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[[Image:Perilsofpauline.jpg|thumb|right|Poster for ''[[The Perils of Pauline]]'' (1914)]] |
[[Image:Perilsofpauline.jpg|thumb|right|Poster for ''[[The Perils of Pauline]]'' (1914)]] |
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===Silent era=== |
===Silent era=== |
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Famous American serials of the silent era include ''[[The Perils of Pauline]]'' and ''[[The Exploits of Elaine]]'' made by [[Pathé Frères]] and starring [[Pearl White]]. Another popular serial emerged that year, the 119 episode ''[[The Hazards of Helen]]'' made by [[Kalem Studios]] and starring [[Helen Holmes]] for the first forty-eight episodes then [[Helen Gibson]] for the remainder. Other major studios of the silent era produced them, such as [[Vitagraph]] and [[Essanay Studios]], as did [[Warner Bros.]], [[20th Century Fox|Fox]], and [[Universal Studios|Universal]]. Several independent companies (for example, [[Mascot Pictures]]) made [[Western (genre)|Western]] serials. Four silent [[Tarzan]] serials were also made. Europe had its own serials, notably the French ''[[Judex]]'' and the German ''[[Homonculus (serial)|Homonculus]]''. |
Famous American serials of the silent era include ''[[The Perils of Pauline]]'' and ''[[The Exploits of Elaine]]'' made by [[Pathé Frères]] and starring [[Pearl White]]. Another popular serial emerged that year, the 119 episode ''[[The Hazards of Helen]]'' made by [[Kalem Studios]] and starring [[Helen Holmes]] for the first forty-eight episodes then [[Helen Gibson]] for the remainder. Other major studios of the silent era produced them, such as [[Vitagraph]] and [[Essanay Studios]], as did [[Warner Bros.]], [[20th Century Fox|Fox]], and [[Universal Studios|Universal]]. Several independent companies (for example, [[Mascot Pictures]]) made [[Western (genre)|Western]] serials. Four silent [[Tarzan]] serials were also made. Europe had its own serials, notably the French ''[[Judex]]'' and the German ''[[Homonculus (serial)|Homonculus]]''. SILENT MOVIES ROCK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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===Sound era=== |
===Sound era=== |
Revision as of 23:09, 2 November 2007
Serials, more specifically known as Movie serials or Film serials, were short subjects originally shown in theaters in conjunction with a feature film. Known as "chapter plays," they were extended motion pictures broken into a number of segments called "chapters" or "episodes." Each chapter (a typical serial usually had as many as 15 of them) would be screened at the same theater for one week. The serial would end with a cliffhanger, as the hero and heroine would find themselves in the latest perilous situation from which there could be no escape. The audience would have to return the next week (and pay admission) to find out how the hero and heroine would escape and battle the villain once again. Serials were especially popular with children, and for many youths in the first half of the 20th century, a typical Saturday at the movies included a chapter of at least one serial, along with animated cartoons, newsreels, and two feature films.
Most serials were Westerns, since those were the least expensive to film. Besides Westerns, though, there were films covering many genres, including crime fiction, espionage, comic book or comic strip characters, science fiction, and jungle adventures. Although most serials were filmed economically, some were made at significant expense. The Flash Gordon serial and its sequels, for instance, were major productions in their times.
Serials were a popular form of movie entertainment dating back to Edison's What Happened to Mary? of 1912. There do appear to be older serials, however, such as the 1910 Deutsche Vitaskop 5 episode Arsene Lupin Contra Sherlock Holmes, based upon the Maurice LeBlanc novel Arsene Lupin Contre Herlock Sholmes, and a possible but unconfirmed Raffles serial in 1911[1]. Usually filmed with low budgets, serials were action-packed stories that usually involved a hero (or heroes) battling an evil villain and rescuing a damsel in distress. The villain would continually place the hero into inescapable deathtraps and situations, or the heroine would be placed into a deathtrap and the hero would bravely come to her rescue, usually pulling her away from certain death only instants before she met her doom. The hero and heroine would face one trap after another, battling countless thugs and lackeys, before finally defeating the villain "once and for all" ... even though the villain would almost always get away at the end, to return at a future date.
