Todd Gault-Serious About Serials

Every once in a while, when researching a Bijou related topic in cyberspace, we run across a website so fascinating and worthy that we are compelled to share it with our readers. Todd Gault’s Serial Experience is just such a site and a joy to browse. Here you will find reviews, articles and comprehensive film descriptions for a vast majority of the movie serials ever made. Since 1999, Todd has featured a “serial of the month” along with a hero, heroine and villain of the month, complete with actor biographies. His stated mission is to introduce a new generation of hobbyists to serial collecting. We asked Todd to share with us how his hobby got started and what he would consider to be the top five serials the studios ever produced - and why. (We had no idea that the original Matinee at the Bijou series played a pivotal role)

”I've been an outsider most of my life, a Doctor Who fan when everyone else was a Trekker. Serials have been a sense of wonder to me since I first caught a weekly showing of Dick Tracy (1937) on a local Saturday afternoon creature feature show called Mad Theater with Superhost out of Lorain, Ohio. The serial, along with a Three Stooges short, was a lead in to two horror films, usually a Universal classic from the thirties or forties followed by a low budget AIP film from the fifties or a Godzilla epic from Toho. I was fascinated and a little frustrated by the whole cliffhanger concept of having to watch week after week to find out what happened, something not always easy to accomplish when your parents want you to turn off the TV and go play outside.

As a kid, everybody I knew watched this show and talked about them Monday at school. But then adolescence hit and suddenly I'm Lou Costello in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953) when they land in the middle of Mardi Gras -- I look like I fit in but I don't. Everyone else is catching the latest Jason Voorhees slice and dice flick on cable and I'm off to the side hoping to catch a late night broadcast of The Devil Bat (1940) or The Man They Couldn't Hang (1939), which is not something you can really talk about with someone else in study hall. My parents sure didn't know what to make of a fifteen-year-old in the early eighties who was more interested in Gene Autry than Michael Jackson.

Which is why Matinee at the Bijou was such a comfort for me. The host was someone who seemed to understand my fascination with movies made decades before I was born. I could sit in my room on Sunday nights and not feel embarrassed or self conscious about watching an episode of Phantom Empire (1935) or Zorro's Fighting Legion (1939) followed by Buster Keaton's Parlor, Bedroom, & Bath (1931), Gene Autry's The Big Show (1936), or Lionel Atwill's The Vampire Bat (1933). Listening to the host talk about these films made me feel less of an outsider and more like I belonged, which was important to a lonely, socially awkward and chubby teen with a popular star athlete for an older brother.

Of course things change and people grow up. I went to college where I found other people who shared an interest in older films, though surprisingly not serials. I was still a one man fan club in that area.

Though the Bijou was gone by the nineties, the home video market and an incredibly patient wife made it affordable to collect serials. Being a computer techie, she eventually suggested and helped me build a fan site for serials, so that I could talk about my favorites. Here, in ascending order are my top five favorite serials of all time:

5) The Purple Monster Strikes (1945) A truly groundbreaking serial about a Martian invader played by perennial bad guy Roy Barcroft who lands on Earth, kills and takes over the body of a noted scientist and hires gangsters to help lay the groundwork for an invasion. One of the first alien invaders from outer space films, it paved the way for the sci-fi horror films of the fifties. It is an action packed extravaganza with more cliffhangers fashioned around cars than any other. One even involves having a car dropped on hero Dennis Moore during a fight in a garage.

4) Manhunt of Mystery Island (1945) A great mystery serial with Roy Barcroft playing a supposedly reincarnated pirate, but he is really one of several businessmen trying to use an atomic energy invention to rule the world. He affects his disguise by a machine that physically transforms him into the pirate villain. What sets it apart from most serials is that heroine Linda Stirling often rescues hero Richard Bailey from the cliffhangers instead of the vice versa norm.

3) Phantom Empire (1935) A serial that has to be seen to be believed. Singing cowboy Gene Autry, in his first staring role sets two B-Western precedents by one, playing himself, and two, making a musical western. Gene is a radio broadcaster who has to contend with being framed for murder by scientists who want the radium rich land his ranch is on, while avoiding death from the underground futuristic society that doesn't want surface dwellers discovering the entrance to their subterranean world. You haven't lived till you see Gene Autry sword fight a robot in the only sci-fi/ musical western ever made.

2) The Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941) To quote the tag line from Richard Donner's Superman (1978), "You will believe a man can fly." One of the first and best superhero serials, with special effect flying sequences that put to shame some of the vaunted CGI work of today. Tom Tyler gives a dynamic performance as the World's Mightiest Mortal out to track down mystery villain The Scorpion in his quest for an ancient statue that can turn base metals into gold and produce an atom smashing death ray. Tyler isn't that happy-go-lucky Big Red Cheese from the comic book, but a serious adversary of evil who throws henchmen into walls and through doors and even tosses an engine block at one when he stupidly tries to drop it on Captain Marvel.

