2.0 out of 5 stars
Cutting doesn't make it seem shorter, August 31, 2010
This review is from: Blake of Scotland Yard (DVD)
Blake of Scotland Yard is a 15-chapter serial from Victory Pictures, produced by Sam Katzman in 1937. Like other "independent" serials of the time, it was cheaply made, looking far worse than those issued by Republic and Universal, though this may provide some "charm" in the form of unintentional humor. This DVD release, Alpha ALP 5673D is the "feature" made from 70 of the 300 minutes of the serial. Features of this kind were commonly made for theaters that did not run serials, and some of them were fairly representative of the originals. This one has problems, and even at 70 minutes it is a long sit.
The story involves Sir James Blake (Herbert Rawlinson) who has retired from Scotland Yard to work on promoting world peace by making another weapon of mass destruction. He, his niece Hope Mason (Joan Barclay) and a young American, Jerry Sheehan (Ralph Byrd) have come up with a "death ray" that can destroy objects at a great distance. They plan to deliver it to the League of Nations, so a threat from any country can be counteracted, making conventional warfare obsolete. A demonstration is given, where an old battleship is destroyed at a distance of 190 miles. But munitions dealer Count Basil Segaloff (William Farrel) knows it would be bad for his business, and hires a gang led by a mystery man known as The Scorpion to steal the machine to prevent it from reaching Geneva. Blake finds the gang has made their getaway to Paris. But instead of just making another death ray machine, which wouldn't justify 15 chapters, Blake gets help from Chief Inspector Henderson of Scotland Yard (Sam Flint) and they all go off to Paris on the trail of The Scorpion and Count Basil; the chasing continues until finally the gang is rounded up, and the identity of The Scorpion is revealed.
To say that the film works better as a full-length serial would be an understatement, though the budget-induced problems remain. The Scorpion managed to find the cheap costume last used by "The Wolf Man" in Mascot's 1931 serial "The Lightning Warrior," with black cloak, mask and oversized black hat. To this he adds a giant claw in place of his right hand, risking the embarassment of being renamed "The Lobster" and he skulks about, crouched down as if deformed. The film even in this fragmented form has some interest; Herbert Rawlinson, Sam Flint and Ralph Byrd at times show glimmers of decent acting, and the opening dozen minutes including the demonstration of the "death ray" is up to expectations for a serial made in 1937. The machine is stolen, and the feature jumps to an interminible scene in a French cafe where Jerry and Hope, in absurd disguises, are pretending to be drunk so they can spy on the hoodlums. Eventually there is a fight, not too badly staged and aided by darkness, but Count Basil has escaped back to London. The film jumps to another part of the story in a rooming house that, like the cafe, has a lot of secret passages, and after awhile there is another fight in which most of the gang is rounded up, but the Count and The Scorpion are still at large. The two sides have been chasing and fighting -- and waiting around, peering out of dark hiding places to build up suspense -- for about 50 mintues, during most of which it is difficult to figure out who the people are, or what is going on. But toward the end of the film the "death ray" machine gets mentioned again, and parts for it are used as bait to catch Count Basil and The Scorpion.
Alpha's edition is obviously from a videotape, with poor tracking compatibility on the playback machine, causing a persistent if not especially annoying band of jitter toward the bottom of the screen. The image is clear enough, if not razor-sharp, but the print quality varies; some parts look fine while others, mostly the outdoor scenes, are quite grainy with poor contrast like something went wrong with the film processing -- a problem with the original serial. The opening outdoor scene, in London, has a lot of "flare" but this seems intentional, to simulate fog. But the brightness is sometimes unstable, as if a bad "auto-exposure" was at work in one of the transfers. Still, even in the "night" scenes the details aren't totally lost in blackness. The framing is good, avoiding decapitation of anyone, also allowing the titles to be within the limits of the screen. The sound is clear, except where some splices lose a few bits of the dialogue.
The feature is an authentic part of serial movie history and might work for those who just want to sample the film without watching for five hours to learn the identity of The Scorpion. The picture and sound are mostly decent, and Alpha's price isn't too bad. I give it two stars mostly for the opening section. But VCI's complete edition, once issued on VHS, has better picture quality if a few more scratches, and the story makes a lot more sense. So those who want to know what's going on and see what the serial is actually like would be better off looking elsewhere.
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