Review of The fighting Devil Dogs (1938)

The Fighting Devil Dogs (1938) is a 12-chapter movie serial from Republic studios. I vaguely remember seeing it in my youth, but after watching the serial this week, I remember very little of it, so I must not have seen the entire serial. The general plot involves a villainous mad scientist known as The Lightning, and is one of the first costumed bad guys to appear, who has figured out how to utilize electricity as a weapon, both as a missile used to hit large targets, killing anyone in the vicinity, and he also uses a handheld raygun capable of electrocuting its victim.

The Fighting Devil Dogs poster - IMDB

The heroes are two young Marine Lieutenants, Grayson (Lee Powell) and Corby (Bruce Bennett credited as Herman Brix, who witness the destructive power of the missile while stationed in China, then are called back to the USA and spearhead an investigation in order to stop The Lightning.

As a costumed villain (and one of the first costumed super-villains in movie serials), the true identity of The Lightning is kept a mystery until the end of the serial. We don’t find out who he is until the last chapter, even though clues are laid out to point suspicion at various characters.

Movie serials being shot on a tight budget, and this one is no exception, often use some amount of stock footage from other serials. The Fighting Devil Dogs also used some news reel footage to provide some background for the opening chapter. Interestingly, the flying wing aircraft that The Lightning uses is credited as being seen in an earlier serial, Dick Tracy (1937), also from Republic Pictures. It is a very cool looking aircraft model and it is understandable why they chose to use it again for Devil Dogs.

The cast is darn good, with many familiar faces from other films, including the aforementioned Bruce Bennett (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Bennett) who appeared in Strategic Air Command (1955) with Jimmy Steward and Sahara (1943) with Humphrey Bogart. Lee Powell’s career was cut short when he was killed in action during World War 2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Powell_(actor)) . Darn shame as he was a good actor. John Picorri appears in the previously mentioned dick tracy serial in a similar role – the head villain’s lead henchman.

Some of the cliffhanger resolutions are fairly predictable, however most of them are well done, and carry a good sense of suspense, which is the whole point of a good cliffhanger. I don’t want to provide spoilers here, in case anyone is enticed into watching this serial. It has plenty of action, though, and the story is well written and is a forerunner of what would soon dominate the movie serial industry – costumed villains, heavy on the science fiction themes.

As Grayson and Corby work towards stopping The Lightning, there seems to be a lot of people around them that may be spies, and, certainly, one of them is a spy. Also, Professor Warfield’s (Hugh Sothern) daughter. Janet (Eleanor Stewart) is kidnapped by the Lightning, and it turns out to be someone she knows. Janet being held by The Lightning does complicate things for the heroes as they now have to resuce her as well.

Overall I really enjoyed watching The Fighting Devil Dogs, although I could have sworn I saw it when I was a kid back when local TV showed serials as part of the late Saturday Night movies, but I may have only seen a chapter or two as the Flying Wing is the only part that stood out in my memory. The story is well written, and the cast did a very good job in their performances. If you have never watched a movie serial, The Fighting Devil Dogs is a good one to start with.

The copy of The Fighting Devil Dogs that I watched is a recently restored version on DVD from The Serial Squadron. The restoration is very nice and the Blu-Ray disk played cleanly on my Sony Blu-Ray player.

I hope you enjoyed this entry on movie serials, this being the third in what will be a series of ongoing articles on these vintage films as they are an important part of film history, with many stars (including John Wayne and Leonard Nimoy) who starred in these low-budget films prior to their achieving stardom.

Thanks for stopping by.

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