Saturday Action Matinee

Manhunt of Mystery Island (1945), Chapter 1: “Secret Weapon”

I don’t know what this serial will promise, except for one thing: judging from the first chapter, there will be plentiful knock-down-drag-out fights, the kind that destroy a room — especially chairs and vases — while leaving the hero without a bruise. Count me sold!

Here’s the background: Dr. Forrest (Forrest Taylor) has invented a wonderful device called a “radiotomic transmitter,” which can relay practically limitless power to planes, ships, etc. to replace fossil fuels. Yes, oil scarcity was a concern even in 1945. Forrest and his assistants were wandering the world because of the scarcity of radium, miracle mineral which was necessary to the transmitter. Forrest disappeared somewhere on his travels, but one of his associates, an engineer named Harvey, has stowed away from their secret location to (one assumes) Los Angeles, where Forrest’s daughter Claire (Linda Stirling) and criminologist Lance Reardon (Richard Bailey) wait for word. Unfortunately, Harvey is pursued by the mysterious agents of “Captain Mephisto,” and dies literally on Reardon’s doorstep, clutching what he smuggled out of Mephisto’s grasp: the blueprints to Forrest’s transmitter.

This calls for a rescue expedition! Reardon analyzes Harvey’s clothes and finds volcanic residue; the soles of his shoes show traces of a rare sap. That narrows it down to three islands in a Pacific group, one of which — “Mystery Island” — is a former penal colony, now owned privately. Let’s start searching there!

But first — fight! Brand (Kenne Duncan), the henchman who shot Harvey, bursts into Reardon’s lab and tries to make off with the blueprints. And the altercation which follows made me realize exactly what was missing from Scouts to the Rescue: mayhem, glorious mayhem. Chairs and stools are smashed! Lab equipment thrown! Tables overturned! Bookcases upended! Jaws pummeled! Brand almost succeeds, except that Claire enter with a gun, and bullets win any game of rock-paper-scissors. Brand runs off…

…and gets back to Mystery Island to report to Captain Mephisto, or as I like to call him, “Mr. Fancypants.” He’s assumed the identity and demeanor of a pirate who frequented these islands two centuries previous, and it is he who has Forrest and his remaining assistant captive, building a working model of the transmitter (next best thing to the blueprints). Forrest is stalling on the work, obviously, hoping for an occasion to escape.

Mephisto also has a secret, to wit, his identity. As he helpfully rehearses for Brand, he can control his physical appearance through changing his “blood corpuscles.” (Actually, he does it with a Jacob’s Ladder — yay! — attached to a chair.) In reality he’s one of the four owners of Mystery Island, who are all descendants of the historical Captain Mephisto, but neither Brand nor we are allowed to know which one he is (sort of like in The Masked Marvel, but with the bad guy instead of the good guy).

Mephisto reassumes his identity as one of the owners — Hargraves, Armstrong, Braley or Melton — to greet Reardon and Claire with warm hospitality. (Yes, that’s the entire expedition.) Forrest had, they admit, been on the island for some time doing his research, and in fact his room at their villa is supposedly undisturbed. Reardon and Claire examine it and find, hidden in Forrest’s typewriter case, a map to his “secret wokshop” (which Forrest obviously didn’t need, or else he wouldn’t have left it behind in his typewriter case). Even Captain Mephisto himself, coming through a secret passage in a wall to wrest it away from Claire, can’t keep them from coming to investigate the workshop, which is where Mephisto has Forrest locked away.

Forrest, meanwhile, has an escape plan: He’s modified the transmitter to spray a “radium vapor” which will melt a hole through the wall of the workshop. So as Reardon creeps up on the entrance and gets himself into YES! another big brawl with two henchmen, Forrest and his assistant vaporize a hole in the wall and get away.

The Cliffhanger: After one thug is dispatched, Reardon and the other thug take their fight into the workshop itself, where the thug uses the transmitter as an offensive weapon. Reardon takes cover in a big wooden crate, but the transmitter’s vapors or rays of whatever cause it to burst into flames. Can Reardon get away from the deadly vapors? And will either of them ever have children?

Next Week: “Satan’s Web”