This 15-episode serial was released by Columbia in 1951, and is an authorized adaptation of DuMont's live daily teleseries (1949-55). The story is credited to George Plympton, who was obviously provided with some 1950s Captain Video scripts for inspiration and background. Stills or kinescopes from the broadcasts were evidently also provided, since the serial's set of Captain Video's secret mountain headquarters control room is a close copy of the 1950 TV version, but with dozens of times more meters, switches and knobs. Even perennial foe Dr. Pauli and his various evil inventions are referred to. In fact, the villain, Dr. Tobor, at one point raids the warehouse where Dr. Pauli's inventions have been kept safe under lock and key since Pauli's "mysterious disappearance," and appropriates such Pauli patents as the Cloak of Invisibility for his own evil use.

The directors were Spencer Gordon Bennett and Wallace A. Grissell; the script is credited to Royal Cole, Sherman Lowe and Joe Poland. Special effects are credited to Jack Ericson, and are sometimes effective, but (as usual for Columbia serials) rely too heavily on crude, jerky cartoon-style animation. Props were constructed by Wes Morton, and included bulky ray guns with huge circular fins, called "electronic pistols," which fired a burst of flame and sparks, as well as Cosmic Vibrators, awkward pistols which had to be pressed up against a bad guy to shake him slowly unconsious. As on the TV series, "space helmets" tended to be dust or gas masks.

The chaotic plot kicks in with Video Rangers stationed all over the globe reporting to scientific genius Captain Video (Judd Holdren) and his assistants Gallagher (Don Harvey) and Ranger Rogers (Jimmy Stark) concerning wild, unusual weather. Video immediately thinks of earlier weather-control experiments of Dr. Tobor (George Eldredge), and the Captain and the Video Ranger (Larry Stewart) promptly pay Tobor a visit. Tobor denies guilt, but looks and acts obviously guilty, and has lurking around his lab an even more sinister-looking lab assistant, Retner (the great Skelton Knaggs), so as soon as Video and the Ranger leave, he panics and escapes in a "space projectile"--- there is no explanation for why he and every other character, even hitherto-unknown space aliens, have access to and use a small space ship of precisely the same appearance; maybe this is the futuristic equivalent of a DeSoto coupe! Escapes to where? Well, Dr. Tobor, you see, is secretly in cahoots with the sinister dictator and scientific genius Vultura (Gene Roth) of the dirigible Planet Atoma. Vultura is currently in the process of conquering the desolate planet Theros, but as soon as it is secured, he's ready to turn his attention to earth, and is well aware Captain Video is the only man who can stop him! Can even the combined genius of Dr. Tobor and Vultura be enough to eliminate Captain Video and his Rangers? Be sure to see next week's episode!

Captain Video and all the other Rangers except Gallagher wear dark military uniforms, football helmets and aviator's goggles at all times. They also have high, fur-lined boots and bulky ammo belts with an attached huge pouch, big enough to hold two different, oddly-shaped ray guns, sticking out from the left hip. Dr. Tobor wears a dark pinstripe suit, like Dr. Pauli, and even sports a mustache, but also wears a goatee, unlike Pauli. The natives of Atoma dress like Saracen warriors of about the 12th Century, AD, except for leather miniskirts and tights (!), and are mainly armed with spears, despite the many superscientific inventions of Vultura, while the pacifistic inhabitants of Theros led by the elderly Alpha (William Fawcett) dress like desert Arabs. Many props, sets and costumes from this serial, as well as several story ideas, were recycled later in THE LOST PLANET (1953), which also starred Holdren and Roth. Probably the most interesting, and weirdest, prop is a "space platform" invented by Vultura. It's a low table on top of which two people can sit on a small bench, in front of a control panel with essentially no controls, and with a flagpole-like structure sticking up at one corner. The characters use it for various purposes, and it never looks less than totally comical, whether in flight or on the ground. The goofy-looking, fedora-wearing cardboard robots apparently first seen in Joan Crawford's early 1930s musical DANCING LADY make a brief and unwelcome appearance also in two chapters. They should have been left to melt in the underground city of Murania!

