Product Details

• Actors: Dennis Moore, Linda Stirling, Roy Barcroft, James Craven, Bud Geary
• Directors: Fred C. Brannon, Spencer Gordon Bennet
• Writers: Albert DeMond, Barney A. Sarecky, Basil Dickey, Joseph F. Poland, Lynn Perkins
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 2
• Studio: Republic Pictures
• VHS Release Date: May 30, 1995
• Run Time: 209 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6300209342
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #279,793 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Purple Barcroft, October 9, 2004

By 

H. Headley (Annapolis, Maryland United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Purple Monster Strikes! [VHS] (VHS Tape)

OK..so it's not the best of the Republic serials!
But it has Roy Barcroft as the "reptilian monster" and it has plenty of the Republic furniture-throwing fight scenes and a lot of cliffhanger endings that are resolved with, "Jump Sheila!".
Just wait until you see how Dennis Moore escapes the closing spike door, using his 4 inch Colt handgun and a wall mounted pay-phone!
This escape was inspired!
The quality is good and should be put out as a DVD!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Martians Wear Funny Clothes, January 18, 2006

By 

Scott Lothrop "Great Scott" (Tampa, FL, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Purple Monster Strikes! [VHS] (VHS Tape)

It so happens I saw the first chapter of this serial as a boy of 10. At the time I thought it was rather cool how the Mars invader puts himself into the body of the professor. I think I saw the final chapter as well, but I missed everything in between. Lucky me.

This serial isn't a waste of time, but it's pretty lame and formulaic. It's not at all indicative of the best of Republic's serials. Brannon and Bennet seem to have been the mainstays of Republic's serial directors after Witney and English left the scene, and they certainly tried to uphold Republic's reputation for great fistfights.

Roy Barcroft, beloved B-Western villain that he was, is not exactly my cup of serial tea. He was much better as a bad guy in dozens of oaters. He looks quite silly here in his Purple Monster costume (as he also does in "Radar Men From the Moon"). The dapper James Craven was featured in several serials in the 1940's, and then had a very long career in A pictures (he made his last picture in 1992!). He's pretty good here in a kind of double role as the kindly astronomer whose body gets taken over by the Purple Monster.

Neither is Dennis Moore my idea of a dynamic hero. However, I must admit that his low-key style kind of grows on you and by the end of the movie I thought he wasn't half bad. Linda Stirling ("Zorro's Black Whip," "The Crimson Ghost") was a model before becoming "the queen of the serials," and it shows. Her good looks and demeanor carried every serial she was in, and there were a lot of them. The best scenes in this movie are those in which she appears.

One oddity is that the little convertible in which the hero and the girl constantly run around led a charmed life. It is completely blown up at least twice, and always shows up in the next chapter. The film companies were always trying to save money in filming their serials, but this is a bit ridiculous!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars So bad it's good, May 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Purple Monster Strikes! [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a horrible serial. The special effects are laughable, the characters are ridiculous, and the plot is insane. If you want a serious scifi movie, go elsewhere, but if you're the type of person who's seen Plan 9 from Outer Space more than once, who delights in the truly awful, then this is for you. The repeated elements do get a bit tedious, and it's hard to watch more than three or four episodes at once (remember, people originally had to wait a week to see the next installment), but it's a lot of fun. I only wish it were available on DVD.