Movie serial

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DVD front cover for The Adventures of Captain Marvel, one of the most celebrated serials for both Republic Pictures and of the sound era in general.
DVD front cover for The Adventures of Captain Marvel, one of the most celebrated serials for both Republic Pictures and of the sound era in general.

Movie serials were short subjects originally shown in theaters in conjunction with a feature film. Known as "chapter plays," they were extended motion pictures broken into a number of segments called "chapters" or "episodes." A typical serial would consist of twelve to fifteen episodes. In all but the last episode, major characters would be in peril, which would be resolved at the beginning of the next episode. Often the reprised scene would add an element not seen in the previous close, but unless it contradicted something shown in the previous episode close, audiences accepted the explanation. (Though rare, a few serials did make an alternate to the previous close. These were called "cheats" by the audience.)

Movie serials were intended to induce audiences to see the next film at the theater, to see how the dilemma of the previous chapter was resolved.

The majority of serials were Westerns, since those were the least expensive to film. Besides Westerns, though, there were films covering many genres, including crime fiction, espionage, comic book or comic strip characters, science fiction, and jungle adventures. Although most serials were filmed cost effectively, some were made at significant expense. The Flash Gordon serial and its sequels, for instance, were major productions in their times.

Serials were a popular form of movie entertainment dating back to Edison's What Happened to Mary? of 1912. There do appear to be older serials, however, such as the 1910 Deutsche Vitaskop 5 episode Arsene Lupin Contra Sherlock Holmes, based upon the Maurice LeBlanc novel Arsene Lupin Contre Herlock Sholmes, and a possible but unconfirmed Raffles serial in 1911 (according to information from Silent Era[1]). Usually filmed with low budgets, serials were action-packed stories that usually involved a hero (or heroes) battling an evil villain and rescuing a damsel in distress. The villain would continually place the hero into inescapable deathtraps and situations, or the heroine would be placed into a deathtrap and the hero would bravely come to her rescue, usually pulling her away from certain death only instants before she met her doom. The hero and heroine would face one trap after another, battling countless thugs and lackeys, before finally defeating the villain "once and for all" ... even though the villain would almost always get away at the end, to return at a future date.

Many famous clichés of action-adventure movies had their origins in the serials. The popular term cliffhanger was developed as a plot device in film serials (though its origins have been traced by some historians to the Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle), and it comes from the many times that the hero or heroine would end up hanging over a cliff, usually as the villain gloated above and waited for them to plummet thousands of feet to their deaths. Other popular clichés included the heroine being tied to a railroad track; being lashed to a log in a sawmill, lying on a conveyor belt and approaching a gigantic whirling sawblade; or being trapped in an abandoned mine shaft, watching as the burning fuse of a nearby bundle of dynamite sparked and sputtered its way towards the deadly explosive. The popular Indiana Jones movies are a well-known, romantic pastiche of the serials' clichéd plot elements and devices.

The serials were created in separate parts, and each chapter (a typical serial usually had as many as fifteen of them) would be screened at the same theater for one week. The serial would end with a cliffhanger, as the hero and heroine would find themselves in the latest perilous situation from which there could be no escape. The audience would have to return the next week (and pay admission) to find out how the hero and heroine would escape and battle the villain once again. Serials were especially popular with children, and for many youths in the first half of the 20th century, a typical Saturday at the movies included a chapter of at least one serial, along with cartoons, newsreels, and two feature films.

The silent era was the zenith of the movie serial and serial stars from this period were major stars such as Pearl White, who starred in the quintessential silent serial The Perils of Pauline which still ranks among the best known silent films. Ruth Roland, Marin Sais, Ann Little and Helen Holmes were also early leading serial queens. Most of these serials put beautiful young women in jeopardy week after week. The serials starring women were the most popular during the silent period but in the sound era few serials had a female character in the major role. Years after their first release, serials gained new life at "Saturday Matinees," theatrical showings on Saturday mornings aimed directly at children. For that reason, serials are sometimes called "Saturday Matinee Serials," even though they were originally shown with feature films.

In the early days of television in the United States, movie serials were often broadcast, one chapter a day. Many are now available on VHS tapes and DVDs for collectors.

