The Green Hornet (1939) Serial - starring Gordon Jones and Keye Luke

After watching the second serial, I found that the library had the first serial.

Overall, I liked The Green Hornet Strikes better.  Gordon Jones is okay in the role of Britt Reid and The Green Hornet but his voice as the Hornet is dubbed and the face mask doesn't cover his jaw line so it is obvious that he is just moving his jaw randomly reminding me of a talking animal like Lancelot Link.  I wonder if he wasn't the first choice because Hull fits the mask better in the second serial.

On the plus side Kato gets more to do and it is stated that Kato invented the gas gun, the Black Beauty as well as the secret garage and ways in and out of the garage. Compared to Bruce Lee, Keye Luke does very little but here he gets to karate chop a few people. 

 I didn't mention in the last review but I love the outfits that The Green Hornet and Kato wear in these serials,  they are effective disguises that are easy to take off which is used at least once in this serial to allow The Green Hornet to escape.

Each instalment is pretty much self contained as The Hornet tackles the rackets.  The head racketeer communicates through a speaker, during one of the meetings I jokingly referred to it as Charlie's Devils as it serves as a twisted precursor to Charlie's Angels.

After this I'll be hunting down more serials as I enjoyed  both these. 

The Green Hornet Strikes Again (1940) Warren Hull, Keye Luke

I went to the library the other day and I see that they had a copy of the second  Green Hornet Serial.  I grabbed it and I watched my first serial. 

This was so good.  My previous exposure to The Green Hornet had come from the 1960's TV series starring Van Williams and Bruce Lee and the 2011 movie with Seth Rogan and Jay Chou.  In both versions, Kato was a very important part of the team, providing the fighting skills.  In this version, Kato does little more than drive the Black Beauty but there is the suggestion that he does invent many of the gadgets The Green Hornet uses.  So that was surprising, but I liked Keye Luke and I'd seen him before as Number 1 Son in some of the Charlie Chan movies I'd watched a few years back.  (Funnily enough I'd read that Bruce Lee had been involved in a series "Number 1 Son" as Lee Chan that never got made - so there's that connection as well)

Warren Hull makes a good Britt Reid/ Green Hornet.  According to IMDB he took over from Gordon Jones who played the role in the first serial.  Hull had also played Richard Wentworth/The Spider in two serials and Mandrake The Magician in a serial.  I'm curious why Jones didn't come back but Hull does fine in the roles.

Lenore Casey also has a smaller role than I expected.  There was a lot of fun banter between Michael Axford and Ed Lowery as rival reporters.  Axford in particular made me laugh several times with his exaggerations.  Lowery plays a trick on Axford knocking off his hat several times through the serial, that gets a nice payoff in the final chapter where Axford gets his revenge.

Axford is a reporter but he also serves as Britt's bodyguard and lives in Britt's apartment which causes several problems for The Green Hornet.

It was interesting to watch this as each chapter was mostly  a standalone story with the Hornet tackling a different racket from the syndicate each one bringing him closer to the mastermind.  In many ways I can see the influence on shows like Teen Wolf that has a season long arc (although the latter works in the opposite way teasing what comes in the next episode).

I loved this serial and was surprised to see that there were two episodes of the radio show on the second disk.  I'll be looking out for the first serial and the other serials that Warren Hull made.