Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere

I missed Captain Video in the theatre in 1951. It played on an usual morning bill (for our town)for 15 weeks with cartoons and shorts. This was before most of the hinterlands had TV. We had heard about Captain Video, even seen the comic book, however this serial, even with the tinted sequences now available on DVD, bears absolutely no relationship to the TV series except for the name. I recently bought the DVD set and I must say even for Columbia and Sam Katzman this is just about, no make that the worst serial they even put out. Judd Holdren as the Captain comes across as very gay at times, not a lot of character development. Not much outer space goings on either. The villains on the red tinted sequences (especially poor Gene Roth)are dressed as Mongolian Tartars. The good guys on the green tinted sequences are all dressed as Arabs, everything else in outer space and on earth is in black and white. Special effects? Don't ask. The episodes and the cliff-hangers (where you can call them that) are just ridiculous by any standards. Knowing full well that this was directed towards 8 year old kids of 1951 and written by a veteran crew of serial writers, its an ungodly disaster! Approach it at your own risk.