The Saturday Serials - The Spider!

Despite being the rambunctious cousin of the more refined Shadow, the Spider rated twice as many movie serials as did the Street and Smith powerhouse. Whatever the reasons, while the Shadow ruled the newsstands, the Spider was king of the serials with two rousing adventures in which he shot down a lot of hoodlums. 

The Spider's Web from 1938 stars Warren Hull as the Spider. Hull was a serial fixture who also played famous characters such as Mandrake the Magician and the Green Hornet. Hull presents a warm and jovial presence as Richard Wentworth, the rich playboy criminologist who becomes the Spider when thugs need some whittling down. He's assisted by Ram Singh played by Kenne Duncan who looks great, but has a wee bit of trouble with a believable accent. Also on hand is Iris Meredith as Nita Van Sloan and she is properly slinky when she needs to be to get the part over. Richard Fiske is Jackson, Wentworth's driver. He also has a butler named Jenkins who shows up from time to time played by Don Douglas. 

The Spider has a lot of help as he struggles to defeat the Octopus, a hooded villain who uses his assembled criminal allies to bring down the necessary public services in the city such as water, travel and such. It's assumed he's also one of the magnates who operate these outfits, but the film is less concerned with that mystery and much more interested in getting the Spider into some outrageous gunfights, and assorted mayhem. Truth told some of the middle chapters don't make all that much sense, but they do deliver on some slam bang action. The Spider uses twin automatics and mows down baddies with great frequency and relative elan. The costume isn't true to the novels but works for the movie much better than I'd expected from the few stills I've seen over the years. 

The original serial did so well that a sequel called The Spider Returns was made in 1941. This time the villain is called the Gargoyle, but he's just one more in a long line of serial hooded baddies who organizes hoods to do his bidding. There is a patriotic element to this one as some of the things pilfered have consequences for the war effort. Hull is back as Wentworth and the Spider and Duncan returns as Sam Singh. But all the other roles have been recast for this one. Dave O'Brien is an upgrade as Jackson but Mary Ainslee is less effective as Nita, a bit too all-American for the part I think. 

The budget looks to have a been a bit smaller for this one, but the pace is just unrelenting. Also, the design of the Spider seems a bit more ham-fisted than in the first flick. The biggest departure though is the lack of deadly violence, at least as regards the Spider who trades in his two automatics for two revolvers, and usually just one of those at a time. He almost never shoots anyone despite discharging a lot of bullets. The preferred method to subdue bad guys is to resort to wild fisticuffs, often three or four on one. The lighter tone lends itself to some comedic elements as well such a ludicrous machine built by the Gargoyle's mad scientist which jiggles and bobbles as it operates. The henchmen also seem to be played for laughs in some moments of the film, such as the time they reprimanded by the Gargoyle when they bring in some women to dance with. They look and act like the Dead End Kids at times. 

The second movie is not as good as the first, but still it's a diverting bit of entertainment. Both of the Spider serials stand up to the test of time. Now if only a high-quality DVD or Blu-Ray of the two serials existed. I watched both of them this time thanks to YouTube. 

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