I saw this in 1971 at college. It may have made sense to kids in the 1930"s, but at times the auditorium rocked with laughter. Have you ever seen a movie that was so bad it was funny? That's what this is. The basic story was passable, but its execution (I mean that literally!) was terrible. The dialogue was inane; the acting was amateurish at best; the directing could have been done by one of the youngsters in the target audience.
The special effects were extremely low-budget, and primitive by today's standards. It made for a hilarious evening's entertainment, but not because it was handled by good comic actors.
2 Reviews
Without changing a word of dialog, what remains of this classic serial becomes a fabulous comedy.
mark.waltz20 June 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Children's toys of the 1930's made great replacements for supposed space craft in this edited version of the original "Buck Rogers" serial. The handsome and heroic Buster Crabbe and his brave assistant Jackie Moran come out of their 500 year sleep in a frozen state after their dirigible crashes into the snowy mountains and isn't discovered for centuries. Being taken prisoner by the good guys who think that they are a part of the enemy who now dominates what remains of the earth, their identities are soon revealed with the automatic pick-up of a moderate sized book where the leader of the hidden society finds out that their story is true. Moran seriously ponders that he is now the age of his own great grandfather, yep, 500 plus years old!
Buck and Buddy go after the bad guys with the assistance of pretty Constance Moore who shows that women of the future aren't just fashionable in their capes and odd uniforms (a staple of the good guys and the bad guys, appropriately designed so you can tell them apart), and eventually end up taking off for Saturn, hence the title changed for this edited TV version. I can see kids just a few years older than I was at the time eating this stuff up on a Saturday afternoon after their morning cartoons, because a few years later, I did just the same with similar shows and old movies that appeared in syndication. The dialog is corny and the effects are obvious, but it is harmless, easy to follow and just delightful. Plus you don't have to sit through the entire 200 or so minutes of the complete version, at least half an hour of which were re-caps of the previous week's episodes. If only more serials were available in their edited form, they would have the same impact that this does.
Buck and Buddy go after the bad guys with the assistance of pretty Constance Moore who shows that women of the future aren't just fashionable in their capes and odd uniforms (a staple of the good guys and the bad guys, appropriately designed so you can tell them apart), and eventually end up taking off for Saturn, hence the title changed for this edited TV version. I can see kids just a few years older than I was at the time eating this stuff up on a Saturday afternoon after their morning cartoons, because a few years later, I did just the same with similar shows and old movies that appeared in syndication. The dialog is corny and the effects are obvious, but it is harmless, easy to follow and just delightful. Plus you don't have to sit through the entire 200 or so minutes of the complete version, at least half an hour of which were re-caps of the previous week's episodes. If only more serials were available in their edited form, they would have the same impact that this does.
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