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Gord Green
Galactic Ambassador
Joined: 06 Oct 2014
Posts: 2944
Location: Buffalo, NY
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 Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2020 3:40 am Post subject: Lost Planet Airmen (1949/1951) |
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I was rather late coming to this serial! I viewed the first episode of this as a student at SUNYAB in the Studant Union.
It grabbed me from the beginning....I hadn't seen a "serial" since I was a sprout at my local cinema in the early 50's.
What a GREAT visual for a young Sci-Fi Fan !
Professor Millard (James Craven), a scientist who is a member of the group Science Associates, works in a secluded desert location on a secret research project. Reporter and photographer Glenda Thomas (Mae Clarke) is curious about the secret project.
When she tours the facility, she meets Burt Winslow (House Peters, Jr.), the project's publicity director and Jeff King (Tristram Coffin), a young project member.
The mysterious "Dr. Vulcan" is intent on stealing the atomic-powered weapons being developed by the scientists at the Science Associates group. Vulcan hopes to make a fortune by selling these valuable devices to foreign powers.
Dr. Vulcan's gang kills one of the scientists, but Jeff dons a newly developed atomic-powered rocket backpack, mounted on a leather jacket. He wears a streamlined flying helmet, and with Dr. Millard, foils the attacks from the gang.
Dr. Vulcan plans on destroying New York City with a sonic ray device, which causes massive earthquakes. Only the "Rocket Man" ultimately stands in his way.
Not only Aliens....Space travel...Rocket Belts!!!
Lost Planet Airmen used scenes from the King of the Rocket Men but was more cheaply made than previous Republic serials.
Creating a compilation film allowed for Republic to have an opportunity to exploit the serial format. The studio's prospects of continuing the serials in a waning market, was not lost on management.
Republic and Columbia Pictures were the last to offer serials in the mid-1950s. Columbia, alone, had two 15-episode serials in 1956, that ended the cycle.
It may have been the end of an era....BUT not the end of the dream!
These gems from the Golden Age still exist! Not only in our memory, but in the eternal threads of the internet web!
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child. |
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Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)
Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17065
Location: North Carolina
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| Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2020 11:34 am Post subject: |
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The poster is wonderful! It's amusing the way the artist decided that a glass helmet would be better so that he could paint the hero's face — which seems to look nothing like the actor in the movie. 
Note the oxygen hoses to the helmet, bring air to it . . . from the rocket backpack. 
IMDB has this item.
~ This movie is a shortened version of the 1949 12-episodes serial King of the Rocket Men.
My experience with condensed versions of serials is that the stories tend to race along too fast and too fragmented because they have to pack in all the mini-stories from the chapters! 
And the cliff hangers all become action scenes with considerable less suspense, because we know the hero isn't really going to be killed, and we don't even get to see the version that makes it look like certain death!
However, for those of us with fond memories of this theatrical version of King of the Rocket Men, here it is from YouTube with a reasonably good picture. 
Enjoy! _
________________ Lost Planet Airmen (1951)
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Last edited by Bud Brewster on Sat Jul 08, 2023 12:34 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Krel.
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| Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2020 4:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Bud Brewster wrote: | | My experience with condensed versions of serials is that the stories tend to race along too fast and too fragmented because they have to pack in all the mini-stories from the chapters! |
Back in the 70s the local PBS station used to show silent movies and shorts, old comedies like Max Senet and Laurel and Hardy shorts. And serials. One thing I learned from watching the full chapter serials is that sometimes they really cheated on the cliff-hangers. The cliff-hangers would show some horrible fate for the hero, and the next chapter would show a completely different scene. The condensed versions eliminated the cheats.
A local channel used to show the condensed versions on Saturdays, and to a kid they were still great.
David. |
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Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)
Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17065
Location: North Carolina
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| Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2020 6:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Krel wrote: | | One thing I learned from watching the full chapter serials is that sometimes they really cheated on the cliff-hangers. The cliff-hangers would show some horrible fate for the hero, and the next chapter would show a completely different scene. |
David, you're absolutely right that the serials cheated like bandits on those cliff hangers. And I salute you for your kind us of the phrase "sometimes they really cheated on the cliff-hangers".
We all know they always cheated on the cliff-hangers, because the scenes showing the horrible death of the heroes each week were drastically different in the version shown the following week. Seconds before the disaster occurred that would have ended the life of the hero, something dramatic happened to save him which was not in the previous week's version.
The two things which made this work week after week were these:
~ Each chapter was a week apart, so the audience didn't remember exactly what happened seven days prior, and —
~ The prime targets for these exciting stories were kids who were eager to swallow every ounce of the wild tales.
Naturally, even the kids knew damn well the cliff-hangers were going to be changed by the next episode — but they were always grateful to see that their hero managed to escape the horrible death which the audience watched them suffer the previous Saturday.
That's what makes serials so much fun. 
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958) |
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