I found this 1936 serial for three bucks and scooped it up. I love serials, and especially serials from the 30's. I knew nothing about this one, it not being a sci-fi serial nor featuring any big star that I recognized, though as usual the faces are familiar.
The story is a lengthy one, coming in at over five and a half hours. It begins in Tangiers with a tribe of Arabs hunting down a cloaked man and his female partner. The story shifts to a ship and becomes a nautical adventure briefly before heading to Southern California where it switches between the nautical and the western.
The story never makes all that much sense, but that's not atypical for serials. This one has a hero named Terry Navarro who is the son of a shipping magnate and they've been drawn into a smuggling scheme. This scheme is being investigated by a man and woman team of government agents. The Maguffins in this story are a dozen black coins spread among the populace which when combined with a mysterious paper can be used to find a treasure.
There is a lot of fistcuffs, each chapter featuring at least one brawl. The little gunplay in the movie is surprisingly real for the genre. There are the usual car chases and trapdoors and whatnot. The survivals are not especially clever though they can be funny. One time the hero survives crashing his car into a train and is presumed dead for a few minutes before he just gets up and dusts himself off no worse for wear.
This is a diverting serial, fast paced for the most part and the villain "Shark" Malone is a hoot, a real bad mother who at one point fights his whole crew and darn near wins.
If you can find it cheap check it out.
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