Little Tough Guys, No. 10 - Sea Raiders (1941) Chapters Seven - Twelve

When last we left our delinquent heroes in the lurch in Sea Raiders…

Damned if I know what was going on! It was something to do with using torpedoes to steal torpedoes to use to torpedo boats even though the villains were already torpedoing boats. Other than the “Little Tough Guys,” every character went through a “thinking they’re the villain for a few minutes” phase. Beyond that, motivations changed faster than an incontinent’s pants, and the soundtrack got by through repeating the same inappropriate one-minute sample dozens of times. This movie is horrible.

CHAPTER SEVEN: VICTIMS OF THE STORM

Oh right, and this plane had just crashed into the dock with the two most “important” Little Tough Guys.

But they’re just okay anyway. Eh.

Now, so far Sea Raiders has tried to apply a twisty, turny spy formula to a movie serial, which the format cannot really sustain – a major source of my hatred. Happily, the latter half pretty much drops that outright in favor of a straightforward adventure story – much more appropriate. So starting as though from square one, main villain Tonjes (Reed Hadley) outright murders coconspirator Carlton, thus eliminating the central source of confusion. Also ignore Tonjes’ previous obsession with stealing the torpedo boat design of Tom Adams (John McGuire), for now all he intends to do is go to his sudden, super-secret desert island, and merely “be a villain.” Much simpler!


The Little Tough Guys spend the start of Chapter Seven also wrapping up loose ends. Using that previously contentious torpedo boat, they rescue Tonjes’ former victims from the sea, and return them to shore as though nothing had happened. This accomplished, a henchman named Nelson (Stanley Blystone) shanghais all but one of the Little Tough Guys, and sets sail aboard his 18th century sloop. The reason for this? I’m…really not sure, but neither am I complaining, for what it engenders.


A dastardly storm closes in, and the kids are released from the fo’c’sle to aid on deck. Arr! Plenty of context free but entertaining storm footage plays, as at last they take true advantage of their nautical premise. And all hands appear lost!

CHAPTER EIGHT: DRAGGED TO THEIR DOOM

As the next chapter starts up, it takes a while for the next events to become clear. First of all, it seems the storm has plummeted all the characters into a wormhole, as it is now apparently the 19th century, in a perfect pastiche of “Moby-Dick.” One schooner stops to dredge up Nelson and his two co-henchmen, as a totally separate schooner then rescues the five bobbing boys. Well…it turns out it’s just one ship, simply filmed sans competence. Considering this is the newfound straightforward portion of Sea Raiders, you can imagine how awful the first half is.

And then the kids ID Nelson and his goons and reveal that they are goons. Fisticuffs transpire, the henchman landlubbers are stowed away in the brig (Arr!), and the kids become the cabin boys of Captain Meredith (uncredited).


Meanwhile, the various adult good guys (Tom, Brack, Aggie, Leah – some whom I’ve never mentioned before, and shall continue to ignore) head out together in a hydroplane to scan for the boys, hearing all about the storm. Rather they hover over Tonjes’ evil yacht, on its way back to the evil island of evil. Tonjes shoots the plane down and takes all these people prisoner – because this is the simple situation now favored.

It turns out Meredith’s ship is a whaler, of all things, right out of 1848 (WWII-era B-movies also see nothing wrong with 1875 cowboys battling Nazis, so I’m desensitized to such nonsense). Because the chapter break is coming up, with no danger looming, Meredith up and announces they’se a-goin’ whale huntin’. “Thar she blows!” actual dialogue states. And so, for the mere danger-courting hell of it, all five Little Tough Guys (Lug, the sixth, having been taken captive with Tom et al) go along to harpoon themselves a cephalopod. (This whole section is entirely left field, and completely purposeless in the overall narrative, but aping Melville is fun, and therefore it’s the best thing so far. Besides, they had stock footage of whales just lying around.)


The specific form of imminent doom this hunt takes is the promised drowning of Little Tough Guy Swab (Hal E. Chester). With his leg bound in the harpoon line towed by the whale, all Ahab-like, Billy (Billy Halop) dives in to cut the rope. But the whale is diving!

CHAPTER NINE: BATTLING THE SEA BEAST (And this title doesn’t even refer to the whale!)

…Let’s talk cliffhangers. More specifically, cliffhanger survival. There are several ways to resolve a threat, with varying degrees of cleverness. Lamest is when the filmmakers simply declare the characters survived, because they had to. Best is when a clever, unexpected solution is hit upon, by the characters, to escape last second. This whale scenario rather splits the difference, as we already saw Billy cutting Swab’s rope. Thus it is no new shock when Chapter Nine reveals that very action simply worked. It isn’t a cheat, but it offers nothing new either. Oh well.


Formula having been temporarily satisfied via whales, the crew returns to their ship. Here they discover Nelson’s goon squad has escaped, and affected a mutiny with promise of some buried pirate’s treasure we’ve never heard of before. (It could be a lie, but more likely this is some random new strand the screenwriters have invented, and won’t follow through on.) Meredith is killed, his distracting function fulfilled. Boys brigged, Toby (Huntz Hall) laments the fact that Nelson is his uncle. Huh?! Wha’?! Is everyone a family member in this thing?!

…

Oh, there’s a submarine now! This movie’s gone off the deep end, and I like it. (A directionless plot is ok in this nutty serial format, as long as one can follow it.) More awesomely, a scene follows which verifies unequivocally that this specific film inspired Indiana Jones (more so than yesterday’s Last Crusade routine). That is, Tom leaps from the yacht and swims the shark-infested waters to the sub. A sub that is en route to a secret Nazi island! Nothing much comes of Tom’s effort, as the sub crew proves villainous, and captures him, but still!

Meanwhile, nautical Nelson’s new naval…boat comes within boy-swimming range of Evil Nazi-But-We-Won’t-Say-So Island. The Little Tough Guys escape their binds – with fistfighting – and swim for it. Nelson lets them go on their way, dismissively, as he and his crew vanish from the rest of the serial for pretty much no good reason. I don’t mind.

