La serpiente voladora

This disposable cheapie stars George Zucco as an archaeologist who discovers Montezuma's treasure and uses the Aztec god, Quetzalcoatl, to kill those he thinks might pose a threat to his secret fortune.

This is basically a remake of the 1940 Bela Lugosi picture, 'The Devil Bat'. In other words, there's nothing new here. Nothing particularly memorable either, though Zucco does well enough in his role. The special effects for Quetzalcoatl were better than I expected, but they're still not all that convincing. This is just your typical 40's flick with all the predictability and lousy attempts at humor you'd likely expect. We also get an unappealing hero played by Ralph Lewis. I was rooting for Zucco all the way.

It's not a long movie, so at least you won't waste too much time on it. Still, there are far better 40's films out there. I'd suggest seeing one of them and letting this serpent fly right on by.

What's the only reason to watch this besides George Zucco's scenery chewing? Why it's watching a pathetic feathery prop on a string cause fear and death in its search all of its feathers. Basically this is a loose remake of DEVIL BAT with Zucco replacing Bela Lugosi as the madman.

THE FLYING SERPENT stars George Zucco as Professor Andrew Forbes, a greedy archaeologist who fervently protects an Aztec treasure he's discovered. How does he protect it? He has the titular Quetzalcoatl kept in a cage. Knowing how much the legendary creature covets its feathers, Forbes leaves one with anyone he sees as a threat to his wealth. Then, throats are torn out and jugular veins severed!

As others have already stated, this is a "re-imagining" of THE DEVIL BAT with Bela Lugosi. This time, the mythical monster stands in for the big bat. Rather than special shaving lotion, it's lost plumage that drives this beast wild! Zucco is his old, perfectly stolid self, and Quetzalcoatl is serviceable enough, especially for a PRC release.

An enjoyable yarn...

George Zucco's archaeologist character has a major problem at the beginning of the 1946 cheapie "The Flying Serpent." He had recently discovered Montezuma's treasure horde in an Aztec cave in New Mexico, and now fears that the locals might start to get snoopy. Good thing he's also found Quetzalcoatl, the legendary Aztec serpent/bird god, and has learned that the creature will track down and kill whoever is in unwitting possession of one of its feathers. Thus, pretty soon, Zucco is planting Q plumage left and right, sitting back and enjoying the carnage... Anyway, this 57-minute film is minimally fun, and Zucco is always interesting to watch, but the picture is unfortunately done in by supercheap production values, a tediously talkative screenplay, occasional goofball humor, and the simple fact that we never get a solid, steady look at Quetzalcoatl itself. Worse, the film's resolution is asinine and inane, with Zucco behaving uncharacteristically stupid and contrary to common sense. Matters aren't helped by the badly damaged film print offered to us on the Image DVD that I just watched, with problematic sound, to boot. Many other viewers have noted the similarity between this picture and another PRC effort, "The Devil Bat," a Bela Lugosi vehicle released five years earlier. In that film, Bela had lured his flying killer to the intended victim by using a special shaving lotion; here, those darn feathers have been substituted. Bottom line: I would have to say that "The Flying Serpent" is a movie for George Zucco completists only, if such an animal exists. Other viewers who are interested in a film featuring the feathered serpent god alive and well in the 20th century would probably be better advised to seek out Larry Cohen's 1982 film "Q."

PRC Pictures, the cheapest of the B studios in the '30s and '40s, specialized in "horror" movies, few of which were "horrible" and most of which were barely movies. British actor George Zucco starred in many of them, and Sam Newfield--the brother of PRC president Sigmund Neufeld--directed many of them; neither Zucco nor Newfield had reason to be proud of any of them. The one thing they all had in common was shoddy production, technical ineptness and fifth-rate storytelling. This one is no different. The "story" concerns a mad doctor who has captured Quetzlcoatl, a mythical Mexican bird god of death, and uses it to kill his enemies. The bird model is laughable, with the strings used to move it clearly visible in almost every shot. Flubbed lines, pauses where actors forgot their lines for a second are all left in; in fact, there is one scene where the camera follows someone walking down a city street, and as the person walks by a plate glass store window, the reflection of the entire crew is clearly visible! Director Larry Cohen used the basic idea for his film "Q" in the 1980s, but with far better results. The fact that Cohen remade the film is astounding enough; the realization that he actually must have sat through to the end of this movie in order to do so is absolutely mind-boggling.