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Maybe because I grew up as a kid in the late Forties and Fifties, I was not too late for movie serials. My dad used to take me to Saturday matinees when I was young, and I remember loving to follow the continued adventures of Chandu the Magician (in "The Return of Chandu") and Commando Cody (in the TV show's original theatrical-serial showing). So it's no wonder I'm more than a little nostalgic for "Flash Gordon," "Buck Rogers," "The Green Hornet," and other such serials that VCI Entertainment seem to be among the last companies to distribute. In the present disc, we have the 1945 serialized version of the famous "Brenda Starr" comic-strip character, a heroine we would later see in two more, much-inferior, non-serial movies.
Dale Messick created the news-reporter character Brenda Starr in 1940, modeling Starr's appearance on Rita Hayworth. At the height of its popularity in the late 1940's and 1950's, the "Brenda Starr" comic strip was syndicated in over 250 daily newspapers. Ms. Messick retired from producing the strip in 1980, leaving it to other folks to continue, and she died in 2005 at the age of ninety-eight. The strip finally ended on January 11, 2011, so VCI's rerelease of the serial on DVD is timely, to say the least.
The movie's plot gets rather involved, given that it's mostly about a simple payroll heist. However, the robbery involves $250,000, a lot more money in 1945 than it is today, so everybody's after it. Joe Heller (Wheeler Oakman) is the culprit who steals the dough, but he doesn't get to enjoy it before another gang of hoods plugs him and takes it. At least they think they take it. When the gangsters get the satchel back to their hideout, they find it's filled with blank paper. So, where's the loot? That's what everybody, good and bad, is after for the next dozen chapters.
The film begins with a burning building where Heller has holed up and Brenda Starr (Joan Woodbury) rushing to cover the fire for her paper. When she gets there, she and her cameraman (and comic sidekick) Chuck Allen (Syd Saylor) discover Joe shot dead inside. But that's not all. The gangsters lock Brenda in the fiery building, where it is only police Lt. Larry Farrell (Kane Richmond), Brenda's semi-boyfriend, who is able to save her. He's good about that kind of thing; he often saves Brenda from burning buildings and such. Usually it's at the end of a chapter, although here it's in just the first few minutes of chapter one, if that gives an idea of the tempo involved.
Brenda is spunky, smart, and attractive, and Ms. Woodbury actually looks a lot like the cartoon heroine, especially her hairdo. Lieutenant Farrell is tall, dark, and handsome, a square-jawed Mr. Clean type who would never catch a crook if it weren't for Brenda's help.
Then, there's a bevy of colorful supporting players at hand. Farrell's assistant is a fellow named Tim (Joe Devlin), who has almost the same personality as Chuck the photographer. In fact, Tim and Chuck are good friends, the policeman and the newsman often betting with one another to see who can arrive at a crime scene first. Plus, the gangsters are properly gangster-like, played by actors you may recognize (if you're a fan of old movies) from scores of other gangster films: George Meeker, Jack Ingram, John Merton, and Anthony Warde among them. And we mustn't forget Cay Forrester as a sultry nightclub singer and Billy Benedict as a goofy office boy to round out the list of colorful characters.
Meanwhile, lurking forever in the background of the tale is the "Big Boss," whose mysterious voice we hear only via two-way radio directing all the criminal activity in the story (shades of 1940's "The Green Hornet," which used exactly this concept).
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