Most of the boys make it onto the island without incident. All except Billy, since as the main character this universe has a hard-on for his death. Meaning all potentially deadly creatures are immediately beholden to attack him. This tremendous cliffhanger thus reveals the titular “Sea Beast” Universal’s stock footage vault had prepared:


Whoo!

CHAPTER TEN: PERILED BY A PANTHER

Toby dives in to save Billy, actually screaming dialogue underwater in a very strange SFX violation of God’s laws. But Toby merely saving Billy wouldn’t be a clever resolution. Instead, the solution is something straight out of a SyFy original!


It’s Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octupus! (Or Sharktopus!) Whoooo! Movie completely grinding to a halt for this, the genuine highpoint of the whole endeavor, the Little Tough Guys nasally cheer on a 4 minute aquatic battle. (The shark wins.)

Perched on this island rock, more stock footage passes by our heroes’ “view.” First up is that same submarine. They yell at it.

Then, with a consistent degree of randomness, is some contextless freighter. They too yell at this. Then the submarine blows it up – with torpedoes. Ka-boom! (Considering Tonjes has a freaking sub, Lord knows what that whole deal with the torpedo boats was in the first half.)


Tonjes has his prisoners hauled to the big, evil island’s big, evil mansion. They’re locked away, and nothing much happens, because that stock footage carnival used up most of this episode’s running time, and we must devise another near-death for Billy.

Straight out of “24” (specifically, the single stupidest part of Season Two), a goddamn jungle cat leaps right out at Billy (he chose wisely). In a glorious moment of Ed Woodian filmmaking, this is accomplished by having Halop wrestle a cat-shaped throw rug. (Cinematography factoid: black objects against a black background are hard to see.)


CHAPTER ELEVEN: ENTOMBED IN THE TUNNEL

After a generous 4 minutes of previous footage replays unedited, Swab simply shoots the beast (titles call it a “panther,” dialogue “leopard”).


The submarine footage nears the island, to load up on more torpedoes. The Little Tough Guys sneak into the evil, evil mansion and free the prisoners.


And a U.S. battle cruiser is suddenly out in the cove, in response to nothing so far, to force the climax. So Tonjes resolves to do what must happen in all climaxes: explode everything. This especially involves blowing up the munitions cache down in the cave system, where for whatever reason the good guys have now gone. The blast bursts Billy!


CHAPTER TWELVE: PAYING THE PENALTY

But he survives. This is one of the bad cliffhangers.

Now, while that battleship model was necessary to indirectly inspire explosions, its work is done and it is never seen again. Instead, the good guy themselves earn their victory, as they overtake Tonjes’ yacht in the cove, and use the many torpedoes on board to destroy the submarine model. Tonjes remains on the island, and is never seen again, so one can only assume he’s been bested. We know the movie is over anyway, because somebody makes a lame joke I shall not transcribe, and everyone guffaws heartily. The end.


Sea Raiders ends a whole lot better than it started, even though it still isn’t exactly good. But it’s no longer frustrating, as this concentration of ridiculous adventure tropes even manages to temper the “Little Tough Guys”’ nauseating acting which ran so rampant in the first half. There is a recognizable pulpy cheese to the conclusion, with cheap and seam-ridden filmmaking that just makes things that much better.


The next year would see the third and final Little Tough Guys serial, Junior G-Men of the Air, which I shall not be able to see. [Phew!] It switches over from land and sea to air, naturally, and switches up the villains from Nazis to the Japanese. Which explains why there isn’t a single Asian actor in the cast, the ostensibly “Japanese” lead baddie played by Lionel Atwill (most famous for playing Professor Moriarty). (The closest thing to “Asian” this film gets is a Turk, Turhan Bey.) There is very little other information on Junior G-Men of the Air, apart from evidence indicating something every bit as formulaic as its serial compatriots. The best I can do is list out the chapter titles, and close the book on this Little Tough Guys franchise.

CHAPTER ONE: WINGS AFLAME
CHAPTER TWO: THE PLUNGE OF PERIL (This chapter title gets reused frequently.)
CHAPTER THREE: HIDDEN DANGER
CHAPTER FOUR: THE TUNNEL OF TERROR
CHAPTER FIVE: THE BLACK DRAGON STRIKES
CHAPTER SIX: FLAMING HAVOC
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE DEATH MIST
CHAPTER EIGHT: SATAN FIRES THE FUSE
CHAPTER NINE: SATANIC SABOTAGE
CHAPTER TEN: TRAPPED IN A BURNING ‘CHUTE
CHAPTER ELEVEN: UNDECLARED WAR
CHAPTER TWELVE: CIVILIAN COURAGE CONQUERS


Related posts:
• No. 1 Little Tough Guy (1938)
• Nos. 2 - 15 (1938 - 1943)
• No. 7 Junior G-Men (1940) Chapters One - Three
Chapters Four - Eight
Chapters Nine - Twelve
• No. 10 Sea Raiders (1941) Chapters One - Six

Little Tough Guys, No. 10 - Sea Raiders (1941) Chapters Seven - Twelve

When last we left our delinquent heroes in the lurch in Sea Raiders…

Damned if I know what was going on! It was something to do with using torpedoes to steal torpedoes to use to torpedo boats even though the villains were already torpedoing boats. Other than the “Little Tough Guys,” every character went through a “thinking they’re the villain for a few minutes” phase. Beyond that, motivations changed faster than an incontinent’s pants, and the soundtrack got by through repeating the same inappropriate one-minute sample dozens of times. This movie is horrible.

CHAPTER SEVEN: VICTIMS OF THE STORM

Oh right, and this plane had just crashed into the dock with the two most “important” Little Tough Guys.

But they’re just okay anyway. Eh.

