''The Fighting Devil Dogs'' (1938) is a 12-chapter

Republic A republic, based on the Latin phrase ''res publica'' ('public affair' or 'people's affair'), is a State (polity), state in which Power (social and political), political power rests with the public (people), typically through their Representat ...

movie serial A serial film, film serial (or just serial), movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, ge ...

starring Lee Powell and Herman Brix, the latter better known by his later stage name,

Bruce Bennett Bruce Bennett (born Harold Herman Brix, also credited Herman Brix; May 19, 1906 – February 24, 2007) was an American film and television actor who was a college athlete in football and in intercollegiate and international track-and-field co ...

. It was directed by

William Witney William Nuelsen Witney (May 15, 1915 – March 17, 2002) was an American film director, film and television director. He is best remembered for the action films he made for Republic Pictures, particularly serial film, serials: ''Dick Tracy Return ...

and John English. While not often considered a great serial, as it contains much

stock footage Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is film or video footage that can be used again in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it saves shooting new material. A single piece of stock ...

and two recap chapters, it is famous for its main villain, the Lightning—the first costumed

supervillain A supervillain, supervillainess or supercriminal is a major antagonist and variant of the villainous stock character who possesses Superpower (ability), superpowers. The character type is sometimes found in comic books and is often the primary ...

. There is some speculation that

George Lucas George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and philanthropist. He created the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founded Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairman ...

used the Lightning as a template for

Darth Vader Darth Vader () is a fictional character in the ''Star Wars'' franchise. He was first introduced in the original film trilogy as the primary antagonist and one of the leaders of the Galactic Empire. He has become one of the most iconic villain ...

Plot

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

, two Marine Lieutenants, Tom Grayson and Frank Corby, uncover the threat of a masked terrorist called the Lightning, who uses an arsenal of powerful lightning-based weaponry in his bid for world conquest. However, the battle becomes personal when the Lightning annihilates the officers' unit and later kills Lt. Grayson's father as he was helping the investigation of the weapon. Now, the marines have dedicated themselves to stopping the Lightning and bringing him to justice.

Cast

* Lee Powell as Lt Tom Grayson * Herman Brix as Lt Frank Corby * Eleanor Stewart as Janet Warfield *

Montagu Love Montagu Love (15 March 1877 – 17 May 1943) was an English screen, stage and vaudeville actor. Early years Born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, Love was the son of Harry Love and Fanny Louisa Love, née Poad; his father was listed as accountant ...

as General White * Hugh Sothern as Ben Warfield *

Sam Flint Sam Flint (born Samuel A. Ethridge; October 19, 1882 – October 17, 1980) was an American actor. He appeared in more than 200 films, and is perhaps most familiar to today's audiences from Charlie Chan mysteries, adventure serials (notably ...

as Col Grayson * Perry Ivins as Crenshaw *

Forrest Taylor Edwin Forrest Taylor (December 29, 1883 – February 19, 1965) was an American character actor whose artistic career spanned six different decades, from Silent film, silents through Sound film, talkies to the advent of Color motion picture fil ...

as Benson * John Picorri as Prof Gould

Production

''The Fighting Devil Dogs'' was budgeted at $94,656 although the final

negative cost Negative cost is the net expense to produce and shoot a film, excluding such expenditures as distribution and promotion. Low-budget movies, for example '' The Blair Witch Project'', can have promotional expenses that are much larger than the ne ...

was $92,569 (a $2,087, or 2.2%, under spend) making it one of only three pre-war Republic serials to be produced under budget. It was the cheapest Republic serial of 1938 and the second cheapest of all Republic serials. It has two recap chapters rather than the usual one (or sometimes none), in which the entire plot of the serial so far is repeated, and makes extensive use of

. The cheapest Republic serial was ''

The Vigilantes Are Coming ''The Vigilantes Are Coming'' is a 1936 American Republic film serial directed by Ray Taylor and Mack V. Wright. It was the third of the sixty six serials made by Republic Pictures (and the third released in 1936). This serial was filmed betwe ...

'' (1936) at $87,655, while the next cheapest after ''The Fighting Devil Dogs'' is '' Undersea Kingdom'' (also 1936) at $99,222. It was filmed between 10 March and 29 March 1938. The serial's production number was 793. One of the directors,

, believed this to be one of the worst of the serials he ever made. The Lightning's

Flying wing A flying wing is a tailless fixed-wing aircraft that has no definite fuselage, with its crew, payload, fuel, and equipment housed inside the main wing structure. A flying wing may have various small protuberances such as pods, nacelles, blis ...

was taken from the earlier ''

Dick Tracy ''Dick Tracy'' is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould. It made its debut on Sunday, October 4, 1931, in the '' Detroit Mirror'', and was distributed by the Chicago T ...

'' serial. Aviation was one of the most popular serial genres of the early 1930s, along with Westerns and Jungle serials. Aviation films were even expected to displace

Westerns The Western is a genre of fiction typically set in the American frontier (commonly referred to as the "Old West" or the "Wild West") between the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the closing of the frontier in 1890, and commonly associated wit ...

as the most popular genre but science fiction took over instead. Writer Raymond William Stedman claims that the science fiction Flying Wing in this serial was the beginning of the process that killed interest in ordinary aviation.

Release

Theatrical

''The Fighting Devil Dogs official release date is May 28, 1938, although this is actually the date the sixth chapter was made available to film exchanges. A 69-minute feature film version, created by editing portions of the serial footage together, was released on January 29, 1943.

Television

In the early 1950s, ''The Fighting Devil Dogs'' was one of fourteen Republic serials edited to six 26½-minute episodes for TV syndication. Subsequently, it became one of twenty-six Republic serials edited into a TV-movie in 1966, each of which features ran 100 minutes. The title of this version was ''Torpedo of Doom''.

Critical reception

''The Fighting Devil Dogs'' is, in Cline's opinion, one of the best mystery serials ever released, with a "colourful" mystery villain, "stirring" musical score and "magnificent" editing. He also notes that it is "apparently one of the least costly" serials ever released, with two recap chapters and

taken from

newsreel A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news, news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a Movie theater, cinema, newsreels were a source of cu ...

s and earlier serial releases. He states that it should be included in "any list of the ten best sound serials of all."

Chapter titles

#The Lightning Strikes ''(29 min 28s)'' #The Mill of Disaster ''(15 min 56s)'' #The Silenced Witness ''(15 min 50s)'' #Cargo of Mystery ''(15 min 47s)'' #Undersea Bandits ''(16 min 17s)'' #The Torpedo of Doom ''(16 min 24s)'' #The Phantom Killer ''(14 min 47s)'' - Recap chapter #Tides of Trickery ''(14 min 34s)'' #Attack from the Skies ''(15 min 07s)'' #In the Camp of the Enemy ''(14 min 29s)'' #The Baited Trap ''(17 min 24s)'' - Recap chapter #Killer at Bay ''(17 min 39s)'' _Source:

References

External links

* * * (1943 feature version) {{DEFAULTSORT:Fighting Devil Dogs, The 1938 films American aviation films American black-and-white films 1930s English-language films Republic Pictures film serials Films directed by William Witney Films directed by John English 1930s adventure films Films about the United States Marine Corps American adventure films 1930s American films English-language adventure films