The Green Hornet (serial)

The Green Hornet is a 1940 black-and-white 13 chapter movie serial from Universal Pictures, produced by Henry MacRae, directed by Ford Beebe and Ray Taylor, starring Gordon Jones, Wade Boteler, Keye Luke, and Anne Nagel. The serial is based on The Green Hornet radio series by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker.

The Green Hornet
Directed byFord Beebe
Ray Taylor
Produced byHenry MacRae
Written byFran Striker (adapted from the radio show adventure series)
Screenplay byGeorge H. Plympton
(as Geo. H. Plympton)
Basil Dickey
Morrison Wood
(as Morrison C. Wood)
Lyonel Margolies
StarringGordon Jones
Wade Boteler
Keye Luke
Anne Nagel
CinematographyJerome Ash
William A. Sickner
Edited byIrving Birnbaum
Joseph Gluck
Alvin Todd
Production
company
Universal Pictures
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date
  • January 9, 1940 (1940-01-09)
Running time
258 minutes
(13 chapters)
99 minutes
(movie)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Synopsis

Britt Reid, publisher of The Sentinel newspaper, is secretly the vigilante crime fighter the Green Hornet. He and his Korean valet Kato investigate and expose several seemingly separate criminal rackets. This leads them into continued conflict with "the Chief," the mastermind behind the criminal syndicate controlling those rackets.

Cast
  • Gordon Jones as Britt Reid and The Green Hornet[1]
  • Wade Boteler as Michael Axford
  • Keye Luke as Kato is Korean in the serial rather than being the original Japanese character of the radio series, due to rising anti-Japanese sentiment around the world. This was two years prior to Japan's December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into World War II. The radio show dropped Kato's nationality from the introductory sequence, included passing references in dialogue to his character being Filipino, and years later, after the war, returned to the standard show introduction.[2]
  • Anne Nagel as Leonore Case
  • Phillip Trent as Jasper Jenks
  • Cy Kendall as Curtis Monroe
  • Stanley Andrews as Police Commissioner [Chs.1,5,8,9,13]
  • Selmer Jackson as District Attorney [Chs.4,10]
  • Joseph Crehan as Judge Stanton [Chs.1,9,10,13]
  • Walter McGrail as Dean
  • Gene Rizzi as Corey
  • John Kelly as Pete Hawks
  • Eddie Dunn as D.H. Sligby [Ch.7]
  • Edward Earle as Felix Grant [Ch.1]
  • Ben Taggart as Phil Bartlett [Chs.3-4]
  • Clyde Dilson as Meadows [Ch.5]
  • Jerry Marlowe as Bob Stafford [Chs.7,11]
  • Frederick Vogeding as Max Gregory [Ch.11] (as Fredrik Vogeding)

Chapter titles

Source:[3]

  1. The Tunnel of Terror
  2. The Thundering Terror
  3. Flying Coffins
  4. Pillar of Flame
  5. The Time Bomb
  6. Highways of Peril
  7. Bridge of Disaster
  8. Dead or alive
  9. The Hornet Trapped
  10. Bullets and Ballots
  11. Disaster Rides the Rails
  12. Panic in the Zoo
  13. Doom of the Underworld

Alternative versions

In 1990, under the same title, GoodTimes Home Video released a feature-length version of the serial on VHS tape, re-edited from the footage in the last six chapters.

Under the title The Green Hornet: Movie Edition, VCI Entertainment released its version of the serial on DVD, January 11, 2011, which includes the first and last chapter and selected other chapters.[4]

Influence

The 1960s Batman television series was created because of the popularity of a re-release of Columbia's Batman serial. The success of both led to the production of a Green Hornet TV series, which was played as a straight action crime series, "in the tradition of its former presentations", rather than the campy Batman series. It was cancelled after only one season.[5]

References
  1. "The Green Hornet". DVD Talk. Retrieved 2011-03-28.
  2. Lidz, Franz (2011-01-07). "Float Like a Franchise, Sting Like a ..." The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-01-10.
  3. Cline, William C. (1984). "Filmography". In the Nick of Time. McFarland & Company, Inc. pp. 225–226. ISBN 0-7864-0471-X.
  4. Jones, Steve (2011-01-17). "DVD extra: Go back in time with The Green Hornet". USA Today. Retrieved 2011-03-28.
  5. Cline, William C. (1984). "2. In Search of Ammunition". In the Nick of Time. McFarland & Company, Inc. pp. 14–15. ISBN 0-7864-0471-X.
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