Undersea Kingdom

"Undersea Kingdom" is fast-moving and exciting, better than most serials...with the added fun of seeing how the cliffhangers are impossibly resolved. One of my favorite superheroes who's never been filmed is Namor, the Submariner and this serial comes closest to rendering him on film. It's amazing how a very ordinary looking guy (Ray Corrigan) with an admittedly great physique can be transformed into a thrilling superhero just by donning a costume. This is the best example of the transformation by costume...Corrigan doesn't look anywhere near as imposing without that great sort of Aztec-looking helmet, the best flowing cape (far better than Superman's) and those nifty fish-scale briefs that turn transparent when the lighting hits them just right. Fortunately, our hero wears this impressive outfit throughout most of the series, and you will notice how much his presence is diminished just by removing the helmet from time to time. Despite the robots that look like lumbering water heaters and a sardine-can tank that announces its presence with an ambulance siren, this is a classic serial adventure that should surely please most action-hero and serial fans. It's a very ambitious and largely successful product for its times, with the added bonus of little of the tediously long previous chapter replays of later efforts in the genre. Highly recommended!

This serial is just howlingly fantastic. Bonkers and almost pornographic in its butch antics. I used to show this in a cinema in the 1970s and the audience would just go berserk. As the credits started they would almost scream the roof off...the title comes on over a shot of a phallic submarine entering a seaweed encrusted cave. Our hero, "Crash" DOES only wear his fish-scale pattern underpants with a cape and big silver boots....and a very groovy helmet with a big fin. There is a lot of leftover BEN HUR and NOAHS ARK props to be seen from silent epics pressed into squeaky service at Republic for their first sci fi serial spectacular and I am sure this was a big fat hit with the kids in its day as it was 50 years later. A exact remake of the 1935 Mascot Pictures serial PHANTOM EMPIRE inherited when Republic absorbed Mascot, This one even has the tin can robots and a big metal Volkswagen they hoon around in. Wait until you see the part when Crash is tied spread eagle on the bonnet and his pubic hair is showing..A real crown pleaser if ever there was!. A must for every collection.

UNDERSEA KINGDOM (1936 Republic) starring Ray "Crash" Corrigan and produced by the immortal Nat Levine (truly the "King Of The Cliffhanger Poverty Row Black And White Serial Producers) is without a doubt the very best science fiction/ action movie serial ever made, and other serials of fame (Flash Gordon, Mysterious Dr. Satan, King Of The Rocketmen) don't even come close.

Part of the reason is simply money. Republic Pictures was newly organized and expanded in 1936, and the production of UNDERSEA KINGDOM (1936 Republic) starring Ray "Crash" Corrigan" and produced by Nat Levine was a beginning effort to position Republic Pictures at the top of the independent movie production operations in Hollywood serving independent theaters and theater chains worldwide with "product" not tied to the "major" movie studios such as MGM and Paramount which owned large chains of captive movie houses bound to show movies made by parent movie studios (it is stated in movie histories that as much as 94% of movie box office receipt income during the "Golden Age" of big Hollywood chain movie house connected studios were invested in the huge movie house real estate holdings of chains owned by Loews, Paramount, Warner Brothers, RKO, etc.).

Republic Pictures bought up Mascot Studios and other "low end" "poverty row" movie studios which produced cheap cowboy and other potboiler movies (also serials, some very good), and created sort of a "twilight zone" movie studio operation in which "product" was not quite as expensive and glossy as the "big studio" movies (MGM, Paramount, etc.), but which was better than the old "poverty row" movie potboiler products had been in the early 1930's (when John Wayne and others of cowboy fame got their start).

Republic's UNDERSEA KINGDOM (1936 Republic) serial starring Ray "Crash" Corrigan was a very successful effort to create a classy, expensively made, tasteful serial with high standards of casting and script creation, and wonderful attention paid to special effects, science fiction innovations (television, submarine travel, "ray guns," and robots, etc. etc.

Unlike other serials of fame, large numbers of background actors of great skill were used. Charriots probably from the BEN HUR extravaganza of 1925 (only 10 years before) were used, and high speed chariot racing is seen in the serial, and is breathtaking.

The attention to innovation in the script, and the fact that traditional, old time, sappy "love interest" is avoided almost completely are all to the credit of the creators of this great example of science fiction/ action cinema. There is no effort in UNDERSEA KINGDOM (1936 Republic) to include major female character or "love interest," or jealous daughters of evil emperors, or a girlfriend for the hero who tails along after "her man" with no role other than that of sex object for both her boyfriend and his major male enemies (the worst part of the famous FLASH GORDON [1935] serial is the "Dale Arden" character played by pretty but bass voiced Jean Rogers who is far less curvy than her major female competitor for Flash Gordon....played by wonderfully curvy Pricilla Lawson, who was also a much better actress in the 1935 serial of fame.....a serial far less expensively and well made, and far less well acted and written than UNDERSEA KINGDOM [1936]).