Now, so far Sea Raiders has tried to apply a twisty, turny spy formula to a movie serial, which the format cannot really sustain – a major source of my hatred. Happily, the latter half pretty much drops that outright in favor of a straightforward adventure story – much more appropriate. So starting as though from square one, main villain Tonjes (Reed Hadley) outright murders coconspirator Carlton, thus eliminating the central source of confusion. Also ignore Tonjes’ previous obsession with stealing the torpedo boat design of Tom Adams (John McGuire), for now all he intends to do is go to his sudden, super-secret desert island, and merely “be a villain.” Much simpler!


The Little Tough Guys spend the start of Chapter Seven also wrapping up loose ends. Using that previously contentious torpedo boat, they rescue Tonjes’ former victims from the sea, and return them to shore as though nothing had happened. This accomplished, a henchman named Nelson (Stanley Blystone) shanghais all but one of the Little Tough Guys, and sets sail aboard his 18th century sloop. The reason for this? I’m…really not sure, but neither am I complaining, for what it engenders.


A dastardly storm closes in, and the kids are released from the fo’c’sle to aid on deck. Arr! Plenty of context free but entertaining storm footage plays, as at last they take true advantage of their nautical premise. And all hands appear lost!

CHAPTER EIGHT: DRAGGED TO THEIR DOOM

As the next chapter starts up, it takes a while for the next events to become clear. First of all, it seems the storm has plummeted all the characters into a wormhole, as it is now apparently the 19th century, in a perfect pastiche of “Moby-Dick.” One schooner stops to dredge up Nelson and his two co-henchmen, as a totally separate schooner then rescues the five bobbing boys. Well…it turns out it’s just one ship, simply filmed sans competence. Considering this is the newfound straightforward portion of Sea Raiders, you can imagine how awful the first half is.

And then the kids ID Nelson and his goons and reveal that they are goons. Fisticuffs transpire, the henchman landlubbers are stowed away in the brig (Arr!), and the kids become the cabin boys of Captain Meredith (uncredited).


Meanwhile, the various adult good guys (Tom, Brack, Aggie, Leah – some whom I’ve never mentioned before, and shall continue to ignore) head out together in a hydroplane to scan for the boys, hearing all about the storm. Rather they hover over Tonjes’ evil yacht, on its way back to the evil island of evil. Tonjes shoots the plane down and takes all these people prisoner – because this is the simple situation now favored.

It turns out Meredith’s ship is a whaler, of all things, right out of 1848 (WWII-era B-movies also see nothing wrong with 1875 cowboys battling Nazis, so I’m desensitized to such nonsense). Because the chapter break is coming up, with no danger looming, Meredith up and announces they’se a-goin’ whale huntin’. “Thar she blows!” actual dialogue states. And so, for the mere danger-courting hell of it, all five Little Tough Guys (Lug, the sixth, having been taken captive with Tom et al) go along to harpoon themselves a cephalopod. (This whole section is entirely left field, and completely purposeless in the overall narrative, but aping Melville is fun, and therefore it’s the best thing so far. Besides, they had stock footage of whales just lying around.)


The specific form of imminent doom this hunt takes is the promised drowning of Little Tough Guy Swab (Hal E. Chester). With his leg bound in the harpoon line towed by the whale, all Ahab-like, Billy (Billy Halop) dives in to cut the rope. But the whale is diving!

CHAPTER NINE: BATTLING THE SEA BEAST (And this title doesn’t even refer to the whale!)

…Let’s talk cliffhangers. More specifically, cliffhanger survival. There are several ways to resolve a threat, with varying degrees of cleverness. Lamest is when the filmmakers simply declare the characters survived, because they had to. Best is when a clever, unexpected solution is hit upon, by the characters, to escape last second. This whale scenario rather splits the difference, as we already saw Billy cutting Swab’s rope. Thus it is no new shock when Chapter Nine reveals that very action simply worked. It isn’t a cheat, but it offers nothing new either. Oh well.


Formula having been temporarily satisfied via whales, the crew returns to their ship. Here they discover Nelson’s goon squad has escaped, and affected a mutiny with promise of some buried pirate’s treasure we’ve never heard of before. (It could be a lie, but more likely this is some random new strand the screenwriters have invented, and won’t follow through on.) Meredith is killed, his distracting function fulfilled. Boys brigged, Toby (Huntz Hall) laments the fact that Nelson is his uncle. Huh?! Wha’?! Is everyone a family member in this thing?!

…

Oh, there’s a submarine now! This movie’s gone off the deep end, and I like it. (A directionless plot is ok in this nutty serial format, as long as one can follow it.) More awesomely, a scene follows which verifies unequivocally that this specific film inspired Indiana Jones (more so than yesterday’s Last Crusade routine). That is, Tom leaps from the yacht and swims the shark-infested waters to the sub. A sub that is en route to a secret Nazi island! Nothing much comes of Tom’s effort, as the sub crew proves villainous, and captures him, but still!

Meanwhile, nautical Nelson’s new naval…boat comes within boy-swimming range of Evil Nazi-But-We-Won’t-Say-So Island. The Little Tough Guys escape their binds – with fistfighting – and swim for it. Nelson lets them go on their way, dismissively, as he and his crew vanish from the rest of the serial for pretty much no good reason. I don’t mind.

Most of the boys make it onto the island without incident. All except Billy, since as the main character this universe has a hard-on for his death. Meaning all potentially deadly creatures are immediately beholden to attack him. This tremendous cliffhanger thus reveals the titular “Sea Beast” Universal’s stock footage vault had prepared:


Whoo!

CHAPTER TEN: PERILED BY A PANTHER

Toby dives in to save Billy, actually screaming dialogue underwater in a very strange SFX violation of God’s laws. But Toby merely saving Billy wouldn’t be a clever resolution. Instead, the solution is something straight out of a SyFy original!