Many famous clichés of action-adventure movies had their origins in the serials. The popular term cliffhanger was developed as a plot device in film serials (though its origins have been traced by some historians to the Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle), and it comes from the many times that the hero or heroine would end up hanging over a cliff, usually as the villain gloated above and waited for them to plummet thousands of feet to their deaths. Other popular clichés included the heroine or hero being tied to a railroad track; being lashed to a log in a sawmill, lying on a conveyor belt and approaching a gigantic whirling sawblade; or being trapped in an abandoned mine shaft, watching as the burning fuse of a nearby bundle of dynamite sparked and sputtered its way towards the deadly explosive. The popular Indiana Jones movies are a well-known, romantic pastiche of the serials' clichéd plot elements and devices.
The silent era was the zenith of the movie serial and serial stars from this period were major stars such as Pearl White, who starred in the quintessential silent serial The Perils of Pauline which still ranks among the best known silent films. Ruth Roland, Marin Sais, Ann Little and Helen Holmes were also early leading serial queens. Most of these serials put beautiful young women in jeopardy week after week. The serials starring women were the most popular during the silent period but in the sound era few serials had a female character in the major role. Years after their first release, serials gained new life at "Saturday Matinees," theatrical showings on Saturday mornings aimed directly at children. For that reason, serials are sometimes called "Saturday Matinee Serials," even though they were originally shown with feature films.
In the early days of television in the United States, movie serials were often broadcast, one chapter a day. Many are now available on VHS tapes and DVDs for collectors.
Eras
Silent era
Famous American serials of the silent era include The Perils of Pauline and The Exploits of Elaine made by Pathé Frères and starring Pearl White. Another popular serial emerged that year, the 119 episode The Hazards of Helen made by Kalem Studios and starring Helen Holmes for the first forty-eight episodes then Helen Gibson for the remainder. Other major studios of the silent era produced them, such as Vitagraph and Essanay Studios, as did Warner Bros., Fox, and Universal. Several independent companies (for example, Mascot Pictures) made Western serials. Four silent Tarzan serials were also made. Europe had its own serials, notably the French Judex and the German Homonculus. SILENT MOVIES ROCK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sound era
The arrival of sound technology made it costlier to produce serials, so that they were no longer as profitable on a flat rental basis. Further, the Great Depression made it impossible for many of the smaller companies which had turned out serials to upgrade to sound, and they therefore went out of business. Only one serial specialty company, Mascot Pictures was in fact able to make the transition from silent to sound filmmaking: Universal Pictures also kept its serial unit alive through the transition.
In the early 1930s a handful of independent companies tried their hand at making serials, but managed only two or three, including the once-prolific Weiss Brothers. The Weisses bought a little time when Columbia Pictures decided to take a try at serials, and contracted with them (as Adventure Serials Inc.) to make three chapterplays. They were successful enough that Columbia then established its own serial unit and the Weisses essentially disappeared from the serial scene. This was in 1937, and Columbia was probably inspired by the previous year's serial blockbuster success at Universal, Flash Gordon, the first serial ever to play at a major theater on Broadway; and by the success of that same year of the newly-created Republic Pictures, which dedicated itself to a program of serials and westerns, eschewing major productions in their favor. The creation of Republic involved the absorption of Mascot Pictures, so that by 1937, serial production was now in the hands of three companies only - Universal, Columbia and Republic, with Republic quickly becoming the acknowledged leader in quality serial product. Each company turned out four to five serials per year, of 12 to 15 episodes each, a pace which they all kept up until the end of World War II when, in 1946, Universal dropped its serial unit along with its B-picture unit and renamed its production department Universal-International Pictures. Republic and Columbia continued unchallenged, with about four serials per year each, Republic fixing theirs at 12 chapters each while Columbia fixed at fifteen.
By the mid-1950s, however, episode television series and the sale of older serials to TV syndicators by all the current and past major sound serial producers, together with the loss of audience attendance at Saturday matinees in general, made serial-making a losing proposition.