The acting is highly variable in quality, with Gene Roth giving a good performance as Vultura, and George Eldredge coming across ok as Tobor, despite the large amount of exposition his character has to do. Judd Holdren often reads his lines as if he's seeing them for the first time on a board held out of camera range--- a problem that got worse in his subsequent movie work--- and Larry Stewart is excruciatingly miscast as the Video Ranger. [Stewart went on to fame as a director, writer and producer. There's a public service award named in his honor today.] In a number of scenes throughout the serial, all the characters pronounce "video" as "vee-dee-oh," suggesting that one of the directors was at first not sure how this very unfamiliar (in 1950) word should be pronounced!

Books dealing with sound serials have not been kind to CAPTAIN VIDEO. The Great Movie Serials by Jim Harmon and Don Glut (Doubleday, 1972) says, "The Captain Video serial, with its shoddy sets, unbelievable constumes, phony special effects, unconvincing action, and laughable plotting and dialogue showed that the serial had but a few remaining years before extinction." Roy Kinnard's Science Fiction Serials (McFarland, 1998) says "Nothing illustrates the desperate nature of serial production in the early 1950s better than Columbia's CAPTAIN VIDEO.... It was a sad day when serial producers went begging to their most successful rival [TV] for new material. ... One of Columbia's dullest serial efforts."

Here's what we at Roaring Rockets think. To supply background for our remarks, we mention that we have been watching serials in the theatre, then on TV and then on video tape, since the late 1940s. To us, this serial was a nostalgic delight all the way through. Part of the shabbiness is clearly a deliberate attempt to copy the TV program, particularly its wildly inappopriate costumes. The serial is pretty faithful in isolated spots to its TV original, as it existed in 1950. Because the TV program was itself inspired by the serials, the result is a unique, self-referencing concoction, quite unlike any other serial ever made. Because both movie serials and live TV adventure programs vanished roughly simultaneously in 1956, there could never have been another serial such as CAPTAIN VIDEO, before or after the Golden Age of TV.

Columbia serials are always disappointing compared to the best of the Republic serials, particularly as regards the poorly-staged and un-choreographed fist fights, and the lack of miniatures and photographic effects, but CAPTAIN VIDEO is in many ways better and more visually interesting than roughly contemporary Republic serials such as RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON, which is an outright bore. The chapter endings are extremely unimaginative, with Captain Video being apparently blown up by some ray or bomb, while riding in some vehicle, nearly a dozen times. And too much of the serial's running time is expended in antics involving late 1940s-model cars and trucks racing along dirt roads, amidst rocks familiar from literally thousands of B Westerns--- in the 22nd Century, no less! And Captain Video's "secret mountain headquarters" looks like a small termite mound!

Judd Holdren (1915-74) had a very short film career, stretching from 1949 to 1960. Most of his roles are uncredited bit parts. CAPTAIN VIDEO was not only his first starring role, but virtually the first for which he received screen credit. After serials COMMANDO CODY and LOST PLANET (both 1953), he sank again to uncredited bits. He also got work in TV from 1949 - 55, mainly in westerns such as THE LONE RANGER. However, he did appear in ROCKY JONES, SPACE RANGER (as Ranger Higgins) and DRAGNET (a bit part as a cop). After 1960 he went into selling insurance full time. He committed suicide on March 11, 1974. Like Al Hodge, he died before it became customary for journalists to seek out and interview forgotten film actors from 1930 - 50 or forgotten TV actors from the 1950s; very little is therefore known or documented about his life. Physically, he was handsome, energetic and had a deep, commanding voice. [In CAPTAIN VIDEO, he rarely stops running.] However, his line deliveries vary from merely competent to absolutely awful. He lacked the charisma to be a leading man, and was too handsome and untrained to be a character actor, although he tried. [One of his last roles in an important film was as an elderly lawyer in JEANNE EAGLES (1957).] When he accepted the role of Captain Video, he may not have been aware that starring in a serial almost always marked the end, not the beginning, of a career in films.

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