It’s Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octupus! (Or Sharktopus!) Whoooo! Movie completely grinding to a halt for this, the genuine highpoint of the whole endeavor, the Little Tough Guys nasally cheer on a 4 minute aquatic battle. (The shark wins.)

Perched on this island rock, more stock footage passes by our heroes’ “view.” First up is that same submarine. They yell at it.

Then, with a consistent degree of randomness, is some contextless freighter. They too yell at this. Then the submarine blows it up – with torpedoes. Ka-boom! (Considering Tonjes has a freaking sub, Lord knows what that whole deal with the torpedo boats was in the first half.)


Tonjes has his prisoners hauled to the big, evil island’s big, evil mansion. They’re locked away, and nothing much happens, because that stock footage carnival used up most of this episode’s running time, and we must devise another near-death for Billy.

Straight out of “24” (specifically, the single stupidest part of Season Two), a goddamn jungle cat leaps right out at Billy (he chose wisely). In a glorious moment of Ed Woodian filmmaking, this is accomplished by having Halop wrestle a cat-shaped throw rug. (Cinematography factoid: black objects against a black background are hard to see.)


CHAPTER ELEVEN: ENTOMBED IN THE TUNNEL

After a generous 4 minutes of previous footage replays unedited, Swab simply shoots the beast (titles call it a “panther,” dialogue “leopard”).


The submarine footage nears the island, to load up on more torpedoes. The Little Tough Guys sneak into the evil, evil mansion and free the prisoners.


And a U.S. battle cruiser is suddenly out in the cove, in response to nothing so far, to force the climax. So Tonjes resolves to do what must happen in all climaxes: explode everything. This especially involves blowing up the munitions cache down in the cave system, where for whatever reason the good guys have now gone. The blast bursts Billy!


CHAPTER TWELVE: PAYING THE PENALTY

But he survives. This is one of the bad cliffhangers.

Now, while that battleship model was necessary to indirectly inspire explosions, its work is done and it is never seen again. Instead, the good guy themselves earn their victory, as they overtake Tonjes’ yacht in the cove, and use the many torpedoes on board to destroy the submarine model. Tonjes remains on the island, and is never seen again, so one can only assume he’s been bested. We know the movie is over anyway, because somebody makes a lame joke I shall not transcribe, and everyone guffaws heartily. The end.


Sea Raiders ends a whole lot better than it started, even though it still isn’t exactly good. But it’s no longer frustrating, as this concentration of ridiculous adventure tropes even manages to temper the “Little Tough Guys”’ nauseating acting which ran so rampant in the first half. There is a recognizable pulpy cheese to the conclusion, with cheap and seam-ridden filmmaking that just makes things that much better.


The next year would see the third and final Little Tough Guys serial, Junior G-Men of the Air, which I shall not be able to see. [Phew!] It switches over from land and sea to air, naturally, and switches up the villains from Nazis to the Japanese. Which explains why there isn’t a single Asian actor in the cast, the ostensibly “Japanese” lead baddie played by Lionel Atwill (most famous for playing Professor Moriarty). (The closest thing to “Asian” this film gets is a Turk, Turhan Bey.) There is very little other information on Junior G-Men of the Air, apart from evidence indicating something every bit as formulaic as its serial compatriots. The best I can do is list out the chapter titles, and close the book on this Little Tough Guys franchise.

CHAPTER ONE: WINGS AFLAME
CHAPTER TWO: THE PLUNGE OF PERIL (This chapter title gets reused frequently.)
CHAPTER THREE: HIDDEN DANGER
CHAPTER FOUR: THE TUNNEL OF TERROR
CHAPTER FIVE: THE BLACK DRAGON STRIKES
CHAPTER SIX: FLAMING HAVOC
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE DEATH MIST
CHAPTER EIGHT: SATAN FIRES THE FUSE
CHAPTER NINE: SATANIC SABOTAGE
CHAPTER TEN: TRAPPED IN A BURNING ‘CHUTE
CHAPTER ELEVEN: UNDECLARED WAR
CHAPTER TWELVE: CIVILIAN COURAGE CONQUERS


Related posts:
• No. 1 Little Tough Guy (1938)
• Nos. 2 - 15 (1938 - 1943)
• No. 7 Junior G-Men (1940) Chapters One - Three
Chapters Four - Eight
Chapters Nine - Twelve
• No. 10 Sea Raiders (1941) Chapters One - Six

Little Tough Guys, No. 10 - Sea Raiders (1941) Chapters One - Six

Junior G-Men, though the seventh overall Little Tough Guys film, was their first film serial – and it was successful. (Just how do they measure the success of what is essentially pre-show time filler? These things are like the trailers and lame trivia quizzes theaters show nowadays.) Anyway, one year later Universal released the Guys’ second serial (and their tenth film), Sea Raiders.

Now, the production of these serials was pretty much independent of the regular run of feature length Little Tough Guy films. Universal’s serial department was a separate arm, with separate creative crews. They simply employed the popular, ever-rotating Little Tough Guys troupe as their stars, maintaining their regular personas (names are never consistent, and continuity?! Ha!), and advertizing the result as a Little Tough Guys film for the name recognition.

And so we get another wartime serial with the lads, this time focusing on ship sabotage, just as concerned the actual U.S. in 1941. In the absence of the FBI’s advice, Sea Raiders takes on a much more generic propagandistic tone, simply declaring that foreign espionage = bad.


Overall, there is a significant lack of focus to this effort, a much worse serial than Junior G-Men. This is the result of some extremely muddied plotting, mostly. In Junior G-Men, the first chapter served to establish clear cut heroes and villains, and give them each clear motives that could be exploited for adventure endlessly, without convolution. Sea Raiders has a much iffier team of villainous saboteurs, with endlessly shifting schemes. The Little Tough Guys themselves have similar motivational problems, only battling the baddies at their leisure in the midst of a non-starting deportation plotline. Their foes aren’t only the villains, though, but also the police, or even their own adult allies – eh, it comes and goes, always shifting and never clear. It doesn’t help that the baddies are successful spies, half the cast convinced they’re good and working for them. Many feature narratives benefit from such cleverness, but I am convinced it is the pits for a serial.