1) Spy Smasher (1942) Arguably the best serial ever made. Kane Richmond does a phenomenal job playing twin brothers, each with a distinct and different personality, trying to track down Nazi spy master The Mask and put a stop to his stateside sabotage of Allied defenses. Non-stop action filled with fist fights, shoot outs, car chases and more exploding buildings than you can shake a stick at, plus the plot moves along in a more linear fashion than usual for a serial. Where the villain often decides on a scheme and the hero prevents it over and over through the course of twelve to fifteen episodes, here the hero methodically works his way through the villain's organization, dismantling it as he goes along.

And it all started with Matinee at the Bijou getting me interested in serials. Ironically, if not for serials I would never have graduated from college, but that's another story. What? You didn't think I was going to leave you with a cliffhanger? What else would a serial fan do?”

Ray Pointer To The Rescue

This week the Bijou has been applauding the work of master animator and historian Ray Pointer for the many cartoon treasures he has reconstructed for the entire world to appreciate and enjoy. After watching the five cartoon gems Ray provided for this week's Bijou Mini-Matinee (see below), we had a few questions.

Ray, it's striking that at the same time in the mid 1920s Max Fleischer and Walt Disney were each producing their own unique cartoon series of live-action mixed with animation characters. Was this the start of the Fleischer-Disney rivalry we've heard about?

It is quite apparent that Disney was aware of these combinations of animation and live action, particularly as used in Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell series, which was essentially 3/4 live action with animation inserts integrated with the illusion of interfacing with reality. Disney's concept was the reversal, placing a live action figure into a cartoon environment. The idea of it being a little girl's fantasy was very ambitious and more technically challenging.

Since his pilot film, Alice's Wonderland, was made in 1923, it would seem that Disney's inspiration was certainly due to Out of the Inkwell, but his motivation was really out of a search for a new novelty rather than a calculated plan to compete with Max Fleischer. The assumed "rivalry" came later based on Disney's desire to advance compounded by his tendency to lure away Max Fleischer's animators in order to learn the secrets to Fleischer's methods as he continued building his own. For decades people have presented a twisted concept that Fleischer was in competition with Disney. This is not accurate since Fleischer had been established a decade before Disney. This concept of "competition" was based on the place both men had in the field as prominent producers. Fleischer was an established presence while Disney was up and coming. Walt eventually surpassed Max because he was driven to succeed, and his visions were more far reaching.

Just how many hats did Max Fleischer wear in the creation of his works?

In the beginning, Max came up with the concepts. At The Bray Studios, he and Roland "Doc" Crandall animated the cartoons, which they were able to produce in a month. This was largely due to the fact that they were mostly live action. Max came up with the story outlines. His concepts were thematic such as "The Clown's Pup," "Ouija Board," "Automobile Ride," "Modeling," etc. Dave Fleischer was not as active in the production of the cartoons at Bray other than acting as the clown for Rotoscoping. When Max left Bray in 1921, Dave came in to learn the business and find his niche. By 1923, when Dick Huemer came in as the Fleischers' lead animator, the nature of the humor changed due to the influence and pairing of Dick with Dave. This is indicated in the titles which also designate the point when the clown was named KO-KO. Previous to this, the character had no name. Pun titles resulted like "KoKo's Kink," "Ko-Ko's Queen," "Ko-Ko Nuts," etc. Max was not as active in the animation by this time, but did contribute occasionally. By this time they started building a staff based on the installation of the In-betweening method of production where assistants did the intermediate drawings to complete the action for the scenes. Art Davis, who later went on to animate and direct for Warner Brothers, was assigned as Huemer's assistant and become the industry's first "In-betweener." This was a very efficient method of production which was eventually adapted by the entire industry.

Did Disney both write and animate the quite sophisticated story for "Alice's Egg Plant?"

By this time, Walt had a staff of animators. Alice's Egg Plant was animated by Ubbe Iwerks, "Ham" Hamilton, and Thurston Harper. Walt was the producer/director and devised most of the stories, including this one. It is curious since rarely did his cartoons reflect political statements. In this case, Alice's Egg Plant suggests Disney's feeling that organized labor was the result of Communist Agitators -- an issue that he came to face 20 years later.

Felix the Cat was the greatest cartoon star of the 1920s. Can you tell us his story?

