MANHUNT ON MYSTERY ISLAND (1945)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure *

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*


Though I have to rate the mythicity of both of these serials as "poor," that's not to say that they tried and failed to get into deeper symbolic waters. Most sound serials made no such attempt, and when a serial does manage to touch on such matters, it often feels like it's by accident, as with the 1940 GREEN HORNET, reviewed here.

MANHUNT ON MYSTERY ISLAND is a typical Republic serial, which means that most of the narrative involves knockabout fight-scenes of fairly bland heroes against colorful criminal masterminds. In this case the villain is Captain Mephisto, fulsomely played by long-time character actor Roy Barcroft, in a role that many serial-fans deem his best outing.  Many serials feature villains who masquerade as upstanding citizens while they assume some cowled identity as they send out henchmen to commit crimes. Considering that Mephisto appears in 1945, he's refreshingly old-school in that he's not funded by some foreign power. Rather, he's a solo player: a fellow who just happens to be a descendant of a 19th-century pirate named Captain Mephisto, and uses this identity to get hold of a super-weapon with which he can force all nations to pay him tribute.  He somehow acquires a "transformation chair" that can make anyone who sits in it into a "molecular duplicate" of the original Mephisto, resulting in many "teaser" scenes in which the villain enters the room with the chair, his true identity obscured by the camera's reticence, only to metamorphose into Mephisto.  Despite the use of the Goethean name, Mephisto doesn't have any particular devilish associations, except that he's more fun to watch than the dull heroes. Richard Bailey plays Lance Reardon as just one more tedious private detective, though to modern ears certain associations of his name might prove a source of amusement. His leading lady-- a typical professor's daughter who hires the private dick to find her missing father-- is no better characterized, but she's more winsomely played by Linda Stirling, best known for being one of the few heroines to essay action-heroines in serials. Though by 1945 Stirling's best serials-- THE TIGER WOMAN and ZORRO'S BLACK WHIP-- were behind her, the scripters at least allow her character to be a deadly shot with a handgun. 

In short, the "manhunt" for the professor and his super-dingus is just an excuse for lively fistfights, which no company did quite as well as Republic.