Contents

[edit] Eras

[edit] Silent era

Poster for The Perils of Pauline (1914)
Poster for The Perils of Pauline (1914)

Famous American serials of the silent era include The Perils of Pauline and The Exploits of Elaine made by Pathé Frères and starring Pearl White. Another popular serial emerged that year, the 119 episode The Hazards of Helen made by Kalem Studios and starring Helen Holmes for the first forty-eight episodes then Helen Gibson for the remainder. Other major studios of the silent era produced them, such as Vitagraph and Essanay, as did Warner Bros., Fox, and Universal. Several independent companies (for example, Mascot Pictures) made Western serials. Four silent Tarzan serials were also made. Europe had its own serials, notably the French Judex and the German Homonculus.

[edit] Sound era

The arrival of sound technology made it costlier to produce serials, so that they were no longer as profitable on a flat rental basis. Further, the Great Depression made it impossible for many of the smaller companies which had turned out serials to upgrade to sound, and they therefore went out of business. Only one serial specialty company, Mascot Pictures was in fact able to make the transition from silent to sound filmmaking: Universal Pictures also kept its serial unit alive through the transition.

In the early 1930s a handful of independent companies tried their hand at making serials, but managed only two or three, including the once-prolific Weiss Brothers. The Weisses bought a little time when Columbia Pictures decided to take a try at serials, and contracted with them (as Adventure Serials Inc.) to make three chapterplays. They were successful enough that Columbia then established its own serial unit and the Weisses essentially disappeared from the serial scene. This was in 1937, and Columbia was probably inspired by the previous year's serial blockbuster success at Universal, Flash Gordon, the first serial ever to play at a major theater on Broadway; and by the success of that same year of the newly-created Republic Pictures, which dedicated itself to a program of serials and westerns, eschewing major productions in their favor. The creation of Republic involved the absorption of Mascot Pictures, so that by 1937, serial production was now in the hands of three companies only - Universal, Columbia and Republic, with Republic quickly becoming the acknowledged leader in quality serial product. Each company turned out four to five serials per year, of 12 to 15 episodes each, a pace which they all kept up until the end of World War II when, in 1946, Universal dropped its serial unit along with its b-picture unit and renamed its production department Universal-International Pictures. Republic and Columbia continued unchallenged, with about 4 serials per year each, Republic fixing theirs at 12 chapters each while Columbia fixed at fifteen.

By the mid-1950s, however, episode television series and the sale of older serials to TV syndicators by all the current and past major sound serial producers, together with the loss of audience attendance at Saturday matinees in general, made serial-making a losing proposition.

[edit] Machinima

Many films created using machinima, the art of using pre-existing consumer-level three-dimensional rendering engines to create computer-generated imagery, have been distributed in serial format. According to Hugh Hancock of Machinima.com, three to five minutes is an optimal length for videos downloaded over the Internet. As a result, a serial composed of multiple short videos can be an effective way of telling a longer story in this medium. Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles — an ongoing comedy series by Rooster Teeth Productions with a continuous, single plot spanning more than 70 episodes — popularized this distribution method.[1] Many Red vs. Blue episodes end with cliffhangers, and Rooster Teeth Productions has in fact acknowledged that the series is similar to older film serials in this regard.[2] Another notable machinima production, Edgeworks Entertainment's The Codex, is a self-contained film, but was nonetheless released as a serial in 20 episodes between February and August 2005.

[edit] Production

[edit] Peak form

The classic sound serial, particularly in its Republic format, has a first episode of about 30 minutes (approximately three reels in length) and begins with reports of a masked, secret, or unsuspected villain menacing an unspecific part of America. This episode traditionally has the most detailed credits at the beginning, often with pictures of the actors with their names and that of the character they play. Often there follows a montage of scenes lifted from the cliffhangers of previous serials to depict the ways in which the master criminal was a serial killer with a motive. In the first episode, various suspects or "candidates" who may, in secret, be this villain are presented, and the viewer often hears the voice but does not see the face of this mastermind commanding his "spearpoint villain," similar to a sergeant, whom the viewer will see in just about every episode.

In the succeeding weeks (usually eleven to fourteen) thereafter, an episode nearer 20 minutes (approximately two reels) in length was presented, in which the "spearpoint villain" and lesser thugs commit crimes in various places, fight the hero, and trap someone to make the ending a cliffhanger. Many of the episodes have clues, dialogue, and events to lead the viewer to think that any of the candidates were the mastermind. As serials were made by writing the whole script first and then slicing it into portions filmed at various sites, often the same location would be used several times in the serial, often given different signage, or none at all, just being referred to differently. There would often be a female love interest of the male hero, or a female hero herself, but as the audience was mainly children, there was no hugging and kissing.

