dbborroughs
Probably considered a close second to The Adventures of Captain Marvel as the best of all serials. This too is a comic adaptation, but of a comic almost no one has seen in 60 years since it was a war related comic that died a painful death when the "enemy" went away and Spysmasher was forced to fight regular criminals. The plot has Spysmasher- a reporter who faked his own death so he could fight the enemy on their own terms- returning to America to stop The Mask from flooding the country with counterfeit money as well as doing other terrible things. It's a rip roaring adventure that moves like the wind. Republic spent a nice chunk of change on the film and it shows with production values that seem a little more than normal. If there is a flaw its that the film is so action packed that watching it in one or two sittings you become aware how little plot there is. Yes it moves like the wind and yes it's the perfect serial to be seen one chapter each week, but as a something to watch it one sitting its almost too much motion. Granted this was never intended to be seen in one sitting so its understandable that there are "problems" (and minor ones at that). Action film and comic nuts really should see this. It's a blast and a half, especially if you like to watch the old wartime films from the 1940's.
Michael Daly
Possible spoilers.One of the best serials of the 1940s, Spy Smasher combines action and clever cliffhangers with a superb double role for its star, Kane Richmond, as well as an enjoyable cast. Richmond stars as twin brothers Alan and Jack Armstrong during the period just before and immediately into US involvement in the Second World War. Jack is fiancé to Eve Corby, the daughter of the recently-appointed director of foreign intelligence, Admiral Corby. Alan is a former news writer who faked his death in France during the Nazi conquest in order to begin building a network within the Resistance that will help him fight the Nazis on their own ground.Now, however, he must fight them in the US, as a Nazi intelligence officer, known as the Mask for his use of a mask when communicating with collaborators in the US, has hatched a scheme to flood counterfeit money into the US, the first of a series of sabotage efforts that bring out the intervention of Spy Smasher and Jack in a series of encounters with the Mask's henchmen.The running battle with the Mask's men, however, leads to tragedy, as Eve is kidnapped and an attempt at rescue proves fatal, leading to Eve's discovery of Spy Smasher's identity and eventually to a final showdown with the Mask amid a Nazi submarine attack on a US industrial base.
antonio1952
This is the finest serial ever made. Kane Richmond plays twin brothers battling Nazi agents in America. With expert casting, stunt work and direction this is Republic's finest hour in cliffhangers. The serial never drags and the camera work and doubling creating the illusion of twin is peerless.
dinky-4
10-year-old boys must have really gobbled this up when it was a brand-new serial back in 1942. Even now it has the power to involve and entertain with its narrative flow, frequent spurts of action, and that pounding musical introduction from Beethoven's Fifth. Best of all it has Kane Richmond, (born in Minneapolis in 1906), who has all the looks and manner you want in a serial hero. He also has amazingly tough skin. In Chapter One he's captured by the Nazis, bound against the wall of a Gestapo dungeon, and given a vigorous whipping across his bare chest -- but hardly seems to suffer so much as a paper-cut! Actually, this is one of those floggings where the whip is never shown touching its victim. Instead, the impression of a flogging is given by means of editing together various visual elements. In any case, this scene ranks 18th in the book, "Lash! The Hundred Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies."
AD
