Dick Tracy (Republic, 1937, 15 chapters) Chester Gould's immortal detective in his original screen appearance, re-released as part of a new DVD promotion with the DVD debut of the three sequels. All star Ralph Byrd as Tracy. Award-winning mystery writer Max Allan Collins (Ms. Tree, Road to Perdition) supplies bonus material.

Dick Tracy Returns (Republic, 1938, 15 chapters) adds Charles Middleton as the villain, who leads a gang of bloodthirsty family members on a crime rampage.

Dick Tracy's G-Men (Republic, 1939, 15 chapters) Irving Pichel is the bad guy in this one; Phyllis Isley is in it, and no, she's not the little-known Isley Sister; she is the Actress Who Will Later Change Her Name To Jennifer Jones.

Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. (Republic, 1941, 15 chapters) brings back Noah Beery, Jr. as the sidekick from the first serial, but replaces the other stars with Clark Williams and Jean Rogers, which can't be a bad thing. VCI Entertainment, $19.99

If I were asked to recommend one “typical” serial from the Republic Pictures cliffhanger factory, I might well name Manhunt of Mystery Island, which displays all of the ingredients that serial fans love in one fast-moving, enjoyable 15-episode package. Imaginative, action-packed, never dull, and with a terrific cast (with one notable exception), Mystery Island is now available on DVD-R from AC Comics, and it’s another big winner.

Noted scientist Dr. Forrest and his two assistants have disappeared; they were working on a remarkable device called a Radiotomic Power Transmitter to transmit energy waves to ships and planes. One of the assistants turns up dead, with a rare fern on his shoes that suggests he’s been on Mystery Island, a former penal colony somewhere in the Pacific. Famed criminologist Lance Reardon (Richard Bailey) and Forrest’s daughter Claire (Linda Stirling) head for the island, which is now owned and run by four men, distant relatives and the descendents of the island’s 18th-century buccaneer governor, Captain Mephisto. One of those men secretly has a fanciful transformation chair that can turn him into Mephisto reincarnated (Roy Barcroft), and he runs his criminal organization from the island’s various catacombs and the hidden rooms in the mansion wherein the four owners reside. Whew – got all that?

Mephisto’s henchman Brand (Kenne Duncan) does most of the heavy lifting for him, and in the serial’s most celebrated moment, the Cap’n explains to him that he everyone’s appearance is determined by the “molecular arrangement of the blood corpuscles” and that he can alter himself to Mephisto and back via rearrangement of these molecules. “I understand!” Brand nods. “If I thought you really did,” Mephisto smiles, “I’d kill you.”

For 15 episodes, Claire and Lance search for Dr. Forrest, Dr. Forrest attempts to stall the creation of his Radiotomic device to thwart Mephisto, and Mephisto tries to kill Lance and kidnap Claire to force her father to complete the device. The island setting is put to good use (even though much of the action was obviously filmed inland), and we have a sequence that is surely unique in the serial canon: a fight to the death in a sponge warehouse (sadly, they don’t throw sponges at each other). There’s also a deserted winery on the island, just perfect for putting our hero in a giant grape press, and a volcanic cave that not only has a fire pit but also allows 2 million gallons of water to rush through and wash away anyone caught within.

Barcroft is perfect as Mephisto (he named this as his favorite serial, and I agree that it’s his best role), and Linda Stirling – although dressed awfully frowzy – stands out for her beauty and pluck. Unfortunately, Richard Bailey as the hero is a complete washout. Bailey, a former radio actor (with a face for it) isn’t well served by his wardrobe, which consists of an ugly checked jacket that even a baggy-pants comic would reject as being too silly looking. Add big ears, buck teeth, and an Alfalfa haircut, and you’ve got a leading man that appears to have stepped out of a drawing by Basil Wolverton. It’s no wonder that Stirling seems to rescue him more often than he saves her!

Filmed in late 1944, Mystery Island is unusual in the Republic canon because it credited three directors, Spencer Bennet, Wallace Grissell, and Yakima Canutt; my guess is that Grissell was the coffee gopher. The serial kept up the consistent high quality of Republic’s wartime releases, but the glory days were coming to an end. More and more, stock footage availability would begin to take a place of preeminence in the planning of each new serial, and there would be only one more 15-chapter cliffhanger from the studio, The Purple Monster Strikes (1945). Although the serial output continued to be professional and well made, within a year a really exemplary new Republic serial would be the exception, not the rule.

Nobody ever claimed that serials (at least, American sound serials) are any great shakes in any department you'd care to name except for one: FUN. The best of 'em are a great deal of fun to watch over the course of 12-15 weeks, and Manhunt of Mystery Island doesn't disappoint in that category.

AC Comics’ 2-DVD set ($24.95) continues their string of outstanding Republic releases, although there are no bonus features whatsoever (squeezed out by the serial’s extended running time, no doubt). Picture and sound are excellent, and the menus are particular appealing, as to view each chapter you click on the corresponding newspaper ad. Highly recommended.

Zombies of the Stratosphere

On. Off. Up. Down. Fast. Slow. The only six options you needed on your control pack to send you hurtling through the cosmos if you were Rocket Man (a/k/a Commando Cody), Sky Marshal of the Universe, in the three airborne theatrical serials (and one demi-serial) produced by Republic Studios from 1949-1953. The third of these chapterplays, Zombies of the Stratosphere, is now available in a nifty 2-disc DVD-R set from AC Comics (SRP $24.95).

