with the immediate aftermath of the original Dracula–returning Edward Van Sloan arrested for driving a stake through a man’s heart–but it’s all for smiles, if not laughs. Bevan’s terrified expressions carry the movie…
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For the majority of Batman’s fifteen chapters, the serial has a set formula when it comes to the action. Batman (Lewis Wilson) and Robin (Douglas Croft) get into fist fights with the same five or six thugs. Croft gets beat up early while Wilson takes on at least two of the villain, then two or…
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Titling the final chapter, The Doom of the Rising Sun, might give away whether or not J. Carrol Naish succeeds with his awful plan–which Batman never quite defines and sort of forgets about anyway. The screenwriters try to drum up some excitement as Lewis Wilson and Douglas Croft finally face off with Naish. It’s rather…
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The impossible occurs, one chapter until the finish, with The Executioner Strikes actually having a satisfying cliffhanger resolution. A somewhat satisfying one. Better than any of the others. After that high point, unfortunately, the chapter gets pretty bad for a while. First, it’s dumb, with Lewis Wilson revealing himself to the bad guys without costume,…
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Despite the previous chapter suggesting a cliffhanger, turns out the resolution is more about Douglas Croft and William Austin’s impatience than anything else. But as Batman is now seventy-some percent complete, things start happening in Eight Steps Down. Though nothing about eight steps. There’s a narrative jump between one part of Lewis Wilson and Croft…
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The chapter opens with Batman leaving some guy to get killed–it was hinted at in the cliffhanger, which resolves even more stupidly than I expected, but I sort of assumed Batman wasn’t going to get some guy killed. Nope, he’s fine with it. J. Carrol Naish gets more screen time this chapter than he has…
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So, even though the title is A Nipponese Trap, there’s no trap in the chapter. Unless it’s when the bad guys bail out Lewis Wilson–in his thug disguise–so they can run him over. Except Douglas Croft and William Austin have already bailed him out, yet they don’t go to pick him up. The bad guys…
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And now Batman is back to the misleading chapter titles. There aren’t spies in Flying Spies, there’s only one spy on the plane. After the laziest cliffhanger resolution in the series so far–and there have been some lazy ones–Lewis Wilson and Douglas Croft take a break from crimefighting (i.e. getting beat up by the same…
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Incredibly, Douglas Croft’s Robin doesn’t get beat up this chapter. Sure, Lewis Wilson still manages to get pummeled, but Croft makes it through without being incapacitated once. Well, except in the cliffhanger resolution and then only temporarily. After quickly ridding themselves of Shirley Patterson–in a stunning display of callowness from Wilson (one has to be…
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Lured by Radium actually does refer to the content of the chapter. It’s almost getting to be a habit for Batman. Unfortunately, all the serial’s other bad habits are in play here. The recap and resolution of the previous chapter takes a fifth of the runtime. Once again, boring resolution, but at least then Charles…
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The best part of The Phoney Doctor is Charles Middleton. He’s the rough and tumble prospector, albeit one who falls for a phoney doctor, but he’s got personality and presence. He’s unexpected. Everything else in Batman, down to Batman and Robin getting beat up yet again, is predictable. The chapter opens with another lackluster resolution…
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Poison Peril actually fits a lot into the chapter. Narrative too, not just racism. Lots of racism this time around, with the screenwriters rushing to fit in slurs. There’s the exceptionally weak cliffhanger resolution–it’s like they aren’t even cliffhangers as much as pauses in action–J. Carrol Naish plotting with a submarine, Shirley Patterson gets a…
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Shockingly, The Living Corpse actually doesn’t involve a living corpse. It’s far from the most dynamic living corpse in cinema history, but it’s at least present in the chapter it entitles. The Corpse has most to do with J. Carrol Naish’s half of the chapter. He’s got two schemes, with one being his orders from…
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When the chapter title refers to Slaves of the Rising Sun, I guess it means J. Carol Naish’s traitorous American henchmen. They really don’t do anything; well, Robert Fiske argues with Naish about Japan’s chances in the war to ill result, but otherwise, they don’t really do anything. They don’t even get enough personality to…
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Despite a tantalizing title, The Mark of the Zombies has nothing to do with zombies’ marks. If there is a zombie, it’s Gus Glassmire, who’s just been electronically brainwashed by J. Carrol Naish. Glassmire still refuses to sell out the U.S. to Japan–it’s inexplicable why Naish asks him again, as nothing’s changed other than Batman…
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While the resolution to the previous chapter’s cliffhanger is extremely lackluster, The Bat’s Cave sort of recovers as it goes along. It just has to get through Batman Lewis Wilson terrifying butler William Austin with the radioactive laser gun. Then it’s time for villain J. Carol Naish to order the kidnapping of Shirley Patterson and…
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The first chapter of Batman introduces the main cast–Lewis Wilson and Douglas Croft as Batman and Robin (and their alter egos), villain J. Carrol Naish, damsel in distress Shirley Patterson–and establishes some of the ground situation. Naish is an evil Japanese agent (if Electric Brain is any indication, Batman is going to be exceptionally racist)…
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Ralph Bellamy gets top billing here, but he doesn’t deserve it. I’m always stunned when, with a reasonably early feature motion picture like Before Midnight, the filmmakers are clearly exhausted with the genre. Midnight‘s a big house mystery (enclosed setting, certain number of suspects) but the opening establishes the majority of the film is set…
The Stop Button 