SECRET SERVICE IN DARKEST AFRICA
From 1943, this is a solid, satisfying chapterplay from Republic. To be honest, my tastes run more to the fantastic and larger-than-life but SECRET SERVICE still delivers more than enough surprises and action. It's a sequel to the earlier G-MEN VS THE BLACK DRAGON where Rod Cameron as Rex Bennett, top government agent, tackled Japanese saboteurs (that was the one where a Japanese spy was smuggled into the USA inside a mummy case). Within the same year, Cameron was back as Rex, but the title didn't hint at it. There was no REX BENNETT franchise as we would have today ("G-MEN II: DARKEST AFRICA"--yuck), and probably many kids sitting in the theatres on Saturday afternoons never made the connection.
Despite the title, the story takes place in and around Casablanca, in North Africa, hardly 'Darkest Africa'. The premise is a bit more interesting than the routine tracking down of crooks or spies. A German officer named Baron Von Rommler (hmm..wonder where they got that name?) is impersonating a captured Sheik, working to raise support for the Nazi cause among the Arabs. To be successful he needs one of those sacred artifacts that always lead to chase and confrontations ("I'll take that dagger now, if you don't mind.")
Rod Cameron is tall and athletic enough to be completely convincing as he gets in more fist fights in one serial than most heavyweight boxers survive in a career. (Working with guys like Dale Van Sickel and Tom Steele was also helpful.) He faces one death trap after another, including the classic situation of being tied face up under a swinging razor-edged pendulum Edgar Allan Poe would have appreciated. There is another of Republic's big raygun cannons, this time the 'Munitions Disintegrator', joining THE CRIMSON GHOST's 'Cyclotrode' and KING OF THE ROCKETMEN's "Sonic Decimator' as impressive science-fiction gadgets. Also, as Bennett, Cameron wore a snappy semi-military uniform, complete with boots, billed cap and gunbelt. It always helps to have the hero in a distictive outfit, partly to make identification easier but also for the sheer mystique.
It was a bit dismaying to suddenly be hearing music here that I had always associated with KING OF THE ROCKETMEN and had thought was composed for that serial (where it seemed so appropriate). I'll probably start spotting more and more repeated stunts, crashes and explosions as the stack of re-watched serials gets higher.
Watching this serial and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK in close proximity is very enlightening. The more I view old cliffhangers, the more bits and pieces of them I spot in the Indiana Jones trilogy. That's not a criticism, by any means. Movies have been polishing and reviving earlier stunts and gimmicks since they began, as every art form does. Still, in 1980 it must have seemed that the classic cliffhangers were forgotten by all but a handful of film buffs and fans. If the VCR and DVD hadn't made these great pieces of entertainment easily available, part of their spirit would have survived in RAIDERS and its sequels.
