With sincere respect to Hepcat, who made a great effort, let me give it a shot:

Posted by Audiophilander (A) on November 10, 2005 at 00:01:37

In Reply to: Wonder if someone could help identify these serials... posted by M. Vidal on November 9, 2005 at 12:52:30:

As a fairly knowledgeable serial collector/fan/aficionado I may be able to help with one if not both titles.

The masked hero (not a superhero, but a cool character nonetheless) may have been The Black Commando from the serial The Secret Code released by Columbia circa 1942 (see image above). I'm deducing this by your description of 1) the hero hanging by a flagpole which indicates that he probably has no super powers, and 2) the New York or metropolitan setting, 3) the indication of a mask and costume as opposed to street clothes and 4) no apparent cape, which was more common with costumed heroes.

The only costumed, masked, capeless hero characters other than the Black Commando that stand out in my mind are 1) Captain America, from Republic, which should be fairly memorable because of the star & striped costume and 2) the Phantom, which was set in Africa.

There were other costumed heroes such as the superpowered Captain Marvel, who wore no mask, and the non-super Spy Smasher, but both wore capes and then there's the Masked Marvel who wore a mask but no cape and fought his battles in street clothes and a Fedora. All of those, BTW, were from Republic.

There are also some great pulp heroes from Columbia (The Spider & The Shadow); neither wore costumes per se, although The Spider wore a very distinct cape and slouch hat among his many disguises and the first of two Spider serials, The Spider's Web, from 1938 is superb and great fun.

Hepcat mentioned Republic's King of the Rocketmen, which is a great serial that spawned several less inventive sequels, but whichever actor was cast as the hero in the Rocketman serials always wore a metalic helmet and leather flight jacket (consistency aided in use of stock footage).

The only other costumed characters which come to mind are Columbia's Batman ('43; '49) and Superman ('48; '50) serials and Blackhawk ('52); I'll assume that there would be no confusion with the former two, Superman who wears no mask & Batman both being instantly recognizable, and Blackhawk & team wearing a stylized military uniforms without masks.

So, to make what should've been a short story longer, by process of elimination I'm guessing that The Secret Code is the serial you vividly remember. If that is the case, public domain copies of The Secret Code, complete with their code segments which ended each episode, are available on DVD-R from Western Trails (linked below). I can vouch for the quality as I purchased one.

Alas, I don't think I can provide as much help with the gorilla your dreams (sorry, couldn't resist! ;^D) because there are quite a few pictures that set in Africa with ape costumes and without more details I'm at a loss. My first guess would be along the lines of Jungle Girl or Nyoka and the Tigermen, but there are quite a few and jungle themes were hot topics for serial fare in the late 1930's & early 40's. Here's a partial list of additional jungle titles:

Darkest Africa ('36)
Jungle Queen ('45)
Jungle Raiders ('45)
The Lost Jungle ('34)
The Lost City of the Jungle ('46)
Queen of the Jungle ('35)

...etc.

Note: Having only seen a chapter or two of a couple of these I can't even start to provide an educated guess about which serial has a prominently featured gorilla, but if you have the time and a little patience you might be able to locate information about the serial you're curious about from serial collectors here:

http://www.serialsquadron.com/

Anyway, I hope this info helps your quest! :o)

Cheers,
AuPh

Western Trails video (Open in New Window)

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Follow Ups Full Thread

Topic - Wonder if someone could help identify these serials... - M. Vidal 12:52:30 11/09/05 (8)

Now you've got me wondering about the Sir Galahad serial segments I saw. - clarkjohnsen 08:18:31 11/10/05 (1)

I actually have a copy of that serial on DVD, but ... - Audiophilander 10:38:38 11/10/05 (0)

With sincere respect to Hepcat, who made a great effort, let me give it a shot: - Audiophilander 00:01:37 11/10/05 (4)

Re: With sincere respect to Hepcat, who made a great effort, let me give it a shot: - M. Vidal 05:17:23 11/11/05 (0)

I had no idea you were that kinky - late 07:26:20 11/10/05 (2)

First serial I ever saw was Rocketman, starring Tristram Coffin (what a name!). - Audiophilander 10:18:47 11/10/05 (1)

Re: First serial I ever saw was Rocketman, starring Tristram Coffin (what a name!). - AudioHead 13:19:22 11/10/05 (0)

I can try. - Hepcat 20:28:33 11/09/05 (0)

Follow Ups

With sincere respect to Hepcat, who made a great effort, let me give it a shot: - Audiophilander 00:01:37 11/10/05 (4)

Re: With sincere respect to Hepcat, who made a great effort, let me give it a shot: - M. Vidal 05:17:23 11/11/05 (0)

I had no idea you were that kinky - late 07:26:20 11/10/05 (2)

First serial I ever saw was Rocketman, starring Tristram Coffin (what a name!). - Audiophilander 10:18:47 11/10/05 (1)

Re: First serial I ever saw was Rocketman, starring Tristram Coffin (what a name!). - AudioHead 13:19:22 11/10/05 (0)

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