Many more problems to get off my chest before we plunge into plot synopses. The “Little Tough Guys” are starting to grate on me mightily, with their persistent Joisey slang and loud, nasal voices screeched to the rafters. Hell, every actor in Sea Raiders is content to merely shriek. Add to that pronunciation such as “bruddah,” “hoid,” “wid,” “coppah,” “faggedaboutit,” and you’ve got 1-dimensional characters with practically no redeeming characteristics. Somehow it’s all about context, and the “Little Tough Guys” aren’t nearly as appealing as Junior G-Men made ‘em – I cannot account for the precise difference, but trust me.

The aural torment doesn’t stop with the dialogue. The soundtrack is rancid too, a random and repetitious playlist of butchered classical music, mostly Rossini (but also verifiably Dukas). It is quite disconcerting to hear, every 8 minutes, that same “Thieving Magpie” piece most associated with droogs raping and rampaging in A Clockwork Orange. And serialists Ford Beebe and John Rawlins are no Kubricks, they aren’t.

It’s not all horrible. The stunt work is at a high level, and most decidedly the. Consider, all serial write-ups list the stuntmen in the same breath as the nominal actors. Let’s give ‘em their due: Bud Geary, Eddie Parker, Tom Steele, Bud Wolfe, Duke York. Given the maritime setting now employed, there is a lot of potential, used wisely. If only there was something for these impressive gags to be hanged onto…


CHAPTER ONE: THE RAIDER STRIKES

This story’s gonna be a beast to get a handle on. Most basically, there is a “Sea Raider” out at sea raiding – specifically, using mined torpedoes to sink munitions ships on a daily basis. (Sea Raiders has a hell of a body count – all in stock footage.) The villains, as far as I can best gauge, are Carl Tonjes (Reed Hadley) and Captain Elliot Carlton (Edward Keane) – but it’s no help that at least two other captains both look just like Carlton, have very similar names, yet are good guys…maybe. (The cast suffers from the occasional B-movie problem that everyone looks exactly the same – “Little Tough Guys” excepted, naturally, as I can finally tell those guys apart. This even applies to the females! It’s as though casting directors had a type.)

At the docks is Tom Adams (John McGuire), the lover and/or brother of Aggie (Mary Field), herself the standard older sister of lead “Tough Guy” Billy Halop – here playing another Billy, as usual, which is as lazy as it is convenient. (That Billy refers to Tom as his brother – excuse me, “bruddah” – is where the confusion arises, possibly out of misdirected script writing.) Tom is the inventor of a brand new torpedo boat, which the Sea Raiders wish to steal – both it and its blueprints, because the more MacGuffins, the better. Oddly, Tom helps them out of sheer stupidity, even while he occasionally realizes they’re stealing his torpedo boat. I hate this movie.

As for Billy and his gang of juveniles, now granted nautical variations on their standard monosyllabic monikers (Bilge, Butch, Swab, Lug), they are hounded mercilessly and purposelessly by harbor cop (or dock dick) Brack (William Hall), who may himself be a villain or may not be, depending on who’s writing that day and what threats are needed. Brack has threatened to deport the Little Tough Guys (to the desert!), and their main motivation now is to escape his watch and take a rowboat down to Mexico. This is odd. And this’ll be their intent for the first several chapters, until they’ve finally pieced together the need to battle the Sea Raiders, as per the serial’s title.

Oh, and with a cast of over a dozen (many of whom I’m not even bothering with), there is a similar over-large cast of ships. [Screaming in rage, angering neighbors.] Even the danged sets all look the same, so it took me again three damned chapters to work out the villains’ boat is the fishing barge The Pelican. Arrggh!


Whatever, anger subsists as The Dolphin is exploded by torpedoes, and its flaming hulk hurtles towards the Little Tough Guys, out on their dingy dinghy. Hooray, maybe they’ll die early!

CHAPTER TWO: FLAMING TORTURE

Or simply survive anyway, because we said so. I hate cheap serials.


Around now the Sea Raiders, whomever they all are, start stealing Tom’s torpedo boat piecemeal – Why must they do this, when they’ve been successfully torpedoing boats left and right anyway?! (There’d be no plot otherwise.) Meanwhile, the Little Tough Guys start their grand adventure of…collecting groceries. I am dead serious. They just keep on “lucking” into a deadly situation at the end of each reel. They’re damnably not proactive, though. I hate them. They go to their hideout, blah blah blah, comic mishaps, blah blah, steal lettuce heads from a naval warehouse (?), blah blah blah.


This warehouse randomly catches fire while Billy and Tony (Huntz Hall, second-in-command) are inside. This is due to the pure idiocy of someone I later realize is meant to be a villain. Again, because the universe of the movie serial is doggedly determined to kill its heroes, at least until offering up countless miraculous survivals. The first half of that now: warehouse collapse!

CHAPTER THREE: THE TRAGIC CRASH

Until it turns out they retcon what we just saw, and rather than the very visceral crushing of two preteens which leant me so much sudden delight, instead Billy axes his way out of the warehouse. And then Brack shoots a pistol at him, due to some brain aneurism I do not follow. Because dialogue insists he is a “good guy.” Uh?

The Sea Raiders know the kids saw their goon in the warehouse. This gives them a scant reason to wish the Little Tough Guys dead (I mean, apart from general annoyance, schaudenfreude). Because they think these boys will tell the police, or whatever. Of course, they’re doing no such thing, and it’s only the villains’ persistent attempts to murder children which cause children to start investigating the villains. And when they do, they still don’t call the cops (the Sea Raiders’ greatest fear of all!). Instead, they simply bungle their way over to The Pelican in broad daylight, then wonder why a sudden fistfight/shootout suddenly breaks out.


