The Green Hornet (serial)
| The Green Hornet | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Ford Beebe Ray Taylor |
| Written by | George H. Plympton Basil Dickey Morrison Wood Lyonel Margolies Fran Striker (characters) |
| Produced by | Henry MacRae |
| Starring | Gordon Jones Wade Boteler Anne Nagel Keye Luke Phillip Trent Cy Kendall |
| Cinematography | Jerome Ash William A. Sickner |
| Edited by | Irving Birnbaum Joseph Gluck Alvin Todd |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 258 min |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Green Hornet (1940) is a Universal movie serial based on The Green Hornet radio series by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker.
Synopsis
Newspaper publisher Britt Reid, secretly The Green Hornet, and his Korean valet Kato investigate and expose several seemingly separate rackets. This leads them into continued conflict with the Chief, the criminal mastermind behind the Syndicate and the individual crimes.
Cast
- Gordon Jones as Britt Reid otherwise known as The Green Hornet[1]
- Al Hodge as the (uncredited) voice of the Green Hornet. Hodge played the Hornet on the original radio series.
- Wade Boteler as Michael Axford, Reid's bodyguard
- Anne Nagel as Lenore "Casey" Case, Reid's secretary
- Keye Luke as Kato, who is Korean in this serial rather than the original Japanese nationality of the character due to anti-Japanese sentiment rising at the time. This was two years prior to the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the USA's entry into the war (all thirteen episodes are copyrighted 1939). The radio version dropped the nationality from the introductory sequence, included passing references to him being Filipino in dialogue, and only years later added that to the standard intro.[2]
- Phillip Trent as Jasper Jenks, a reporter
- Cy Kendall as Curtis Monroe, the Chief and secretly posing as the Syndicate lieutenant henchman
- Stanley Andrews as Police Commissioner
- Selmer Jackson as District Attorney
- Joseph Crehan as Judge Stanton
Alternative versions
In 1990, GoodTimes Home Video released a feature-length movie version, re-edited from the last six chapters, under the same title.[citation needed]
In 2011, VCI Entertainment released its own version, The Green Hornet: Movie Edition. It includes the beginning, end, and selected other chapters of the serial. The DVD was released on January 11, 2011.[3]
Influence
The 1960s Batman television series was created based on the popularity of a re-release of Columbia's Batman serial. The success of both led to the production of a Green Hornet series, which was played as a straight action mystery series, "in the tradition of its former presentations", rather than the camp Batman series. It lasted one season.[4]
Chapter titles
Source:[5]
- The Tunnel of Terror
- The Thundering Terror
- Flying Coffins
- Pillar of Flame
- The Time Bomb
- Highways of Peril
- Bridge of Disaster
- Dead or alive
- The Hornet Trapped
- Bullets and Ballots
- Disaster Rides the Rails
- Panic in the Zoo
- Doom of the Underworld
References
- ^ "The Green Hornet". DVD Talk. Retrieved 2011-03-28.
- ^ Lidz, Franz (2011-01-07). "Float Like a Franchise, Sting Like a ..." The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-01-10.
- ^ Jones, Steve (2011-01-17). "DVD extra: Go back in time with The Green Hornet". USA Today. Retrieved 2011-03-28.
- ^ Cline, William C. (1984). "2. In Search of Ammunition". In the Nick of Time. McFarland & Company, Inc. pp. 14–15. ISBN 0-7864-0471-X.
- ^ Cline, William C. (1984). "Filmography". In the Nick of Time. McFarland & Company, Inc. pp. 225–226. ISBN 0-7864-0471-X.
External links
- The Green Hornet (serial) at IMDb
- The Green Hornet (1990 feature compilation) at IMDb
- The Green Hornet is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive
- The Green Hornet at AllMovie