This was originally a 12-chapter serial released back in 1946 packed with crazy fight scenes involving people getting clobbered with chairs and leap diving at their enemies. There's also lots of death-defying bits as that's how these serial-things usually end a chapter on a cliff-hanging note. The titular villain is a goofy skull-masked fellow, who looks like he should be battling Captain America, with an equally goofy weapon called a Cyclotrode, that's some sorta death-ray/atomic-bomb deflector/electrical disruptor or something or another. The Crimson Ghost was then re-edited and re-released as a TV-series in the 50's, then condensed into a movie version in 1966 called CYCLOTRODE X and then finally colorized and released on VHS in a different condensed version as THE CRIMSON GHOST. I've only seen this last 1990-version and I gotta think that might be the best way to view this nowadays unless you enjoy watching scenes repeated over and over in the serial form. Or maybe you could just watch one chapter and come back a week later for the next one to simulate the original theatrical showings.
This is really best remembered today by punk-rockers everywhere as the place The Misfits took their logo from and it's a pretty cool look. Unfortunately the Crimson Ghost doesn't really do much fighting here. He leaves that up to his henchmen, one of which is played by Clayton Moore who went on to become TV's The Lone Ranger.
One other interesting thing about this film is that the lead lady here actually gets to do a bunch of stuff that women of this era didn't usually do in movies. She wears pants, gets right into the fighting action and is even allowed to drive a car at one point. Way to go sister! Check this one out for some wacky 40's criminal hijinks.
CYCLOTRODE X trailer. Look at them leapin' nuts!:
In addition to everything Misfits-related, The Crimson Ghost also pops up in this classic metal jam along with a slew of other classic monsters:
No comments:
Post a Comment