Now, Chapter Three ends in a motorboat chase – a damned good motorboat chase, I must say, which seems to have been wholly pilfered by Spielberg for the equivalent chase in The Last Crusade – and knowing the Indiana Jones films are just super-slick repackagings of old serials, that makes sense. Now, wouldn’t it be easy to script that chase in as the kids flee The Pelican? So the villains are chasing ‘em? Eh, it’s not what they do. Instead, the Little Tough Guys row (not motor) back to the docks, where the police chase the hell out of them. What the good goddamn hell for?! (Whatever good work the stuntmen achieve by twisting around ships and piers is destroyed by the fucking eleventh playing of “Thieving Magpie.”

Then suddenly a model motorboat carrying model boys (but not model citizens) crashes into a model dock. Ka-blammo!

CHAPTER FOUR: THE RAIDER STRIKES AGAIN


CHAPTER FIVE: FLAMES OF FURY

Actually paying attention to the expository scrolling scrawl, I learn that now the cops suspect our heroic band of juvenile delinquents of stealing the torpedo boat (oh suuuuuure, they’re the international spies!). For this reason, the kids hide aboard The Astoria, but seeing as it’s a ship in Sea Raiders other than The Pelican, it is due for an imminent torpedoing…


As footage from the missing Chapter Four unspools, it seems the boys even managed themselves into a fistfight as they try to escape the craft. They do accomplish this task, even while knocking out various innocent bystanders on The Astoria. So those people perish horribly in the ensuing explosion, purely because our “heroes” made sure they would. Anger…rising! The sickening assessment Toby offers doesn’t quell my rage: “Those guys didn’t have a Chinaman’s chance.” Say what?!

Then the baddies near, so another damn boat chase ensues. Actually, just the same damn boat chase as before. Sigh!


The Little Tough Guys reassess whatever the plotline currently is back in their hideout incongruously beneath the docks. Apparently, there was a squealer in Chapter Four, who’s now been IDed and forgiven. It’s like I never even saw it!

Oh, and the boys pass on a note to Tom naming a goon – not the main baddies, though they are known to the Little Tough Guys now, ‘cause then this movie’d be over. Seven chapters early. God forbid that happen! So of course Tom takes this new knowledge to the main villains, not knowing them the main villains. And for inscrutable reasons, these Sea Raiders decide the time has prematurely come to violently explode The Pelican, and transfer their stock over to a secret evil island base – Okay, that sounds like fun!

And for whatever reason, the Little Tough Guys have returned to The Pelican, to attempt the same thing they attempted in Chapter Three – to search it for the precious, precious blueprints. It turns out the same way as before – in sudden fistfights. And as in Chapter Two, a lurking goon accidentally sets the entire explosive hold on fire with a cigar ember. No matter, the ensuing fire and explosion are what the Sea Raiders wanted anyway!


CHAPTER SIX: BLASTED FROM THE AIR

Okay, everyone calm down. Wanna know how out of control this “storyline” is? Here’s the first sentence of Chapter Six’s “story so far” summation, in all its teenaged awkwardness: “BILLY and TOBY suspect Captain Nelson of stealing Tom Adams’ torpedo boat, of which they are accused.” Huh?! Why can’t “Bad guys wanna kill children” suffice?

This time, it turns out the kids survived The Pelican’s explosion (by explosives) by escaping in the freshly fueled torpedo boat. They immediately start considering taking the thing on down to Mexico (are we still on this?!) when the Sea Raiders force them to remain in their own serial by opening fire on them. But in the next predictable boat chase, it’s no surprise a torpedo boat can outrun a row boat. That wasn’t very suspenseful.

Oh, and the cops chase the kids for a bit too. Because, or something.


What is going on now? There was a goon unconscious in the torpedo boat, which the cops retrieve. So he’s sent to the hospital, but Tonjes kills him before anything can come of this thread. Oh well, it ate up most of the reel.

Now the kids are back on the Sea Raiders’ next boat, post-Pelican, whatever this one is called. Again they’re seeking those same blueprints the scheme apparently hinges on, having forgotten about their recent lust for Mexico. And now there is a sudden seaplane in the sea, because this chapter is called “Blasted From the Air” and therefore must have an airplane-based cliffhanger. Indeed, Billy and Toby get chased out of this latest ship (which somehow doesn’t catch randomly on fire), fly off in the plane, and are suddenly shot down. I could’ve written this whole paragraph just by looking at the beginning title card!

And the plane crashes into the docks. I’m certain the survival explanation Chapter Seven dredges up will be consistent with that in the missing Chapter Four. That’ll be nice, though I can’t say I’m looking forward to the rest of this mess. Oh well, maybe that evil island will bring some semblance of comprehensibility to this abomination.




Related posts:
• No. 1 Little Tough Guy (1938)
• Nos. 2 - 15 (1938 - 1943)
• No. 7 Junior G-Men (1940) Chapters One - Three
Chapters Four - Eight
Chapters Nine - Twelve
• No. 10 Sea Raiders (1941) Chapters Seven - Twelve

Little Tough Guys, No. 10 - Sea Raiders (1941) Chapters One - Six

Junior G-Men, though the seventh overall Little Tough Guys film, was their first film serial – and it was successful. (Just how do they measure the success of what is essentially pre-show time filler? These things are like the trailers and lame trivia quizzes theaters show nowadays.) Anyway, one year later Universal released the Guys’ second serial (and their tenth film), Sea Raiders.

Now, the production of these serials was pretty much independent of the regular run of feature length Little Tough Guy films. Universal’s serial department was a separate arm, with separate creative crews. They simply employed the popular, ever-rotating Little Tough Guys troupe as their stars, maintaining their regular personas (names are never consistent, and continuity?! Ha!), and advertizing the result as a Little Tough Guys film for the name recognition.