UNDERSEA KINGDOM (1936 Republic) starring Ray "Crash" Corrigan and produced by Nat Levine (see Levine's many other serials of fame, including my favorite, THE WHISPERING SHADOW [1934 Mascot] starring Bela Lugosi) is the best and most expensively made movie science fiction/ action serial ever made, and should be in every movie enthusiast's personal collection (cheap VHS cassette versions are presently...2011...available from Amazon.Com for truly tiny money...buy one!).

Much more can and should be said about UNDERSEA KINGDOM (1936 Republic) including details best of all water heater robots who were mobile thanks to their flexible accordion style legs, much better than the inferior stiff pole metal legs of the water heater robot (only one) in THE MYSTERIOUS DR. Satan (1942 Republic). An entire book can and should be written about robots depicted in 1930's and 1940's movie serials.

I plan to write a book soon titled VALLEY OF THE CLIFFHANGERS about the history and best examples of high quality movie serials, a cinema art form which extended way back in time during silent movie days before the World War I era, and continued into the early 1950's.

I was a little boy in Baltimore, Maryland USA and attended the weekly Saturday morning children's movie show programs at Baltimore, Maryland USA's now closed WAVERLY THEATRE located on Greenmount Avenue near the corner of 33rd St. (now a retail shoe store). I first saw UNDERSEA KINGDOM (1936 Republic) in the early 1950's along with KING OF THE ROCKETMAN, and DON WINSLOW OF THE COAST GUARD and many other re-cycled serials shown at the Waverly along with "B" westerns of fame, mostly from Republic Pictures which provided movie programming to independent movie houses like the WAVERLY THEATRE and specialized in Saturday morning and afternoon children's cowboy movies, serials, and short subjects.

I've been interested in USA action cinema all my life, but the very best action movies I ever saw were the ones shown in the early 1950's at Baltimore, Maryland USA's WAVERLY THREATRE. And the very best movie serial I ever saw at the WAVERY THEATRE was UNDERSEA KINGDOM (1936 Republic) starring Ray "Crash" Corrigan and produced by the wonderful Nat Levine, "King Of The Movie Serial Producers."

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Written Sept. 10, 2011 by David Roger "Tex" Allen, SAG Actor, Columbia PA USA.

Written by Tex Allen, SAG-AFTRA movie actor. Visit WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen for more information about Tex Allen.

Tex Allen's email address is TexAllen@Rocketmail.Com.

See Tex Allen Movie Credits, Biography, and 2012 photos at WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen. See other Tex Allen written movie reviews....almost 100 titles.... at: "http://imdb.com/user/ur15279309/comments" (paste this address into your URL Browser)

I found the entire serial on two DVDs for the bargain-price of $5 a piece. I honestly only got the first six because the guy was, well, undressed except for a cape and a helmet and these really cool boots. Otherwise he looked like he was in his underwear.

I really loved the over the top acting and the, for then, cool special effects. That the producers seemed to enjoy finding the slimmest excuse to put Our Hero into cheek revealing outfits and at one point literally strapping him spread-eagle to a moving "car" smacks of almost unbelievable camp. That this stuff passed muster during The Code is even more amazing.

As to weather the cliffhangers cheat; OK they cheat. But in a way I sort of enjoy the original cliffhanger version. Crash gets blown up, dropped down an elevator shaft, smashed into a wooden door (with the aforementioned "car"), dropped from great heights and others too numerous to mention.

I don't love that his "sidekick" is either a young boy who worships him and that he seems a bit too attached to (witness his reaction when Billy falls down a facing). His other "sidekick" is an enemy he saves, only to have the poor sap pine for Our Hero until he is killed, just to assure Crash's engagement to The Girl.

This movie is definitely a repeat offender. But it is fun nonetheless. Invite your friends over and have a drinking party where everyone takes a belt whenever Crash shows his ass. You'll be plowed before the night is out.

Bad, silly, obvious. But not nearly as crappy as Bad Boys 2.

I give this one a Thumbs Up!

Despite being born in 1966, I have actually seen about 20 old time movie serials in my time, the ones made in the 1940s and 1950s actually stand the test of time rather well, but this one, dating back to 1936, is just a bit too old for me.

From the first frames, it has 1930s written all over it, from the clothing to the acting to general look of the production.

Being a Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea nutcase, I was actually looking forward to seeing some Voyage/Sea-ish submarine miniature effects from the Lydeckers (Howard Lydecker created effects for Voyage/Sea) but The Undersea Kingdom submarine looks ugly.

Then again, one later chapter features a fancy aircraft, flying in daylight, that resembles much later effects that Howard would do for Irwin Allen TV.

Sorry folks, this serial just does not cut it for me, in fact, I destroyed the video tape. Maybe I am just too young for it?