In these cases, the serial had a sort of “Whodunnit?” quality to it, as part of the story was not only trying to stop the mysterious renegade in question, but also to figure out their true identity. Many villains in serials were “Masked Masterminds” - devious scoundrels who put on a mask and disguise and plotted in secret, commanding their own criminal organization to do their bidding.
In order to discuss this character, I have to give away some major spoilers. Blackstone, from Secret Agent X-9 (1937). So, grab a bucket of popcorn, select your favorite soda pop, and kick back and enjoy the incredibly ludicrous ride! These are My Top 12 Favorite Movie Serial Villains!ġ2. For that, these black-hearted baddies are to be commended. In many cases, it’s the villains, not the heroes, who bring people back to these cornball outings. Their over-the-top demeanors, their convoluted schemes, their often highly stylized spite how cheap and fast things were back then, many of them were regarded as some of the greatest movie villains of all time in days past, and still attract certain fanbases to this day. While none of them were by any means the most complex or even original characters, much like the serials they were featured in, many of them just had a certain charm to them.
Of course, part of what kept these serials going were their villains. The mark these constructs left, however, has never really gone away they were corny, hammy, used a lot of the same cliches over and over again, and by God were they a lot of fun to enjoy! These were by no means brilliant works of cinema history, but they just had a charm to them that could not be denied it’s what kept them alive for so long, and still attracts a niche of fans to them to this day. In the early 1950s, things started to sag a bit, and before 1960 rolled in, they were pretty much extinct.
While serials were around since the silent era, they reached their xenith in the mid-1930s and continued to run strong throughout the 1940s. Most of them were rip-roaring action adventures, and they covered all sorts of genres: superheroes, crime/mystery, horror, Westerns, sci-fi, jungle epics, and more. Some actors would only work for a day, filming all their scenes in one go, even though the serial would take months before it reached its conclusion. They were made very fast and very cheap, and it often showed with stories that, despite being stretched out for such a length, were ultimately rather simple, and budgets lower than the Grand Canyon. While each chapter told its own unique story, they were also part of a longer, overarching plotline. Every chapter was roughly a half hour in length, and serials became known for their cliffhanger endings at the ends of each episode. Serials, when taken together, generally lasted between three and four hours, and released in an episodic weekly format, usually for a duration ranging between twelve and fifteen chapters. Thus was born the movie serial: these were essentially the precursors to modern serialized television programs, or else T.V. Major epics were expensive, and many studios were always searching - as they still search today - for fast, cheap alternatives. If you are not, then allow me to explain in brief: back in the days before television and home video, when DVDs and Blu-rays likely weren’t even thought of, and radio was in its prime, movie makers still wanted to tell stories that would have been too long for a standard film. If you’re a fan of old-fashioned cinema to any distinct degree, then you are probably familiar with movie serials.
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