And so we get another wartime serial with the lads, this time focusing on ship sabotage, just as concerned the actual U.S. in 1941. In the absence of the FBI’s advice, Sea Raiders takes on a much more generic propagandistic tone, simply declaring that foreign espionage = bad.


Overall, there is a significant lack of focus to this effort, a much worse serial than Junior G-Men. This is the result of some extremely muddied plotting, mostly. In Junior G-Men, the first chapter served to establish clear cut heroes and villains, and give them each clear motives that could be exploited for adventure endlessly, without convolution. Sea Raiders has a much iffier team of villainous saboteurs, with endlessly shifting schemes. The Little Tough Guys themselves have similar motivational problems, only battling the baddies at their leisure in the midst of a non-starting deportation plotline. Their foes aren’t only the villains, though, but also the police, or even their own adult allies – eh, it comes and goes, always shifting and never clear. It doesn’t help that the baddies are successful spies, half the cast convinced they’re good and working for them. Many feature narratives benefit from such cleverness, but I am convinced it is the pits for a serial.

Many more problems to get off my chest before we plunge into plot synopses. The “Little Tough Guys” are starting to grate on me mightily, with their persistent Joisey slang and loud, nasal voices screeched to the rafters. Hell, every actor in Sea Raiders is content to merely shriek. Add to that pronunciation such as “bruddah,” “hoid,” “wid,” “coppah,” “faggedaboutit,” and you’ve got 1-dimensional characters with practically no redeeming characteristics. Somehow it’s all about context, and the “Little Tough Guys” aren’t nearly as appealing as Junior G-Men made ‘em – I cannot account for the precise difference, but trust me.

The aural torment doesn’t stop with the dialogue. The soundtrack is rancid too, a random and repetitious playlist of butchered classical music, mostly Rossini (but also verifiably Dukas). It is quite disconcerting to hear, every 8 minutes, that same “Thieving Magpie” piece most associated with droogs raping and rampaging in A Clockwork Orange. And serialists Ford Beebe and John Rawlins are no Kubricks, they aren’t.

It’s not all horrible. The stunt work is at a high level, and most decidedly the. Consider, all serial write-ups list the stuntmen in the same breath as the nominal actors. Let’s give ‘em their due: Bud Geary, Eddie Parker, Tom Steele, Bud Wolfe, Duke York. Given the maritime setting now employed, there is a lot of potential, used wisely. If only there was something for these impressive gags to be hanged onto…


CHAPTER ONE: THE RAIDER STRIKES

This story’s gonna be a beast to get a handle on. Most basically, there is a “Sea Raider” out at sea raiding – specifically, using mined torpedoes to sink munitions ships on a daily basis. (Sea Raiders has a hell of a body count – all in stock footage.) The villains, as far as I can best gauge, are Carl Tonjes (Reed Hadley) and Captain Elliot Carlton (Edward Keane) – but it’s no help that at least two other captains both look just like Carlton, have very similar names, yet are good guys…maybe. (The cast suffers from the occasional B-movie problem that everyone looks exactly the same – “Little Tough Guys” excepted, naturally, as I can finally tell those guys apart. This even applies to the females! It’s as though casting directors had a type.)

At the docks is Tom Adams (John McGuire), the lover and/or brother of Aggie (Mary Field), herself the standard older sister of lead “Tough Guy” Billy Halop – here playing another Billy, as usual, which is as lazy as it is convenient. (That Billy refers to Tom as his brother – excuse me, “bruddah” – is where the confusion arises, possibly out of misdirected script writing.) Tom is the inventor of a brand new torpedo boat, which the Sea Raiders wish to steal – both it and its blueprints, because the more MacGuffins, the better. Oddly, Tom helps them out of sheer stupidity, even while he occasionally realizes they’re stealing his torpedo boat. I hate this movie.

As for Billy and his gang of juveniles, now granted nautical variations on their standard monosyllabic monikers (Bilge, Butch, Swab, Lug), they are hounded mercilessly and purposelessly by harbor cop (or dock dick) Brack (William Hall), who may himself be a villain or may not be, depending on who’s writing that day and what threats are needed. Brack has threatened to deport the Little Tough Guys (to the desert!), and their main motivation now is to escape his watch and take a rowboat down to Mexico. This is odd. And this’ll be their intent for the first several chapters, until they’ve finally pieced together the need to battle the Sea Raiders, as per the serial’s title.

Oh, and with a cast of over a dozen (many of whom I’m not even bothering with), there is a similar over-large cast of ships. [Screaming in rage, angering neighbors.] Even the danged sets all look the same, so it took me again three damned chapters to work out the villains’ boat is the fishing barge The Pelican. Arrggh!


Whatever, anger subsists as The Dolphin is exploded by torpedoes, and its flaming hulk hurtles towards the Little Tough Guys, out on their dingy dinghy. Hooray, maybe they’ll die early!

CHAPTER TWO: FLAMING TORTURE

Or simply survive anyway, because we said so. I hate cheap serials.


Around now the Sea Raiders, whomever they all are, start stealing Tom’s torpedo boat piecemeal – Why must they do this, when they’ve been successfully torpedoing boats left and right anyway?! (There’d be no plot otherwise.) Meanwhile, the Little Tough Guys start their grand adventure of…collecting groceries. I am dead serious. They just keep on “lucking” into a deadly situation at the end of each reel. They’re damnably not proactive, though. I hate them. They go to their hideout, blah blah blah, comic mishaps, blah blah, steal lettuce heads from a naval warehouse (?), blah blah blah.


This warehouse randomly catches fire while Billy and Tony (Huntz Hall, second-in-command) are inside. This is due to the pure idiocy of someone I later realize is meant to be a villain. Again, because the universe of the movie serial is doggedly determined to kill its heroes, at least until offering up countless miraculous survivals. The first half of that now: warehouse collapse!

