The Lost City, a 12-episode serial from 1935, is frequently maligned by chapterplay fans as being one of the worst (if not THE worst) serials ever made. I was therefore delighted to discover that The Lost City is not only NOT one of the worst serials, it’s easily one of the best of its era, full of fun, adventure, laughs, great characters, terrific sets, and really, really scary boogeymen. I loved it.
An independent “Super Serial” from producer Sherman Krellberg and director Harry Revier, The Lost City has so much going for it I hardly know where to begin. Hang on, folks.
Floods, earthquakes, and thunderstorms threaten to destroy the earth, and this was in the days before FEMA was around to jump into the fray and quickly and competently provide immediate food, water and shelter to disaster victims. Instead, a panel of scientists from all of the countries of the world (well, excepting Luxembourg, whose scientist was sick that day) gather together and after several days of brainstorming decide that there’s nothing anybody can do; we’re all going to die. After conference and lively debate, they helpfully suggest that everyone on earth cancel their newspaper and postal delivery. One brave young electrical engineer, Bruce Gordon (Kane Richmond), has created a wonderful machine (it’s a globe with two lightbulbs next to it) that pinpoints an uncharted area in the heart of Africa as the source of an electro-magnetic force that is causing all the chaos.
Before you can say Albert Schweitzer, Kane and his expedition arrives at a remote African trading post, where they meet an affably toothless old coot named Butterfield (George “Gabby” Hayes, and did he ALWAYS look like he was 85?). Butterfield points them to a desolate precipice called Magnetic Mountain, and they all decide to go there. Inside the mountain, however, is a would-be dictator named Zolok (William “Stage” Boyd, no relation to William “Hopalong Cassidy” Boyd or Larry “Boston Celtics” Boyd), who has the most marvelous art deco laboratory you’ve ever seen, crammed with all the electric devices from Bride of Frankenstein, dwarf assistant Gorzo (Billy Bletcher), muscleman Appolyn (Jerry Frank, who wears nothing but hot pants and suspenders with no shirt, and who gives every impression of being Zolak’s boy toy), and several giant black men who are without question the most terrifying things you’ve ever seen in any serial, or maybe in any movie at all. They stomp around, shriek ungodly gibberish, grimace into the camera, toss our heroes around like rag dolls, and cause what must’ve been a lot of wet seats in 1935 theatres.
Zolak’s power is derived from his captive, a nice old man named Dr. Manyus, who cooperates with Mr. Z because the latter is holding Manyus’s lovely daughter Natcha a captive. Manyus has discovered a way to turn ordinary household African men into giant stomping shrieking grimacing African men, and Butterfield decides he can use that power to create his own army of warriors and conquer the world, while a couple of the guys from Bruce’s expedition decide to throw in with Zolak and help him with his own plan of conquest, while Manyus and his daughter immediately fall in love with Bruce and decide to throw in with HIM, and all the while the puppy-like Gorzo licks Zolak’s hand and helps him carry out his various machinations, which include a ray that turns a tribe of African men into little old Jewish guys with blonde frizzy wigs. They’re called “Spidermen”, but frankly, they look more like Cyndi Lauper. I’ll leave it to you to decide which is scarier.
Where were we? Oh, yeah. As if this wasn’t enough to sustain our interest over 12 chapters, there are also an Arab slave trader, Ben Ali (Gino Corrado), who is after the stomping giants, and a beautiful jungle goddess, Queen Rama (Margot D’use, who seems Latina, and who speaks English the way I speak Cantonese), who wants to either disembowel Kane Richmond or have his children, depending on her mood in any given chapter. Through several chapters, she wears just the cutest little leopard-skin miniskirt, and I wouldn’t be surprised to discover she borrowed it from Appolyn.
Okay, enough about the plot. Nobody cares, anyway. Let’s talk about the wonderful cast and script, which are delightful, if not exactly competent. I mean, nobody is going to come across as brilliant with lines like, “Now remember, scream and call for help. And keep screaming and calling for help. Help. Scream. Understand?” But most of the actors are terrible, and director Revier – who had directed silent serials 15 years earlier, and had learned nothing since – walks them through such broad gestures and exaggerated facial expressions that it makes a James Horne serial look like Last Year at Marienbad. Best of all is Billy Bletcher (the diminutive, cavern-voiced veteran of Hal Roach comedies and the voice of the Big Bad Wolf in Disney’s Three Little Pigs) as Gorzo, who not only SOUNDS like a muppet, but actually looks like one, too. He and Zolak wear matching silk pajamas throughout the serial, and the thought of the two of them, O. Henry like, exchanging matching gifts is too bizarre even for me to contemplate.
Zolak, incidentally, falls somewhere south of Ming the Merciless on the Would-Be Dictator of the Universe meter, but he’s easily the goofiest of all of them. It’s as if he realized the Feds were closing in on him, so he donned pink silk jammies and acted crazy to avoid a jail sentence. I’ll bet the rest of the cast were afraid of him, and avoided him at the lunch table.
Serials are such a silly genre; so much action, so little plot, and bright two-fisted heroes that stumble into unbelievable death traps every thirteen minutes for three solid months. So silliness is not a drawback in a chapterplay, and when presented correctly adds to the fun. The Lost City is handsomely mounted, with a large cast, colorful characters, great sets, silk pajamas, stomping giants, and little Jewish African spidermen who look like Cyndi Lauper; I laughed and applauded my way through all 12 episodes, and wonder why the serial has been so unfairly denigrated over the years. Although it has been black-marked for its “racism”, it’s no more racist than a lot of 1930s serials (seen Hawk of the Wilderness lately?). I suspect that The Lost City, like The Spider Returns and Terry and the Pirates, is really put down because it’s so different from "mainstream" serials. Its difference is its strength, and I recommend it without reservation.
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