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Buck Rogers (1939)

A Review of the Classic Serial Starring Buster Crabbe

By Tom BakerPublished about a year ago 4 min read
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Buck (Buster Crabbe) and a soldier of Killer Kane, grapple in Buck Rogers (1939)

Buck Rogers (1939) is a 12-chapter "cliffhanger serial," that is, a movie divided into twelve parts, each part ending with a "Cliffhanger"; or, in other words, the hero "hanging on to the edge of a cliff," or in some way, hanging on for dear life until the "next thrilling episode" should see him escape danger, just in the nick of time. The story of Buck Rogers is based on a short science fiction novella called Armageddon 2419 A.D. a novel by Philip Nowlan I've never been able to finish, although I've tried. I always lose interest about halfway through.

In the novel, Rogers is a scientist that goes into a cavern where a strange gas puts him to sleep for five hundred years. He awakes in a world where the Americans are living in weird gangs in a forest, with blast guns and weird, belt-like devices that defy gravity, allowing them to leap great distances as if they are flying (remember, in the first Superman comic, Superman couldn't fly either, simply leap like a human grasshopper). They are being hunted by the "Han," which is like some flying fascist mafia.

In the serial version of the long-running comic strip (inspired, of course, by the novel), Buck (Olympic gold medalist Larry "Buster" Krabbe) and his young sidekick Buddy are in a dirigible that is going down in a storm. A scientist has secreted away a "suspension gas" that puts both of them comfortably to sleep for five hundred years. They awake in a future "Hidden City," in a mountain, the sides of which roll back like a doorway to the inner city.

There they meet Dr. Huer (C. Montague Shaw), who sends them to Saturn to enlist the aid of Saturnians to defeat the fascist criminal nogoodnik "Killer Kane" (Anthony Warde), who has a series of weird, tube-like "zombie helmets" that turn people into human robots.

Once on Saturn, the fun begins. Bringing along the lovely Wilma Deering (Constance Moore), the trio set about trying to convince the Saturnian Council to come to Earth's aid against Killer Kane. Kane's evil henchman Laska (Henry Brandon) and Buck, Buddy, and Wilma escape by weird bullet cars on tracks, back to the spaceship (which is a model with a sparkler in its tail, obviously on a fishing line).

Following is Prince Tallin (Philson Ahn) and his small coterie of "Zuggs" which are weird, shambling, zombie-like guys with Klingonesque foreheads and what looks like horns wrapping around their eyes.

The ship makes it back but is almost crushed by the sliding mountain sides coming into the Hidden City, as it is mistaken for a Kane ship (which it is, but that's another story). Kane and his crew decide to run a blockade of the Hidden City. (He has GOT to prevent that treaty between the Hidden Citizens and the Saturnians from reaching the council!)

This is okay though because the genius Dr. Huer has invented an "invisible ray" to make Buck's ship...invisible. And that should take us through about the first six, thrill-packed, edge-of-your-seat episodes.

We have ray gun fights, aerial dogfights, explosions, 1930's future wear, spaceships with sparklers in the tail sections, and tabletop cities and canyons. We have gravity belts borrowed from the original novel, zombification helmets, Zuggs, youthful sidekicks, beautiful and bold women, and Buster Crabbe, who also starred as Flash Gordon. (Which was created, ironically enough, created to compete with the success of Buck Rogers.)

We have a lot happen here, and much of it is repetitive: spaceships crash, people are thrown into cells, become robots, fights and fisticuffs go flying in their choreographed way (in a manner in which we haven't seen in films in many, many long decades). I suppose there is a certain redundancy in scene after scene wherein Buck and Buddy and Wilma face almost certain death at the end of one episode, only to escape it by a miraculous hair's breadth in the very next thrilling chapter. So be it. It's so much fun to just let "wash around in your head" (As one man once commented about David Lynch's ill-fated epic version of Dune, made in 1984) that you'll find yourself as hooked to the twelve chapters of the slam-'em-up, bang, pow, zap action theater as any movie you're likely to see in modern times. I can't exactly remember the ending, except the Killer Kane crew bomb the Hidden City, but Buck, Wilma, and Buddy come out victorious in the end (as you knew they would), and, hell, why should I give away any spoilers?

More action-packed than many a cliffhanger serial of its day, with what was high-quality production and astounding visual effects of the time. Buck Rogers, a film that is eighty-three years old, packs more of a wallop than many a picture brought out in this advanced age of computer graphics, eye-bleeding visuals, and cinematic deafening roars. The outer space dogfights, swashbuckling Good Guys, villainous Baddies, breathtaking and luscious score--all served as inspiration for a story that would come decades later, but that takes place "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away."

As the man used to say on the old Lone Ranger TV show: "Join us now for those thrilling days of yesteryear!" But, in this case, yesteryear was supposed to be...tomorrow.

The entire Buck Rogers 1939 serial can be seen for free, in its original, unedited version, on YouTube. Note: It has been edited down into regular movie-length" features several times.

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About the Creator

Tom Baker

Author of Haunted Indianapolis, Indiana Ghost Folklore, Midwest Maniacs, Midwest UFOs and Beyond, Scary Urban Legends, 50 Famous Fables and Folk Tales, and Notorious Crimes of the Upper Midwest.: http://tombakerbooks.weebly.com

Reader insights

Outstanding

Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!

Top insight

  1. On-point and relevant

    Writing reflected the title & theme

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  • Edward Germanabout a year ago

    Great article.

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