ADVENTURES OF THE FLYING CADETS (1943)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

In contrast, the only metaphenomenal element in ADVENTURES OF THE FLYING CADETS is its single masked villain, who has no special devices and no explanation for his peculiar name, "the Black Hangman." Since he goes around trying to knock all the members of an expedition to North Africa, perhaps the scripters were thinking of the game "Hangman?"

The heroes this time out are four former street kids who are receiving flight-training to prepare for them for possible acceptance to the Air Force. Perhaps the implied rationale for this program was to fast-track juveniles for service in the armed forces, given that America's involvement in WWII was at its height in 1943, but no detailed explanations of the program are given, nor do the four boys-- Danny, Scrapper, Jinx and Zombie-- make more than cursory reference to their urban experiences.
They become involved in tracking down the Hangman after he kills their mentor, a retired U.S. Army officer. Though the Hangman has allies in the German spy-network, he himself is motivated only by a profit. He wants all the persons who visited the African caves of An-Kar-Han dead, so that only he can make the caves' stores of natural helium available to the Nazis, and thus reap a great monetary reward. It's not clear to me as to why the other expedition-members didn't immediately reveal this significant strategic information to the American high command, and none of them seem to have any suspicion as to the reason they're being targeted.

The four juvenile leads are competent in their adventurous derring-do, though not distinct enough to give any competition to the Dead End Kids (or their various derivations).  As is often the case with kid-gangs, the character used for comic relief gets the best lines, as when "Zombie" (William Benedict of CAPTAIN MARVEL fame) tells his buddies that he's stolen them some fresh clothes off some "good Nazis"-- by which he means "dead ones."

CADETS is an OK serial with good production values, but no particularly imaginative scenes or characters that would raise it above the level of the average.