The Green Hornet

Let me tell ya - In spite of its many-many flaws, its b-grade visual effects, its laughable dialogue, etc., etc., etc. - This vintage, b&w serial from 1940 (presented in 13 thrill-packed episodes) was still definitely about 10 times more entertaining and exciting to watch than was the likes of (that doofus) Seth Rogen's disgustingly dismal and completely contemptible feature film adaptation of the Green Hornet character in 2011.

I really liked Gordon Jones as the Britt Reid/Green Hornet character. It certainly didn't matter to me that this character had no superpowers to speak of. I found that the Hornet's bare-knuckle brawling with the bad guys was satisfactory enough for me.

*Note* - Prior to becoming an actor, Gordon Jones (a real beefy dude) was a promising football player known as "Bull" Jones. Jones was 29 years old when he played the Green Hornet character. He died in 1963, at the age of 52.

In 1936, 'The Green Hornet' was created for the radio. Only four years later, Universal Studios made the first movie serial version of the crime fighter and I saw it mostly in order to see pre-stardom Alan Ladd before his break out films of 1942 (such as "The Glass Key" and "This Gun for Hire")....but ended up enjoying the serial in its own right.

Now I should stop for a moment to talk about serials. These installment films were very popular in the 1930s-50s and normally had to do with crime fighting, such as the Batman, Spy Smasher, Captain Marvel and other serials. A few were westerns or sci-fi. If you see them today, you'll notice a few things about all of them....death-defying escapes that are often utterly ridiculous and a lot of repetition. Audiences of the day didn't mind seeing the heroes appear to die at the end of one chapter...only to see that they actually survived miraculously (sometimes with film footage that completely contradicts what you saw the previous week). And, seeing the inconsistencies wasn't easy in the day because folks were never intended to see them all in one sitting! And, as far as repetition goes, this is because each episode needed to summarize each week in case a viewer missed a chapter or to jog their memories. They were never intended as high art and they were usually made by second and third-tier studios, such as Monogram, Republic or Universal.

When the story begins, police officials meet with Britt Reid (Gordon Jones), the publisher of 'The Daily Sentinel'...the town's newspaper. They are concerned about organized crime and Britt seems to care little about their concerns. Of course, he is the hero of the tale...so you know that he's only pretending to be a lazy jerk. In reality, his way of dealing with it is to don the guise of the Green Hornet, accompanied by his man-servant Kato* (Keye Luke)...and his hot rod car.

Soon you learn that one of the activities of this organized crime ring is graft in public works projects. The mobsters use substandard equipment in building dams and other dangerous projects...and when one of the workers threatens to go to the police, he dies in an 'accident'! So, Britt is out to get the goods on these gang activities as well as figure out who's behind this evil. And, it turns out that there's one big baddie...and his 12 evil disciples...and they are up to all sorts of crimes in addition to the dam project.

Because this is a serial, you really cannot compare it to a normal film. Sure, it's cheesy at times...but all serials are...so I cannot deduct points for this. And, compared to other serials, it's a pretty good and exciting one. Decent action and worth seeing.

*In the serial, Kato is a Korean by birth. However, on the radio he was originally Japanese. Why the change? Well, although the USA and Japan were not yet at war against each other, tensions between the two nations over the Japanese invasion of China made having Kato being Japanese a public relations problem...so they changed him to Korean.

It should not have been surprising to the World that the dynamic, young Publisher of The Daily Sentinel, Mr. Britt Reid, would become that double-agent of crime fighting, The Green Hornet. You see, Britt Reid had a Great, great, great Uncle, John Reed. Uncle John had been a Texas Ranger and the only one to survive as a group of those Lawmen were ambushed by the gang of cut-throats and their leader, Butch Cavendish.

Do you give up? Of course you don't, for everybody in 3 or 4 generations knows of the exploits of "the masked rider of the Plains" and his Indian companion, Tonto. This is just too easy, so there's no prize! I bet ya'll knowed it was the Lone Ranger all along! So being that there's those "Champion of the People" gene in his lineage it followed that in the mid-Twentieth Century, when the Nation was being plagued with Organized Crime and free-lancing Bank Robbers & Stick-up men that somebody in the family would assume an identity of a Masked Man to strike back at the Underworld in an extra-legal manner.

"THE GREEN HORNET" was born on the Radio. It was in the fertile Studios of WXYZ Radio in Detroit that Mr. Britt Reed and alter-ego, The Green Hornet, first HEARD the light of day. (Remember, this is Radio and only the mind can see!) Soon, the whole Green Hornet ensemble was present and prepared for action. There was Kato, Valet to Mr. Reed but secretly the Hornet's partner in crime-fighting, expert driver of the super-auto, the Black Beauty. Kato is as well, a great inventor and scientist-innovator in that he is responsible for the powerful sedan's make-up underneath the hood, as well as its futuristic design.

Kato was also responsible for the "Hornet's Sting" a sort of stun gun-type weapon. But Kato could and did deliver a stun of his own; via his mastery of the Martial Arts, being Jiu-jitsu, Judo, Karate, Aikido and other related disciplines.

