Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Radar Men from the Moon (1952) (Serial)

Commando Cody (George Wallace) wears a rocket suit and also flies a rocket ship. In this exciting serial he is sent to the moon where the evil Retik (Roy Barcroft) plans to conquer Earth using his advanced atomic weapons. Although as usual with these kind of things, for all that high-tech advancement nothing can defeat good old American fisticuffs (as Captain Kirk proved later on, only his fists could save the universe).

As this is a serial (of twelve parts) of course it is fast moving and basically a series of action set pieces with cliffhangers. Can Cody escape being blown up or melted by lava? Find out next week!

Radar Men from the Moon reused a lot of footage from earlier serials. The rocket suit scenes for example were reused from King of the Rocketmen. Visually though this serial is a treat, spaceships with fins, laboratories fill of sparking equipment and mysterious dials. Most of the action is a series of somewhat lower-tech punch-ups though.