Machinima Era
In recent years, however, there has been a small resurgance of a sort in serial production. Many films created using machinima, the art of using pre-existing consumer-level three-dimensional rendering engines to create computer-generated imagery, have been distributed in serial format. According to Hugh Hancock of Machinima.com, three to five minutes is an optimal length for videos downloaded over the Internet. As a result, a serial composed of multiple short videos can be an effective way of telling a longer story in this medium. Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles, a comedy series by Rooster Teeth Productions with a continuous, single plot spanning 100 episodes, popularized this distribution method.[2] Many Red vs. Blue episodes end with cliffhangers, and Rooster Teeth Productions has acknowledged that the series is similar to older film serials in this regard.[3] Another notable machinima production, Edgeworks Entertainment's The Codex, is a self-contained film, but was nonetheless released as a serial in 20 episodes between February and August 2005.
Production
Peak form
The classic sound serial, particularly in its Republic format, has a first episode of about 30 minutes (approximately three reels in length) and begins with reports of a masked, secret, or unsuspected villain menacing an unspecific part of America. This episode traditionally has the most detailed credits at the beginning, often with pictures of the actors with their names and that of the character they play. Often there follows a montage of scenes lifted from the cliffhangers of previous serials to depict the ways in which the master criminal was a serial killer with a motive. In the first episode, various suspects or "candidates" who may, in secret, be this villain are presented, and the viewer often hears the voice but does not see the face of this mastermind commanding his "lead villain," similar to a sergeant, whom the viewer will see in just about every episode.
In the succeeding weeks (usually 11 to 14) thereafter, an episode nearer 20 minutes (approximately two reels) in length was presented, in which the "lead villain" and lesser thugs commit crimes in various places, fight the hero, and trap someone to make the ending a cliffhanger. Many of the episodes have clues, dialogue, and events leading the viewer to think that any of the candidates were the mastermind. As serials were made by writing the whole script first and then slicing it into portions filmed at various sites, often the same location would be used several times in the serial, often given different signage, or none at all, just being referred to differently. There would often be a female love interest of the male hero, or a female hero herself, but as the audience was mainly children, there was no hugging and kissing.
In 1938 Republic introduced the "economy episode" (or "recap chapter") in which the characters summarize or reminisce about their adventures, so as to introduce showing those scenes again (in the manner of a clip show in modern television). This type of episode usually had a cheap, mechanical cliffhanger, like a time bomb rather than being unconscious in a runaway vehicle.
The beginning of each chapter would bring the story up to date by repeating the last few minutes of the previous chapter, and then revealing how the main character escaped. Often the reprised scene would add an element not seen in the previous close, but unless it contradicted something shown previously, audiences accepted the explanation. On rare occasions the filmmakers would depend on the audience not remembering details of the previous week's chapter, using alternate outcomes that did not exactly match the previous episode's cliffhanger.
The last episode was sometimes a bit longer than most, for its tasks were to unmask the head villain (who usually was someone completely unsuspected), wrap up the loose ends, and end with a triumphal proclamation, followed by a joke — and sometimes a kiss (provided that the story supplied a heroine to receive it).
Production practices
The firms saved money by reusing the same cliffhangers, stunt and special effect sequences over the years. Mines or tunnels flooded often, even in Flash Gordon, and the same model cars and trains went off the same cliffs and bridges. Republic had a Packard limousine and a Ford Woodie station wagon used in serial after serial so they could match the shots with the stock footage from the model or previous stunt driving. Three different serials had them chasing the Art Deco sound truck, required for location shooting, for various reasons. Male fistfighters all wore hats so that the change from actor to stunt double would not be caught so easily. This was achieved by placing a rubber liner on the hatband of the stunt man's fedora. The rubber would make a seal on the stuntman's head and stay on during a "fight".
Exposition of what led up to the previous episode's cliffhanger was usually displayed on placards with a photograph of one of the characters on it. In 1939, Universal brought the first "scrolling text" exposition to the serial, which George Lucas used in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 1977. As this would have required subcontracting the optical effects, Republic saved money by not using it.
Stylistic differences between the studios
The major difference between the serials made by the various firms lay in that the minor studios had their own retinue of actors and writers, their own prop department, existing sets, stock footage, and music library. The early independent studios had none of these, except for being able to rent the sets of independent Western features.
