Hop Harrigan | |
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Directed by | Derwin Abrahams |
Written by | Jon L. Blummer (adapted from the comic strip by) Ande Lamb (original screenplay) George H. Plympton (original screenplay) |
Based on | |
Produced by | Sam Katzman |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Ira H. Morgan |
Edited by | Earl Turner |
Music by | Lee Zahler |
Production company | Sam Katzman Productions |
Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 15 chapter serial |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Hop Harrigan (aka Hop Harrigan America's Ace of the Airways) (1946) is a Columbia film serial, based on the Hop Harrigan comic books by DC Comics. [1] The serial comprised 15 two-reel chapters with Derwin Abrahams as the director, and Sam Katzman, the producer. [2] Columbia Pictures was one of the last Hollywood studios to continue in postwar years with the serial format. By 1947, Universal Pictures discontinued their serials, with only Republic Pictures and Columbia continuing with serials. The last serial was Columbia's Blazing the Overland Trail (1956). [3]
Hop Harrigan (William Bakewell), a top Air Corps pilot, leaves the military and he and his mechanic, "Tank" Tinker (Sumner Getchell), open up a small charter air service. They are hired by J. Westly Arnold (Emmett Vogan) to fly an inventor, Dr. Tobor (John Merton), to his secret laboratory, where he is working on a new and powerful energy machine.
A mysterious villain named "The Chief Pilot" (Wheeler Oakman), however, is also determined to have the new energy machine for his own purposes. He uses a destructive raygun to cripple Hop's aircraft and kidnaps Dr. Tobor. Hop and Tank, aided by Gail Nolan (Jennifer Holt) and her younger brother, Jackie (Robert "Buzz" Henry), finally overcome the criminals only find a bigger threat to them all within their group.
Dr. Tobor is insane and has a hideous plan to destroy the earth. Only Hop can stop him.
Hop Harrigan was based on Jon l. Blummer's All-American Comics and associated radio series. [5] The serial featured location shooting at an airport, but relied heavily on studio sets. [6] The aircraft in Hop Harrigan included a Boeing-Stearman Kaydet, Bellanca Cruisair and a Stinson Junior. [7]
Author and film critic, Andrew C. Cline wrote in In the Nick of Time (1984) that Hop Harrigan is "... a fairly action-filled cliffhanger...[and the] action was well paced, making this chapterplay as convincing and successful as it was meant to be". [5]
The Crimson Ghost is a 1946 American film serial directed by Fred C. Brannon and William Witney. Produced by Republic Pictures and written by Albert DeMond, Basil Dickey, Jesse Duffy, and Sol Shor, it was the last serial directed by Witney. It is divided into twelve chapters and stars Charles Quigley as a criminologist who attempts to thwart the efforts of the eponymous villain to steal a device that can render electrical devices powerless. The serial also stars Linda Stirling, Clayton Moore, and I. Stanford Jolley.
Hop Harrigan is a fictional character published by All-American Publications. He appeared in American comic books, radio serials and film serials. He was created by Jon Blummer, and was a popular hero originally through the 1940s, during the events of World War II.
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A serial film,film serial, movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, generally advancing weekly, until the series is completed. Usually, each serial involves a single set of characters, protagonistic and antagonistic, involved in a single story, which has been edited into chapters after the fashion of serial fiction and the episodes cannot be shown out of order or as a single or a random collection of short subjects.