Hot on the heels of the success of Columbia’s Superman serial in 1948, Republic created its own flying hero, Rocket Man, in the 12-episode cliffhanger King of the Rocket Men (1949, available on DVD from CheezyFlicks). Tris Coffin, who usually played the villain’s oily sidekick, is cast against type as Jeff King, who dons an experimental rocketsuit created by his friend Prof. Millard and takes to the skies to prevent a masked mystery villain called Dr. Vulcan from destroying the earth. He succeeds, pretty much, although New York City is wiped out by a man-made tidal wave courtesy of stock footage from the 1933 film Deluge.

In late 1951, Republic produced a sequel, Radar Men from the Moon. This time, George Wallace is Commando Cody, Sky Marshal of the Universe, who dons the flight suit to prevent Retik (Roy Barcroft) and his small but devoted band of lunar followers from invading Earth. No explanation is offered as to how Jeff King’s rocket pack ended up in Cody’s hands, and remember, this was in the days before eBay.

A third Rocket Man adventure was hastily devised and shortly after work wrapped on Radar Men, the Republic lot was busy (for at least 3 days) with the cobbled-together Zombies of the Stratosphere.

This time, Lane Bradford is Marex, a Martian warrior who leads his hardy band of two guys to Earth where they plan to explode an H-bomb that’ll send Earth hurtling out of its orbit and into deep space. Mars can then move their planet into the vacated space, sort of as a sub-lease, so that they can enjoy a more temperate climate. Marex’s rocket is detected entering Earth’s atmosphere, however, so the mysterious Mr. Steele, head of World Security, taps Larry Martin (“You’re one of my executives; your work has usually been in the Interplanetary Zone”) to investigate. I don’t know, the whole thing sounds rather pinko to me. In any case, Larry (Judd Holdren) is the possessor of the Rocket Man jet pack (he turns to his aide, Bob Wilson, and says, “Help me on with my flying suit, Bob,” which for some reason sounds hilarious when he says it) and he’s soon scooting high over the treetops looking for Martians.

Marex meanwhile is blackmailing a local nuclear scientist into helping him, and in one of the highlights of the serial explains to the professor that Martians are superior in intelligence and scientific achievement to Earthlings “but I need your *cough cough*  technical assistance.” From there, we abruptly cut to a 1930s Dick Tracy serial, where we find Bob handcuffed to a runaway train and Larry chasing him down in a tank while Larry’s secretary Sue yells after him how they got from plot point A to point B, the only effort to explain such a bizarre continuity gaffe.

Over the next 12 chapters, Marex and his men (he’s got some earth thugs working for him, too) will try to gain the parts they need to complete their H-bomb device, and Larry, Bob, and Sue will work to prevent them while dodging stock footage perils from Mysterious Doctor Satan, Spy Smasher, and other vintage Republic serials, all of which are as jarringly out of place (a submarine? Cowboys in a desert a mile from the ocean?) as the Dick Tracy scene described above.

Watching this serial again on the new DVD, I made the following additional astute (maybe) observations:

· Although the Martians’ spacecraft and the World Security space ship look similar, we have old-fashioned office chairs in ours, while the Martians have modern molded plastic chairs. One point to them. Oh, and they have a gun turret in their ship, so they get another point. Other than that, both rockets seem to have been built on the same day by the same engineers.

· At one point, Larry suggests to Mr. Steele that the government check on all supplies, material, and equipment that might be used to create atomic devices, and I for one hope that the government was sort of doing that already.

· When Marex decides to create a robot to help them rob a bank to get the necessary funds to purchase uranium (their attempts to steal the stuff having been thwarted by Larry, Bob, and Sue), he remarks that it’s easy to build a robot to his specifications, “Any sheet metal shop can make one for us.” My brother-in-law worked in a sheet metal shop in Rockaway, New Jersey, and I'm pretty ticked off that he never built ME a robot.

· The economy chapter (that much-hated episode comprised of stock footage from earlier chapters) begins by having Larry sit down with Mr. Steele and saying point-blank, “Let’s recap a bit!" I appreciated his honesty.

· Every time somebody turns on the radio, whether it’s a news report or a message from Communications Central, it’s Roy Barcroft’s voice.

· At several times during the serial, Larry is soaring through the sky when he uses his hand-held communicator to contact the office and say, “Calling Bob! Calling Bob!” I don’t know why, but this is the funniest thing in any Republic serial. When you see it, you’ll agree.

· 21-year-old Leonard Nimoy is Narab, one of the Martian invaders, which is nice to know so you can point him out to people and say, “Hey, that’s Leonard Nimoy!” and impress them with your knowledge of film history.

· At no time in this serial does anybody refer to Larry Martin as Rocket Man; they act as if he was born to fly. They don’t even ask him how it is that the jets from his rocket pack don’t singe his derriere, which would be my first question.

This serial isn’t any better than I remembered it being, but it is a lot more fun in that goofy 1950s Republic serial way than I thought. The DVD presentation is impeccable, and you’ll find about an hour’s worth of bonus material, including an episode of Captain Video and trailers for this serial and such other AC Comics’ DVDs as Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, Fiend without a Face, The Haunted Strangler, Monolith Monsters, Nyoka and the Tigermen, Spy Smasher, Panther Girl of the Kongo, and Don Daredevil Rides Again. Recommended for goofy fun while sucking down massive quantities of beer and chips with the guys.