TRADER TOM OF THE CHINA SEAS

Harry Lauter and Aline Towne

TRADER TOM OF THE CHINA SEAS (12 chapter Republic serial/1954). Produced and directed by Franklin Adreon. Colorized.  

Tom Rogers (Harry Lauter of The Louisiana Hussy) is a trader in Asian territories who is willingly signed up by Major Conroy (Robert Shayne of The Neanderthal Man) to help ferret out a gang that is smuggling out weapons, including light bulbs containing a poison gas, to foreign agents who are arming rebel natives so as to turn their country into a satellite. Vivian Wells (Aline Towne of Radar Men from the Moon) is the feisty daughter of a doctor who was targeted by evil forces, and Mr. Barent (Lyle Talbot), is the representative of his country's forces and the chief architect behind Trader Tom's troubles. Victor Sen Yung is Wang, a friendly associate of Rogers. 

Lauter and Towne with Lyle Talbot

Barent's helpmates include the nasty Kurt Daley (Fred Graham of The Giant Gila Monster), the mute Gursan (an unrecognizable Tom Steele), the psychotic Gorth (Richard Alexander), the rebel leader (Richard Reeves), and others. Tom gets some help from Kahn (Jan Arvan), who is fighting off the rebel forces in his country. Tom and Vivian have to deal with landslides, being trapped on a sinking freighter, being trapped underwater with a cut air hose, a train collision, angry rebels with big knives, and so on. Tom thinks nothing of burning these would-be killers to death, and nearly falls off a cliff into the fire in chapter seven. In chapter six a killer is placed inside a mailbag so he can take care of the engineer. 

Vivian and Tom escape from one doom only to face another

A nice aspect of the serial is that Vivian is depicted as being just as brave, plucky, and competent as Tom. She is no mere decoration, but an important player in the story. Lyle Talbot gives his usual professional but utterly bland portrayal, as he usually did in these serials. Fred Graham, on the other hand, emerges as a very credible and distinctly unpleasant bad guy. Trader Tom of the China Seas is a late Republic serial, one that is much more down to earth than the studio's sci-fi and superhero cliffhangers. For many, that may be the serial's weakness, but it has to be said that Trader Tom is fast-paced and full of action, with plenty of interesting death-traps, and a charismatic lead performance by Lauter. 

Verdict: Decent, often exciting serial if perhaps not as much fun as others. **3/4. 

PASSKEY TO DANGER

Kane Richmond and Stephanie Bachelor

PASSKEY TO DANGER (1946). Director: Lesley Selander.

Tex Hanlon (Kane Richmond) and his fiancee Gwen (Stephanie Bachelor) are an advertising team who have come up with a fashion campaign called "Three Springs." Unfortunately three hoods, formerly known as the Spring Brothers, who committed embezzlement and escaped from jail, think the Three Springs campaign has to do with them. Therefore Tex finds himself being offered huge amounts of money for what he thinks are dresses. Other complications include a blonde, Renee (Adele Mara), who may or may not be a designer with designs on Tex, and the sinister Mr. Warren (Gregory Gaye of Flying Disc Man from Mars) and his thuggish assistant, Bert (Fred Graham of The Giant Gila Monster). 

Richmond with Adele Mara

Frankly, the screenplay for this dog doesn't make a lot of sense. Richmond and Bachelor are perfectly swell for the more insouciant romantic scenes, but are only passable when it comes to anything slightly more dramatic -- not that there's too much of that in this. Gregory Gaye has trouble tossing off vicious bon mots with the kind of skill that came so easily to such as George Sanders. Adele Mara is okay in another of her perky blonde portrayals. Others in the cast include Gerald Mohr of  The Angry Red Planet, John Eldredge of Insurance Investigator and George J. Lewis of Federal Operator 99. The best scene in the movie is the terrific furniture-smashing fist fight between Tex and Bert at the very end. From Republic studios, but you might think it's Monogram. 

Verdict: Features a trio of very dumb "master" criminals. **. 

THE GIANT GILA MONSTER

Gila monster surveys the scene: anything to eat? 

THE GIANT GILA MONSTER (1959). Director: Ray Kellogg. NOTE: This is the colorized version.

Chase Winstead (Don Sullivan) is an aspiring singer in a small Texas town who works at a garage. When his friends and his boss go missing, he and the sheriff (Fred Graham) come to fear that something monstrous and hungry is on the loose in the deep woods surrounding their community,  especially in Williams' Wash. There sure is! A Gila monster the size of a bus is snacking on hitchhikers, over-turning trucks and even derails a passenger train at one point. Can Chase save his friends, girlfriend, and family before the creature strikes again?

Don Sullivan

The Giant Gila Monster is a very low-budget movie so it can't offer tremendous stop-motion effects a la Harryhausen or adept process shots blending monster with victims, but somehow it manages to get across some creepy suspense in spite of that. The film has a great deal of fifties charm. Part of that charm has to do with the lead actor Don Sullivan, who is competent, good-looking, and can sing -- although his song compositions are nothing special. Sullivan had a handful of credits in the late fifties and then became a chemist. Incredibly, Giant Gila Monster was remade in 2012 as Gila! and Sullivan had a small role in it. 

Don Sullivan, Don Flournoy, Fred Graham

The rest of the cast members are generally adept, although a couple are clearly amateurs. The best-known actor in this is Shug Fisher, who amusingly plays "Old Man Harris;" he amassed 86 credits in a long career which included playing "Shorty Kellems" on The Beverly Hillbillies. Lisa Simone, who plays Chase's girlfriend, had a small role in Missile to the Moon. Jay Simms' screenplay is more-than-serviceable, and Jack Marshall's musical score is cheap but effective. The creature, a real Gila Monster interacting with miniature sets, is cleverly spliced into scenes of people reacting to it, generally before its big paw comes down to smash or grab them. The colorization process for the picture is well done; it looks good.

Verdict: Hot rods and monsters -- how can you go wrong? ***.