The Vigilante

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The Vigilante
Movie Poster
Directed by	Wallace Fox
Produced by	Sam Katzman
Written by	Lewis Clay Arthur Hoerl George H. Plympton
Starring	Ralph Byrd Ramsay Ames Lyle Talbot George Offerman Jr.
Music by	Mischa Bakaleinikoff musical director Sidney Cutner
Cinematography	Ira H. Morgan
Editing by	Earl Turner
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	1947
Running time	15 chapters (285 min)
Country	United States
Language	English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Vigilante (1947) was a Columbia serial based on the comic book cowboy, The Vigilante, who first appeared in Action Comics. It was the studio's 33rd serial, made between Jack Armstrong and The Sea Hound. It stars Ralph Byrd, more famous for his Dick Tracy serials, as the title character. It was his last ever serial appearance. This serial makes the Vigilante one of the first live action adaptations of a DC Comics character, beating Superman by one year although Batman had already made an appearance with his own serial in 1943 (also from Columbia).

[edit] Plot

The Vigilante, a masked government agent, is assigned to investigate the case of the "100 Tears of Blood", a cursed string of rare blood red pearls sought by a gang led by the unknown X-1 that may have been smuggled into the country.

Greg Sanders (Saunders in the comics), in his civilian guise as an actor, is filming a western on George Pierce's ranch when Prince Hamil arrives. The Prince gives a horse each to Greg, George, Captain Reilly, Tex Collier and Betty Winslow but a gang soon attacks, attempting to steal all five horses. It turns out that each horse has twenty of the pearls hidden in their shoes (five in each, in secret compartments). The prince's servant Hammid (Ted Adams) stole them from his master and smuggled them in on the horses with the intention of passing them on to Pierce.

[edit] Cast

• Ralph Byrd as Greg Sanders, an actor who is also secretly The Vigilante, a masked government agent
• Ramsay Ames as Betty Winslow, a famous rodeo star and performer at George Pierce's nightclub
• Lyle Talbot as George Pierce a rancher and nightclub owner as well as secretly the main villain X-1
• George Offerman Jr. as Stuff, The Vigilante's newly caucasian sidekick
• Robert Barron as Prince Hamil, Prince of Aravania visiting George Pierce (wrongly listed on-screen as Prince Hassan but referred to as Hamil)
• Hugh Prosser as Captain Reilly, a highway patrol officer
• Jack Ingram as Silver and the henchman X-2
• Eddie Parker as Doc and the henchman X-3
• Tiny Brauer as Thorne and the henchman X-9

• Director Wallace Fox makes a cameo appearance as the director filming Greg Sanders' movie at George Pierce's ranch.

[edit] Production

The Vigilante was originally a comic book character whose first appearance was in Action Comics (Issue #42, November 1941). He was a singing-cowboy radio performer who doubled as a motorcycle-riding crime-fighter with a pre-teen Chinese boy, Stuff the Chinatown Kid, as his answer to Batman's Robin, although Stuff ran a lot more errands than Robin, since they did not have a butler like Alfred.

In the serial version, Stuff became a white, draft-age sidekick played by George Offerman Jr., which fit with the costume changes that Columbia tagged The Vigilante character with: a snappy-brim fedora and a Montgomery Ward catalog white Gene Autry-style shirt instead of the large flat-brimmed hat and double-button blue shirt he wore in the comic books. The nose-chin covering bandana is about all that survived the comic book to screen transfer. They also changed Greg Sanders, the Vigilante's alter-ego, from a radio troubador to a western film actor and miscast Ralph Byrd in the role as the government agent known as the Vigilante.

[edit] Chapter titles

1. The Vigilante Rides Again
2. Mystery of the White Horses
3. Double Peril!
4. Desperate Flight
5. In the Gorilla's Cage
6. Battling the Unknown
7. Midnight Rendezvous
8. Blasted to Eternity
9. The Fatal Flood
10. Danger Ahead
11. X-1 Closes In
12. Danger Rides the Rails
13. The Trap That Failed
14. Closing In
15. The Secret of the Skyroom

[edit] Other versions

The Vigilante also appeared in several episodes of the animated series Justice League Unlimited (2004-2006) voiced by Nathan Fillion. This version was truer to the original comic than the serial version, although both were motorcycle riding cowboys.

[edit] External links

• The Vigilante at the Internet Movie Database
• The Vigilante article at Todd Gault's Movie Serial Experience
• Comic Book Profiles: The Vigilante - the 1947 Movie Serial

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