Theme Week!
1 Serial, 3 Chapters!
The Whispering Shadow (Mascot Pictures, 1933)
Here's three posters from a 12 chapter serial starring the one and only Bela Lugosi. I think I have this in the video vault - but I haven't watched it if I do. I would have loved going to the movies each week and seeing a chapter of this across three months. I still really enjoy watching serials.
Until next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!
You think the serials were as dark, mysterious, and entertaining as the posters?
ReplyDeleteThese ran before the feature films, then? How long were they, typically?
Assuming they're as good as they look, they definitely would have kept me coming back from week to week. Which makes me wonder why they don't use a similar device to reel in viewers today.
Yes, though they also have a lot of silly and goofy too. The first chapter and last chapter might run longer than normal - sometimes as much as 25 or 30 minutes, but the average chapter length was 16 to 18 minutes. I think it would be interesting to see if a serial format could work to draw in viewers today - though I think in our attention challenged society the chapters would have to be much shorter - like 5 to 7 minutes - and that would leave little room for much else than escaping last week's cliffhanger and getting into this week's. Interesting proposal...
ReplyDeleteGood points. I think Netflix offers some first-run, short episode stuff. I don't know how long the episodes are, though. I guess they could bookend the serials with ads, and cut down on production costs that way...
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