Republic was a minor studio, but the serials they produced have been hailed as some of the best, especially those directed by John English and William Witney, who are widely considered among the most talented directors in the form. In addition to solid screenwriting many critics thought was quite capable, the firm also introduced choreographed fistfights which often included their stuntmen throwing things in desperation at one another in every fight to heighten the action. In addition, their productions were praised for their production values such as convincing explosions and other disasters as well as more fantastic visuals such as Captain Marvel flying. Republic's serials had lavish production values, remarkable special effects by the brothers Howard and Theodore Lydecker, and rousing musical scores. Republic was able to get the rights to the newspaper comic character Dick Tracy, the radio character The Lone Ranger, and the comic book characters Captain America, Captain Marvel, and Spy Smasher.
Columbia used many name-brand heroes in their serials. From newspaper comics, they got Brenda Starr, Terry and the Pirates, Mandrake the Magician, and The Phantom; from the comic books, Blackhawk, Congo Bill, a time traveller named Brick Bradford, and Batman and Superman; from radio, Jack Armstrong, Hop Harrigan, and The Shadow; from the British novelist, Edgar Wallace, the first archer superhero: The Green Archer; and even from television: Captain Video. The quality of most of Columbia's serials, however, was quite poor. Many of the Columbia serials were directed by James W. Horne, a former comedy director with no real understanding of the serial genre. The western serials of Spencer Gordon Bennet were suitably accomplished, but Columbia cut corners in every respect, until the quality of their serials suffered. Columbia substituted animation for more expensive special effects. Even though this was an important studio in comparison to the independent ones, Columbia usually subcontacted its serial production to outside producers using the studio resources: the Weiss brothers, Larry Darmour, and Sam Katzman.
Universal also made serials, but again, they used so many economies in their serials that they results, except for the Flash Gordon serials, are seldom satisfactory. Universal's was able to license the characters Green Hornet and Ace Drummond from radio, and Smilin' Jack, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon from newspaper comics, and churned out a number of serials based on these pop culture icons.
Universal also signed on four of Warner Brothers' Dead End Kids to star in three serials. Although Bela Lugosi started working for Universal, his frustration at the greater celebrity of Boris Karloff made him act in several independent serials, but only one for Universal.
Availability
Many serials are now available on DVD. Several, however, have only been issued on VHS and some are not available at all (either because they have been lost or due to lack of interest). A gray market for DVDs also exists through websites and internet auctions. These vary between good and poor quality, depending on their source.
Public domain
Several serials are now in the public domain. These can often be downloaded legally over ther internet or purchased as cheap DVDs. The list of public domain serials include:
- Ace Drummond
- Burn 'Em Up Barnes
- Dick Tracy
- Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe
- The Great Alaskan Mystery
- The Lost City
- The New Adventures of Tarzan
- The Phantom Empire
- Radar Men from the Moon
- Tarzan the Tiger
- Undersea Kingdom
- Zorro's Black Whip
- Zorro's Fighting Legion
Selected film serials
Selected serials of the Silent Era
- What Happened to Mary? (1912)
- The Adventures of Kathlyn (1913)
- Fantomas (1913) - (Cinema of France)
- The Perils of Pauline (1914)
- The Hazards of Helen (1914-1917)
- The Exploits of Elaine (1914)
- Les Vampires (1915) - (Cinema of France)
- The Ventures of Marguerite (1915)
- Les Mystères de New York (1916)
- Le Masque aux Dents Blanches (1917)
- Judex (1917)
- Casey of the Coast Guard (1926)
- Queen of the Northwoods (1929) (Last serial from Pathé)
- Tarzan the Tiger (1929) (partial sound)
Serials of the Golden Age of Serials[4]
Other notable serials
- The King of the Kongo (1929) - First serial with sound (a Mascot production)
- The Mysterious Mr. M (1946) - Last serial from Universal
- King of the Carnival (1955) - Last serial from Republic
- Blazing the Overland Trail (1956) - Last ever serial (a Columbia production)
References
- ^ According to information from Silent Era
- ^ Hancock, Hugh (November 23, 2004). Editorial - Serialise This!. Machinima.com. Retrieved 15 March 2006.
- ^ Rooster Teeth Productions (2004). Audio commentary. In Red vs. Blue Season Two [DVD]. Buda, Texas: Rooster Teeth Productions
- ^ Images - Golden Age of the Serial, retrieved 10th July 2007
See also
- Pulp magazines, a contemporary, and similar, form of serialised fiction