Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó, known professionally as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian–American actor, best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 horror classic Dracula, Ygor in Son of Frankenstein (1939) and his roles in many other horror films from 1931 through 1956.
William Henry Pratt, known professionally as Boris Karloff and occasionally billed as Karloff the Uncanny, was an English actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film Frankenstein (1931) established him as a horror icon, and he reprised the role for the sequels Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939). He also appeared as Imhotep in The Mummy (1932), and voiced the Grinch in, as well as narrating, the animated television special of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966), which won him a Grammy Award.
Sam Katzman was an American film producer and director. Katzman's specialty was producing low-budget genre films, including serials, which had disproportionately high returns for the studios and his financial backers.
The Black Cat is a 1934 American pre-Code horror film directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and starring Boris Karloff and Béla Lugosi. It was Universal Pictures' biggest box office hit of the year, and was the first of eight films to feature both Karloff and Lugosi. In 1941, Lugosi appeared in a comedy horror mystery film with the same title, which was also named after and ostensibly "suggested by" Edgar Allan Poe's short story.
Polly Ann Young was an American actress.
The Invisible Ray is a 1936 American science-fiction horror film directed by Lambert Hillyer. It stars Boris Karloff as Dr. Janos Rukh, a scientist who comes in contact with a meteorite composed of an element known as "Radium X". After exposure to its rays begins to make him glow in the dark, his touch becomes deadly, and he begins to be slowly driven mad. Alongside Karloff, the film's cast includes Bela Lugosi, Frances Drake, Frank Lawton, Walter Kingsford, Beulah Bondi, Violet Kemble Cooper, and Nydia Westman.
The Corpse Vanishes is a 1942 American mystery horror film starring Bela Lugosi, directed by Wallace Fox, and written by Harvey Gates. Lugosi portrays a mad scientist who injects his aging wife with fluids from virginal young brides in order to preserve her beauty. Luana Walters as a journalist and Tristram Coffin as a small-town doctor investigate and solve the disappearances of the brides. The film was produced and distributed by Monogram Pictures, and was reissued in 1949 by Favorite Films Corporation.
S O S Coast Guard is a 1937 Republic film serial. It was the seventh of the sixty-six serials made by Republic. The plot concerns the mad scientist Boroff attempting to sell a superweapon to the highest bidder, opposed by Coast Guard Lieutenant Terry Kent, for both personal and professional reasons.
The Whispering Shadow is a 1933 American pre-Code mystery serial film directed by Colbert Clark and Albert Herman and starring Béla Lugosi in his first of five serial roles. Lugosi received $10,000, the highest known salary of his career, for this film. The serial was filmed in 12 days and was the last role for actor Karl Dane.
The Phantom Creeps is a 1939 12-chapter science fiction horror serial starring Bela Lugosi as mad scientist Doctor Zorka, who attempts to rule the world by creating various elaborate inventions. In a dramatic fashion, foreign agents and G-Men try to seize the inventions for themselves.
Drums of Fu Manchu (1940) is a 15-chapter Republic serial film based on the character created by Sax Rohmer. Though using the title of the ninth novel in the series, it actually is based on numerous elements from throughout the series to that point, cherry-picked by the writers. It starred Henry Brandon, William Royle and Robert Kellard. It was directed by the successful serial team constituee by William Witney and John English and is often considered one of the best serial films ever made.
Robert F. Hill was a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor.
Luana Walters was an American motion picture actress from Los Angeles, California.
The Secret of Treasure Island is a 1938 Columbia movie serial based on the serialized Argosy Magazine story Murder at Pirate Castle (1936). The magazine story was written by L. Ron Hubbard, at the time a writer of pulp fiction who went on to found the Scientology religion.
Walter Miller was an American actor of the silent era and the early sound era. He appeared in nearly 250 films between 1911 and 1940.
Lucille Lund was an American actress. She is best known for her role in the film The Black Cat (1934).
The Mysterious Mr. Wong is a tongue-in-cheek 1934 mystery film starring Bela Lugosi as a powerful Fu Manchu type criminal mastermind of the Chinatown underworld, and Wallace Ford as a wisecracking reporter. The film is based on Harry Stephen Keeler's 1928 short story "The Strange Adventure of the Twelve Coins of Confucius" one of three stories in Keeler's book Sing Sing Nights. Despite the name of the title character and being directed by William Nigh, it has no relation to Monogram Pictures later Mr Wong film series. The character of Mr. Wong does not appear in the original story.
The Return of Chandu is a 1934 American 12-episode fantasy film serial based on the radio series Chandu the Magician. It was produced by Sol Lesser and directed by Ray Taylor, and starred Béla Lugosi as Frank Chandler. The serial was originally released to be booked by theaters in any one of three ways: as a conventional serial of twelve weekly chapters of equal running times; as a 60-minute feature film comprising the first four episodes, to be followed by the remaining 8 episodes in weekly serial format; or as a stand-alone feature comprising the first four chapters. In 1935, the remaining 8 episodes of the serial were also edited into a second feature film, of 65 minute length, released as Chandu on the Magic Island. This serial marked one of the few times that Lugosi played a protagonist rather than an antagonist: in fact, Lugosi had played Roxor, the main villain, in the 1932 film Chandu the Magician.
Nickel Flicks is an American television series that premiered on Nickelodeon in 1979 as one of the network's inaugural programs, and the first original series created for the channel after its launch. It showcased "cliffhanger" serials from the 1920s–40s, in addition to early comic one-reelers and silent short films. It was hosted by producer John Moschitta, who later became famous as the "World's Fastest Talker" in commercials for FedEx. This was Moschitta's first on-camera television role. Nickel Flicks was notably the first Nickelodeon show to be cancelled and the shortest-lived out of Nickelodeon's inaugural series; according to Moschitta, it was cancelled due to complaints about the violent nature of many of the serials.
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.