One episode, near the end of this run, was often an "economy episode" (or "recap chapter") in which the characters reminisce about their adventures so as to introduce showing those scenes again (in the manner of a Clip show in modern television). This type of episode usually had a cheap, mechanical cliffhanger, like a time bomb rather than being unconscious in a runaway vehicle.

The last episode was sometimes a bit longer than most, for its tasks were to unmask the head villain (who usually was someone completely unsuspected), wrap up the loose ends, and end with a triumphal proclamation, followed by a joke — and sometimes a kiss (provided that the story supplied a heroine to receive it).

[edit] Production practices

The firms saved money by reusing the same cliffhangers, stunt and special effect sequences over the years. Mines or tunnels flooded often, even in Flash Gordon, and the same model cars and trains went off the same cliffs and bridges. Republic had a Packard limousine and a Ford Woodie station wagon used in serial after serial so they could match the shots with the stock footage from the model or previous stunt driving. Three different serials had them chasing the Art Deco sound truck, required for location shooting, for various reasons. Male fistfighters all wore hats so that the change from actor to stunt double would not be caught so easily. This was achieved by placing a rubber liner on the hatband of the stunt man's fedora. The rubber would make a seal on the stuntman's head and stay on during a "fight".

Exposition of what led up to the previous episode's cliffhanger was usually displayed on placards with a photograph of one of the characters on it. In 1939, Universal brought the first "scrolling text" exposition to the serial, which George Lucas used in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 1977. As this would have required subcontracting the optical effects, Republic saved money by not using it.

[edit] Stylistic differences between the studios

The major difference between the serials made by the various firms lay in that the minor studios had their own retinue of actors and writers, their own prop department, existing sets, stock footage, and music library. The early independent studios had none of these, except for being able to rent the sets of independent Western features. As the serials were bought sight-unseen by the lesser theaters for an audience of children, their product often had the worst acting and scripts, the least capable direction, and the most monotonous music ever screened: worse than any film that got reviewed in print.

Although Republic was not even a minor studio, the serials they produced have been hailed as some of the best, especially those directed by John English and William Witney, who are widely considered among the most talented directors in the form. In addition to screenwriting many critics thought was quite capable, the firm also introduced choreographed fistfights which often included their stuntmen throwing things in desperation at one another in every fight to heighten the action. In addition, their productions were praised for their production values such as convincing explosions and other disasters as well as more fantastic visuals such as Captain Marvel flying. However, they were also somewhat hampered with limited shooting facilities, such as lacking their own backlot and props. This often prompted repeated use of familiar cars and locations from generic settings like identical warehouses, stairwells, offices and specialized locations like a certain speedboat rental pier. They were able to get the rights to the newspaper comic character Dick Tracy, the radio character The Lone Ranger, and the comic book characters Captain America, Captain Marvel, and Spy Smasher.

Columbia was the firm that got the most of these name-brand heroes. From newspaper comics, they got Brenda Starr, Terry and the Pirates, Mandrake the Magician, and The Phantom; from the comic books, Blackhawk, Congo Bill, a time traveller named Brick Bradford, and Batman and Superman; from radio, Jack Armstrong, Hop Harrigan, and The Shadow; from the British novelist, Edgar Wallace, the first archer superhero: The Green Archer; and even from television: Captain Video. Columbia substituted animation for more expensive special effects and showed the audience that the cliffhanger would not kill the hero by having a reassuring announcer pose the next episode's menace at the end of the episode. Their scripts had more humor than the others, often to the point of being far more absurd. And even though this was an important studio in comparison to the independent ones, it merely released serials which were subcontacted out to units outside their main production system.

Universal was the studio with the most available resources. It had the best writing, so they made the best use of their contracted actors. The start of some of their episodes has the exposition of the cliffhanger given in conversation, rather than appearing on placard stills. They were able to get the characters Green Hornet and Ace Drummond from radio, and Smilin' Jack, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon from newspaper comics.

Universal also signed on four of Warner Brothers' Dead End Kids to star in three serials. Although Bela Lugosi started working for Universal, his frustration at the greater celebrity of Boris Karloff made him act in several independent serials, but only one for Universal.

[edit] Film serials

[edit] Silent Era

[edit] Sound Era

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Hancock, Hugh (November 23, 2004). Editorial - Serialise This!. Machinima.com. Retrieved 15 March 2006.
  2. ^ Rooster Teeth Productions (2004). Audio commentary. In Red vs. Blue Season Two [DVD]. Buda, Texas: Rooster Teeth Productions.

[edit] External links

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