CHAPTER THREE: THE TRAGIC CRASH

Until it turns out they retcon what we just saw, and rather than the very visceral crushing of two preteens which leant me so much sudden delight, instead Billy axes his way out of the warehouse. And then Brack shoots a pistol at him, due to some brain aneurism I do not follow. Because dialogue insists he is a “good guy.” Uh?

The Sea Raiders know the kids saw their goon in the warehouse. This gives them a scant reason to wish the Little Tough Guys dead (I mean, apart from general annoyance, schaudenfreude). Because they think these boys will tell the police, or whatever. Of course, they’re doing no such thing, and it’s only the villains’ persistent attempts to murder children which cause children to start investigating the villains. And when they do, they still don’t call the cops (the Sea Raiders’ greatest fear of all!). Instead, they simply bungle their way over to The Pelican in broad daylight, then wonder why a sudden fistfight/shootout suddenly breaks out.


Now, Chapter Three ends in a motorboat chase – a damned good motorboat chase, I must say, which seems to have been wholly pilfered by Spielberg for the equivalent chase in The Last Crusade – and knowing the Indiana Jones films are just super-slick repackagings of old serials, that makes sense. Now, wouldn’t it be easy to script that chase in as the kids flee The Pelican? So the villains are chasing ‘em? Eh, it’s not what they do. Instead, the Little Tough Guys row (not motor) back to the docks, where the police chase the hell out of them. What the good goddamn hell for?! (Whatever good work the stuntmen achieve by twisting around ships and piers is destroyed by the fucking eleventh playing of “Thieving Magpie.”

Then suddenly a model motorboat carrying model boys (but not model citizens) crashes into a model dock. Ka-blammo!

CHAPTER FOUR: THE RAIDER STRIKES AGAIN


CHAPTER FIVE: FLAMES OF FURY

Actually paying attention to the expository scrolling scrawl, I learn that now the cops suspect our heroic band of juvenile delinquents of stealing the torpedo boat (oh suuuuuure, they’re the international spies!). For this reason, the kids hide aboard The Astoria, but seeing as it’s a ship in Sea Raiders other than The Pelican, it is due for an imminent torpedoing…


As footage from the missing Chapter Four unspools, it seems the boys even managed themselves into a fistfight as they try to escape the craft. They do accomplish this task, even while knocking out various innocent bystanders on The Astoria. So those people perish horribly in the ensuing explosion, purely because our “heroes” made sure they would. Anger…rising! The sickening assessment Toby offers doesn’t quell my rage: “Those guys didn’t have a Chinaman’s chance.” Say what?!

Then the baddies near, so another damn boat chase ensues. Actually, just the same damn boat chase as before. Sigh!


The Little Tough Guys reassess whatever the plotline currently is back in their hideout incongruously beneath the docks. Apparently, there was a squealer in Chapter Four, who’s now been IDed and forgiven. It’s like I never even saw it!

Oh, and the boys pass on a note to Tom naming a goon – not the main baddies, though they are known to the Little Tough Guys now, ‘cause then this movie’d be over. Seven chapters early. God forbid that happen! So of course Tom takes this new knowledge to the main villains, not knowing them the main villains. And for inscrutable reasons, these Sea Raiders decide the time has prematurely come to violently explode The Pelican, and transfer their stock over to a secret evil island base – Okay, that sounds like fun!

And for whatever reason, the Little Tough Guys have returned to The Pelican, to attempt the same thing they attempted in Chapter Three – to search it for the precious, precious blueprints. It turns out the same way as before – in sudden fistfights. And as in Chapter Two, a lurking goon accidentally sets the entire explosive hold on fire with a cigar ember. No matter, the ensuing fire and explosion are what the Sea Raiders wanted anyway!


CHAPTER SIX: BLASTED FROM THE AIR

Okay, everyone calm down. Wanna know how out of control this “storyline” is? Here’s the first sentence of Chapter Six’s “story so far” summation, in all its teenaged awkwardness: “BILLY and TOBY suspect Captain Nelson of stealing Tom Adams’ torpedo boat, of which they are accused.” Huh?! Why can’t “Bad guys wanna kill children” suffice?

This time, it turns out the kids survived The Pelican’s explosion (by explosives) by escaping in the freshly fueled torpedo boat. They immediately start considering taking the thing on down to Mexico (are we still on this?!) when the Sea Raiders force them to remain in their own serial by opening fire on them. But in the next predictable boat chase, it’s no surprise a torpedo boat can outrun a row boat. That wasn’t very suspenseful.

Oh, and the cops chase the kids for a bit too. Because, or something.


What is going on now? There was a goon unconscious in the torpedo boat, which the cops retrieve. So he’s sent to the hospital, but Tonjes kills him before anything can come of this thread. Oh well, it ate up most of the reel.

Now the kids are back on the Sea Raiders’ next boat, post-Pelican, whatever this one is called. Again they’re seeking those same blueprints the scheme apparently hinges on, having forgotten about their recent lust for Mexico. And now there is a sudden seaplane in the sea, because this chapter is called “Blasted From the Air” and therefore must have an airplane-based cliffhanger. Indeed, Billy and Toby get chased out of this latest ship (which somehow doesn’t catch randomly on fire), fly off in the plane, and are suddenly shot down. I could’ve written this whole paragraph just by looking at the beginning title card!

And the plane crashes into the docks. I’m certain the survival explanation Chapter Seven dredges up will be consistent with that in the missing Chapter Four. That’ll be nice, though I can’t say I’m looking forward to the rest of this mess. Oh well, maybe that evil island will bring some semblance of comprehensibility to this abomination.




Related posts:
• No. 1 Little Tough Guy (1938)
• Nos. 2 - 15 (1938 - 1943)
• No. 7 Junior G-Men (1940) Chapters One - Three
Chapters Four - Eight
Chapters Nine - Twelve
• No. 10 Sea Raiders (1941) Chapters Seven - Twelve