The Lost Special

A train carrying a large amount of gold bullion is boarded by robbers, who lay portable tracks leading to an abandoned mine, where the train is emptied of its shipment and driven down a mine, 300 feet deep. This leads to anger between Potter Hood (president of the Golconda mine, whose gold was aboard the train) and Horace Moore (owner of the Western Pacific Railroad). Both however do not realize that Slater, vice president of the mine, is the mastermind behind the robbery, working with nightclub owner Dirk. Hood's son, Tom arrives home from college with his football teammate, Bob Collins, and decides to investigate the mystery, and is eventually joined by Moore's niece Betty (a reporter for the paper) and friend Kate Bland. For twelve chapters, its up to our foursome of adventurers to find out the location of the gold, while keeping themselves safe from the attacks of Slater and his gang. Good serial, with nice characterizations of the four heroes. There is nothing special from Glendon's performance of Stanley, but he is behind the scenes too often for him to do dastardly tricks. The serial is very good with its railway action for the first three chapters, but the rest of the serial is just Stanley's gang staying one step ahead of Tom, Bob, Betty, and Kate. The fights come off as really weak (ironic that one of football's all time gutsiest players, Ernie Nevers, looks dull in his action scenes.) Still a very good serial. Rating, based on serials, 7.

Researching the origins of the TV serial "Lost", I bought a DVD transcript from a somewhat deteriorated print of this movie serial, now in the public domain. Fans of "Lost" will recognize several scenes and themes from this movie serial which were not in the original story or its other adaptations, which were recreated either literally or at some degree of abstraction in the TV serial. I laughed out loud at that. However, if you're not interested in how one screen production can cutely allude to others, or looking for clues to the mystery (if you even believe there was a mystery) of "Lost", then this adaptation, the loosest by that name that I've researched so far out of many in various media, of "The Lost Special", will probably not hold much interest for you. It does hold a bit of a mystery (albeit somewhat telegraphed for mystery fans) even for those familiar with the original story, and the plot overall is fairly decent, and some of the acting is excellent. However, it does stretch out the story and scenes as typical of a movie serial, and it has the worst stunt fights I could imagine. I've seen serials with excellent stunt fighting that stands up well even to slow-motion scrutiny, but in "The Lost Special" their blows miss by miles, the sound track represents punches by drumrolls, and they're drawn out to boot. There are also the usual far-fetched plot devices to produce silly cliffhangers.

The gimmick casting of Ernie Nevers as a Princeton U. football player works out about as well or badly as you'd expect. However, the other leads are good. The ending moved me to tears, and not only because of my recognizing its relationship to "Lost", so it's not a total loss from 6 hours of viewing.