For decades Felix has been cited as the first personality character of animated cartoons. But he followed Mutt and Jeff by three years. In the silent era the most important cartoon short subjects were Felix the Cat, Out of the Inkwell, and Mutt and Jeff. While Pat Sullivan created Felix, it was the imagination of Otto Messmer that really made him the first major cartoon star of the cinema. Felix debuted as an installment in the Paramount Screen Magazine Newsreel in 1919. As Felix the Cat became a valued commodity, Sullivan wanted out of his contract with Paramount and Adolph Zukor. The story of how he had the contract terminated seems more legend than fact. Accordingly, Sullivan, who was a known heavy drinker, went to Zukor's office "supposedly" drunk, demanding release of the Felix contract. Zukor refused, and Sullivan was supposed to have urinated on Zukor's desk. Out of disgust, Zukor threw the contract and Sullivan out of his office. Sullivan had freed Felix from Paramount and he went to Margaret J. Winkler in 1921. All of this seems too calculated for someone who was intoxicated.

The early Felix was very angular, resembling a dog. Margaret Winkler encouraged Sullivan and Messmer to improve the design, and the image of Felix that is best known evolved during the Winkler years. But as Felix's popularity continued to grow, so did the problems with Sullivan. Miss Winkler started looking for another series as a backup to keep Sullivan at bay. This is what motivated her to take a chance on an unknown producer named Walt Disney. Miss Winkler saw Disney's pilot film, Alice's Wonderland, and ordered a series of six Alice Comedies without ever meeting him or seeing his facilities, which at first consisted of nothing more than a wooden one car garage behind his uncle's home in the Los Feliz Village area of Los Angeles.

Margaret Winkler urged Disney to develop a feline animated co-star to Alice. Disney resisted at first, but after much insistence upon by Miss Winkler, the character of Julius the Cat, a vague Felix look-alike resulted. It was Miss Winkler's intention to develop this character as ammunition against Sullivan. Accordingly, many of the Alice films were distributed with alternate titles. Instead of Alice's Egg Plant, it would sometimes be sold as Felix's Egg Plant. The mere name of Felix guaranteed bookings regardless of whether it was authentic or not. And while Sullivan was certainly aware of Felix's value, it is not certain that he launched any infringement lawsuits, which he clearly would have been entitled to. However, between 1923 and 1925, the M.J. Winkler Company was a successful distributor of three of the most important animated series in cinema history: Out of the Inkwell, Alice Comedies, and Felix the Cat.

In 1925, Sullivan went to Educational for distribution and remained there until the beginning of the sound era. This seems to be the most prolific era for Felix with a steady flow of imaginative adventures making use of all sorts of surreal imagery and subtle content. After a decade of success, the ironic twist of fate was that the Cat was dethroned by the Mouse with the coming of sound. Sullivan's resistance to sound got him into the game too late, and the few sound releases by Copley Pictures did not sustain Felix in the sound era. This was largely due to the quality of the soundtracks and the look of the cartoons. By 1930, competing studios such as Fleischer, Disney, Terry and Harmon-Ising were licensed for the use of cels, which allowed them to make cartoons with toned backgrounds. The Felix sound cartoons continued to be produced in the silent technique of black ink on white paper. This combined with unimaginative and sometime badly recorded soundtracks brought the end to Felix's screen career. Mickey Mouse continued to advance technically, and once the cat was away, it was the mouse that played.

Finding Ko-Ko

The Bijou is delighted to welcome animator and historian Ray Pointer. Ray is a peerless researcher who has released a series of documentary style DVDs on the pioneers of animation including Blackton, Bray, Fleischer, Disney and more. Ray has an extensive background in animation, film, and video production covering 40 years. He is President and CEO of Inkwell Images. Here he discusses how he got into animation in "Finding Ko-Ko."

My formative years introduced me to the old theatricals that were first sold to television in the 1950s. These cartoons not only captured my attention due to the fascinating animation, but also instilled an interest in drawing that stayed with me the rest of my life. The first of these vintage series I saw was Out of The Inkwell. Although I didn't know who the distinguished gentleman with the Austrian style moustache was at the time, the clever interaction with the live action artist and the black-suited clown with the pointed hat hooked me immediately. Although the sight of over-turned inkbottles and spilled ink shown in these films frightened me, I still continued to appreciate them, but with a cautious aside view.

My search for Ko-Ko began just as I entered Cass Technical High School, where I was enrolled in the Commercial Art program. I spent many hours hand lettering in pen and ink -- this being in the days before it became popularly known as "calligraphy". I came to hate it because by being left-handed, I had to lay everything out in pencil first, then work backward, bottom to top to avoid smearing the ink. This took twice as long to complete assignments compared to right-handers. But the other reason I hated it was that the India ink smelled like rotten eggs.

I interviewed for my first job in the animation industry at The Jam Handy Organization the summer of 1967. The department manager, Bob Kennedy told me the history of the company, including the influence of Max Fleischer there in the 1940s, with references to Fleischer's landmark, Out of The Inkwell. All impressions of splashing, stinking ink aside, the interview progressed to the camera room, where I projected the sample animated cartoons I had brought along. They were finished in full color with sound on tape that worked in synchronization with the projector.

