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Jul 28, 2019

10 Forgotten Musclemen of Movie Serials


Between 1936 and 1955, you didn't just go to a movie; you went to a whole evening's entertainment, with cartoons, newsreels, two features, and a serial -- a cliffhanging, 12-15 chapter adventure, Western, or science fiction series designed to fill the seats week after week as audiences wondered "How will the hero get out of this jam?"

Three main studios, Columbia, Republic, and Universal, churned out dozens of serials every year, so they needed lots of action heroes.  Some became famous later, in feature films and on tv, and others faded away quickly, but they all offered buddy-bonding and occasional glimpses of biceps and bulges.  Here are the top 10 musclemen of the movie serials:

1. Buster Crabbe may have died in 1983, but his fame -- and exceptional physique -- live on. He was a beefcake staple for 30 years, playing Tarzan and Tarzan clones (1933), cowboys Red Barry and Billy the Kid, and futuristic space heroes Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.  Lots of scripts called for him to get his shirt ripped off.


2. Herman Brix competed in the Olympics as Bruce Bennett, then gave Buster Crabbe some competition with the serials The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935) and Tarzan and the Green Goddess (1938).  He also stripped down to play Kioga in Hawk of the Wilderness (1938).

3. Former college athlete Charles Starrett was best known for the Durango Kid series, but he also got torn out of his clothes in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), to be tortured and turned into a zombie (left).


4. Gordon Jones (left) died in 1963, so he isn't well known to the Boomer generation, but in his day he was a well known face and physique.  Catch his exposed biceps in an early version of The Green Hornet in the 1941 serial.

5. Kane Richmond played the adult mentor/boyfriend to teenage Frankie Darro in a series of 1930s "Thrill-o-Ramas," plus some Charlie Chan mysteries, Westerns, and beefcake-heavy boxing movies.   His main serial was the superheroic Spy Smasher (1942).  He retired to open a hair salon.


6. The rugged Tom Tyler had a long career in Westerns, but flexed his muscles as two comic superheroes brought to life in movie serials: The Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941) and The Phanton (1943)


7. Gerald Mohr played a pulp detective named The Lone Wolf (1946, 1947) and narrated the first season of The Lone Ranger series on tv (1949-50). 




8. Speaking of The Lone Ranger, before Clayton Moore became identified with the Masked Man (1949-1957), he had a long career in movies and serials, mostly Westerns, naturally.

9. Kirk Alyn never disrobed on camera, but his muscular frame was displayed in a Superman costume in the only serials about the original superhero, Superman (1948) and Atom Man v. Superman (1950).










10. Jock Mahoney played a rather long-in-the-tooth Tarzan in Tarzan Goes to India (1962), but he also starred in some serials, such as Cody of the Pony Express (1950) and Roar of the Iron Horse (1951).  




11 comments:

  1. Buster Crabbe really made an early impression on me when I saw the Flash Gordon serials on tv- but Buck Rogers is even more homoerotic

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    1. You can find shots of Buster Crabbe's butt on PornHub, the rare pre-Code male nudity.

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    2. You might be referring to scenes from "Search for Beauty" (1934) a pre-code film about a fitness magazine. There is very revealing male locker room set.

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  2. What? No Steve Reeves?

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    1. Did Steve Reeves do movie serials? I thought they were before his time. He was more active in peplum in the 1950s

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    2. Steve Reeves was not a movie serial star but I would have included Ray Crash Corrigan who starred in westerns and the ridiculous fun "Undersea Kingdom" (1936)

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    3. I'm not familiar with him,but I'll look him up. Google Images seems to show him shirtless in "Undersea Kingdom" and another movie where he's lining up with other shirtless guys for an examination of some sort.

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    4. He wasn’t really forgotten was he?

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    5. Only movie buffs remember stars from more than 20 years ago.

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  3. "Spy Smasher" is an excellent movie serial. "Captain Marvel" is also one of the best. Tom Tyler was a beautiful man, worth seeing even when he didn't strip down.

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  4. Ray "Crash" Corrigan had some wrestling sequences in the silly Undersea Kingdom series and Jock Mahoney wrestled ,boxed and pretty much street fought Gordon Scott in Tarzan the Magnificent. Really great fight sequence between these two Tarzans.

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