So, let's imagine. This is 1940 and Universal Pictures, one of the 3 Hollywood Studios that regularly turned out the Serials as a part of their films, was looking for new properties suitable for adaptation to a Screen Chapter-play. And from out of the airwaves, presto! There's The Green Hornet, already known and quite popular! It has made its theme music, Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Flight of the Bumble Bee" into a well known household tune.

Universal wasted no time in putting the project on their production schedule. For the leads they cast a slender and youthful Gordon Jones as Britt Reed/The Green Hornet, Keye Luke portrayed his partner Kato, Anne Nagel as his Secretary and Confidant Miss Lenore Case (just "Casey" for short), Wade Boteler as retired Cop turned Reporter Mike Axford, Selmer Jackson as the District Attorney, Stanley Andrews as the Police Commissioner; also Cy Kendall, Joseph Crehan, Walter McGrail, Gene Rizzi, John Kelly and a cast of thousands! (Well a lot more anywho!) They did one more thing with the cast. As the sound of voice was the story telling medium on the Radio, a popular leading character's voice was as well known as the face of a Movie Star. So the Universal production team decided to give us the "real" voice of The Green Hornet from the Radio. Actor Al Hodge* dubbed in his voice to speak any of the lines that Gordon Jones spoke when he was decked out in the Hornet's garb. It was a very neat and effective dramatic device.

As for the story and plot of THE GREEN HORNET serial, the usual subjects of international espionage agents and Renegade Super Scientists were jettisoned away from the first Hornet Screen appearance. Instead The Green Hornet, Kato and company concentrated on Organized Crime and their involvement with rackets in the building of sub-standard buildings, collapsing public works, intimidation and extortion. All of these are real-life type problems being dealt with then, now and as long as Man walks the face of our home, Planet Earth.

NOTE: * Actor Al Hodge not only got to be well known as the Radio Voice of the Green Hornet/Britt Reed; but also during the period of 1949-55, he was famous World-Wide as Television's CAPTAIN VIDEO.

Addendum: 1/07/2008. Oh, by the way, we did forget to mention that a condensed feature version of this Universal Serial was released to TV and to video in 1990. There still may be some of those VHS Casettes floating around out there.

Mr. Watson is correct. Green Hornet radio programs aired up to at least 1938 and earlier which still exist describe Britt Reid's chauffeur as his "Japanese valet." When international tensions subsequently increased, in 1939 or 40, the announcer's line was changed so the phrase became "trusted valet," which Kato remained throughout the majority of the the war years. In wartime programs his nationality was simply not mentioned in the show's opening or anywhere else during the program. After the war, in 1945, the opening was changed again, and announcers begin to refer to Kato as Britt Reid's "Filipino valet," and that is how openings were recorded till the end of the series. So the change didn't happen overnight, but in fact took at least five years, and the "Pearl Harbor" comment is an oversimplification, but the general idea is correct. The idea that this is all an urban legend arises mainly from the posting on urban legend website snopes.com, which is wrong about a lot of other things too and apparently more interested in perpetuating legends than publishing facts. Also, later syndications of Green Hornet radio programs consisted primarily of later broadcasts which would have for the most part included the description of Kato as Filipino. It is also correct that in the movie serials Kato, played by Keye Luke, is identified as Korean, and in the first serial Britt Reid and Kato discuss how they first met -- Britt saved Kato's life in Shanghai. In comic books published by NOW in the 1980s and authorized by the Green Hornet Inc., the situation is rectified and Kato's Japanese heritage fully acknowledged. Perhaps the truth of it all is that Mr. Reid told people his friend was something other than Japanese during the war to protect him from being taken to an interment camp.

I recently watched the 1940 serial edition of "The Green Hornet". As someone who has not watched very many serial movies, I found this film series to be fun and extremely well made for its day. The movie is about four and a half hours long, but is divided into thirteen chapters, each twenty minutes in length. I myself watched a chapter every few days over the course of a month or so.

"The Green Hornet" tells the story of the eponymous radio suspense character from the 1930's who is essentially a mild mannered newspaper editor who takes it upon himself to fight crime in disguise. The character is not exactly a vigilante, at least not in the violent sense, as the Hornet is constantly portrayed as a hero rather than an antihero. Still, his standing outside the law causes him to have run ins with both crooks and the police.

There is definitely a vibe to this film that fits into a "noir" genre, as the plot centers on an elaborate scandal. However, the film maintains a lighthearted vibe overall, as this is ultimately a superhero series, so to speak, rather than the kind of existentialist commentary one might expect from film noir.

The best thing this serial has going for it is its elaborate settings and fight scenes. Railroad scenes, flight scenes, train wrecks, auto wrecks, plane wrecks, flooded mines--this one has it all. And of course, each chapter ends with a cliffhanger made to keep you on the edge of your seat.

All that said, I've given this movie 7/10 stars. It's certainly well made and a delight for its day and age, and for its genre. However, it is quite a long series and by the end you're kind of ready for it to be over with. Still, the final chapter is perhaps the best of the series, and makes it all worth the watch.