Within a few minutes, I had an audience of the entire department standing at the back of the room, all laughing, cheering, and applauding at what they saw. As the lights came on, I was introduced to a short elderly gentleman, Max Fleischer -- the Inkwell Man! Max had apparently stopped in to visit old friends -- what timing! Imagine the very source of my interest saw my first efforts, and recommended me for my first job! The impression of those twenty minutes has stayed with me all my life, and while I worked there, I started gathering anecdotes about Max Fleischer that had never been published before, realizing that this was a fantastic subject for a documentary.

It was now 1970, and I was a freshman in the Film and Television Production Program at Wayne State University in Detroit. After my schedule of classes, I went to the main Detroit Public Library and searched through the copyright records for a list of Out of The Inkwell titles. By all accounts, there were about 65 films made during the pre-Paramount period 1919 to 1927. The next step was to find prints.

The search begins: The Museum of Modern Art in New York led me to the Willoughby-Peerless Camera Stores in New York, which once carried 16mm prints of Out of The Inkwell, but their supplier had gone out of business with no forwarding address. Then I contacted the Bray Studios and discovered that they did have a number of their old cartoons available in 16mm, including some 10 Out of The Inkwell films made between 1919 and 1921. Naturally, I wanted to buy them all. I ordered two, "The Clown's Pup" (1919) and "Automobile Ride" (1921). I waited about two months, and then received a polite letter explaining that there were problems with these old negatives. I accepted prints of The Chinaman and The Tantalizing Fly as substitutes. I wanted to buy more, but the negatives already were deteriorating. At least, this was a start.

The Bray clown: Next I combed through the film rental catalogs, and discovered a number of Ko-Ko titles in the Audio Cinema library in Chicago. These were the 1950 Stuart Productions television releases with music tracks added by Winston Sharples. Over successive weekends, I rented these reels just to see the cartoons and continue my research. I soon discovered certain 16mm libraries that sold prints mostly from the 16mm Kodascope versions made for home exhibition in the 1930s. Having viewed these few films from 1919 to 1925, I made a discovery. There were three different clowns!

The mistaken idea has been that the character was always Ko-Ko The Clown. But in the beginning, the clown was known as nothing more than "The Fleischer Clown" or just "The Clown". He was a literal tracing off live action that tended to be blocky with a small head, and was Fleischer's first character from 1919 to 1921.

Read the rest of Ray's fascinating story: "Finding Ko-Ko."

Theatrical Trailers

It Crawls! It Creeps! It Eats You Alive! It’s Indestructible! It’s Indescribable! Nothing can stop it!” And nothing could stop us from going to see The Blob in 1958. That’s the power of the movie trailer. Competition has always been keen to attract audiences to new releases. Star power and an appealing title or plot usually did the trick, but nothing beats creatively edited trailers (previews of coming attractions) to create advance interest and buzz.

Trailers are a unique art form, and have always played a pivotal role in marketing new movies, because they are shown to an adman's paradise, the captive audience. The trailer often proved more entertaining than the actual movie itself. Sometimes it would be released before the final edited version of the movie, resulting in the trailer having scenes not in the final cut of the film.

Some trailers were developed as part of a larger integrated marketing campaign. For example, The Great Ziegfeld, a 1936 MGM biography of showman Florenz Ziegfeld, overcame financial setbacks when the production went excessively over budget and resulted in the project changing studios from Universal to MGM. Actress Billie Burke, wife of Ziegfeld, was to have portrayed herself in the film, but Myrna Loy ended up playing the role instead. These and other buzz factors were folded into the trailer to maximize ticket sales. This otherwise expensive 2 million dollar production went on to earn 40 million dollars at the box office and become the first “biopic” to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.


Some of the most imaginative trailers often involved special footage shot just for the trailer. Alfred Hitchcock not only made cameo appearances in his films, but he also participated in the marketing of many of them. In Psycho (1960), director Hitchcock actually starred in the full seven-minute trailer, escorting movie audiences on a personally guided tour of the Bates Motel. Special footage was also shot and added to the trailer for It Came From Outer Space, so actor Richard Carlson could convince audiences of the wonders of the new 3-D process. In the trailer for The Thin Man, actor William Powell is shown talking to himself as his Thin Man character, Nick Charles.

Prior to the 1960s a company called National Screen Service dominated the creation of movie trailers and posters on behalf of the entire film industry. During the 1960s and beyond, and as competition grew ever stronger, the major studios opted for more creative-edge advertising and subscribed to a variety of emerging production companies that specialized in the creation of movie trailers.

Since movies began, the movie trailer continues to be one of the most entertaining and popular aspects of the American movie-going experience. You can watch and enjoy some of the best trailers ever made here.