THE DOCTOR IS IN, BABY!
In the middle of 2020, I started a series of reviews on the 1940 serial Mysterious Dr Satan. After a couple of instalments, the format started to feel a little repetitive so I hit pause on the project.
After a couple years, I felt the itch for a good cliffhanger, and so here we go again...
Serial episodes are typically 20ish minutes, and generally end on a cliffhanger, with our heroes in some kind of peril.
The hero of this particular story is the masked vigilante Copperhead AKA Bob Wayne (Robert Wilcox), who faces off against the titular menace, a mad scientist played by Eduardo Ciannelli.
In the last episode, Copperhead was in a high-speed chase after Dr Satan's goons, who had kidnapped Professor Scott.
The goons have commandeered a fuel truck and unleash the vehicle's payload into the middle of the road. For good measure, they set the gas on fire.
When we last left Copperhead, his car was hurtling right into the inferno!
After leaping to safety, Copperhead watches as the villains get away.
In an interesting turn, Professor Scott (C. Montague Shaw) convinces chief goon Scarlett (Lynton Brent) to let him try and free him from the electric monitoring device Dr Satan has attached to him.
(For those who are just coming onboard now, Dr Satan's goons all have to wear these vests which contain listening equipment, a camera and - if they are captured or try to betray the doctor - a fatal electric shock.)
Scott manages to remove the vest, and Scarlett agrees to help him escape. This hope is quickly dashed when Scarlet is crushed to death by Dr Satan's robot bodyguard.
After a couple episodes of familiar action set pieces, this is the first episode to step fully into the realm of the fantastical. The robot's design is blocky and not that threatening - although the shot of Scarlet's legs kicking while he screams is pretty effective.
Dr Satan needs the professor's remote control cell to make the robot viable - the doctor can only control him over short distances.
The rest of the episode is Copperhead tracking down Scott.
One aspect of the serial I cannot get over is how Copperhead enters every scene - charging, sometimes flying, onscreen to tackle whoever is in his way.
He does a lot of leaping in this episode. The filmmaking remains clean, making sure the action is easy to follow: a mid-shot of Copperhead leaping screen left is followed by a long shot of Copperhead tackling a bad un.
This has to be part of the genre, but one of the great things about Mysterious Dr Satan is that the stakes are always raising.
Copperhead is no superhero, and he is not even much a detective. He relies on the ingenuity of his friends, and occasionally blunders into trouble. There is something refreshing about a hero who is basically an average guy with a goofy mask.
And the bad guys are not stupid. The goons realise that Copperhead has tailed them, and try to ambush him (said ambush is defeated by Copperhead's frontal charge technique).
To the filmmaker's credit, this is the first episode where there is a false cliffhanger, before the real one. It is a fun misdirect, and makes me hopeful for more playful riffs on the familiar tropes as the serial enters its middle patch.
The episode ends with Copperhead cornered by Dr Satan's robot. It was in this re-introduction that the suit's limitations are on full display - the extended arms are hard to manoeuvre, and the robots feet are large and cumbersome.
I guess we will have to check in with Chapter Six to see if the robot is a formidable foe...
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