When last we left our delinquent heroes in the lurch in Sea Raiders…
Damned if I know what was going on! It was something to do with using torpedoes to steal torpedoes to use to torpedo boats even though the villains were already torpedoing boats. Other than the “Little Tough Guys,” every character went through a “thinking they’re the villain for a few minutes” phase. Beyond that, motivations changed faster than an incontinent’s pants, and the soundtrack got by through repeating the same inappropriate one-minute sample dozens of times. This movie is horrible.
CHAPTER SEVEN: VICTIMS OF THE STORM
Oh right, and this plane had just crashed into the dock with the two most “important” Little Tough Guys.
But they’re just okay anyway. Eh.
Now, so far Sea Raiders has tried to apply a twisty, turny spy formula to a movie serial, which the format cannot really sustain – a major source of my hatred. Happily, the latter half pretty much drops that outright in favor of a straightforward adventure story – much more appropriate. So starting as though from square one, main villain Tonjes (Reed Hadley) outright murders coconspirator Carlton, thus eliminating the central source of confusion. Also ignore Tonjes’ previous obsession with stealing the torpedo boat design of Tom Adams (John McGuire), for now all he intends to do is go to his sudden, super-secret desert island, and merely “be a villain.” Much simpler!
The Little Tough Guys spend the start of Chapter Seven also wrapping up loose ends. Using that previously contentious torpedo boat, they rescue Tonjes’ former victims from the sea, and return them to shore as though nothing had happened. This accomplished, a henchman named Nelson (Stanley Blystone) shanghais all but one of the Little Tough Guys, and sets sail aboard his 18th century sloop. The reason for this? I’m…really not sure, but neither am I complaining, for what it engenders.
A dastardly storm closes in, and the kids are released from the fo’c’sle to aid on deck. Arr! Plenty of context free but entertaining storm footage plays, as at last they take true advantage of their nautical premise. And all hands appear lost!
CHAPTER EIGHT: DRAGGED TO THEIR DOOM
As the next chapter starts up, it takes a while for the next events to become clear. First of all, it seems the storm has plummeted all the characters into a wormhole, as it is now apparently the 19th century, in a perfect pastiche of “Moby-Dick.” One schooner stops to dredge up Nelson and his two co-henchmen, as a totally separate schooner then rescues the five bobbing boys. Well…it turns out it’s just one ship, simply filmed sans competence. Considering this is the newfound straightforward portion of Sea Raiders, you can imagine how awful the first half is.
And then the kids ID Nelson and his goons and reveal that they are goons. Fisticuffs transpire, the henchman landlubbers are stowed away in the brig (Arr!), and the kids become the cabin boys of Captain Meredith (uncredited).
Meanwhile, the various adult good guys (Tom, Brack, Aggie, Leah – some whom I’ve never mentioned before, and shall continue to ignore) head out together in a hydroplane to scan for the boys, hearing all about the storm. Rather they hover over Tonjes’ evil yacht, on its way back to the evil island of evil. Tonjes shoots the plane down and takes all these people prisoner – because this is the simple situation now favored.
It turns out Meredith’s ship is a whaler, of all things, right out of 1848 (WWII-era B-movies also see nothing wrong with 1875 cowboys battling Nazis, so I’m desensitized to such nonsense). Because the chapter break is coming up, with no danger looming, Meredith up and announces they’se a-goin’ whale huntin’. “Thar she blows!” actual dialogue states. And so, for the mere danger-courting hell of it, all five Little Tough Guys (Lug, the sixth, having been taken captive with Tom et al) go along to harpoon themselves a cephalopod. (This whole section is entirely left field, and completely purposeless in the overall narrative, but aping Melville is fun, and therefore it’s the best thing so far. Besides, they had stock footage of whales just lying around.)
The specific form of imminent doom this hunt takes is the promised drowning of Little Tough Guy Swab (Hal E. Chester). With his leg bound in the harpoon line towed by the whale, all Ahab-like, Billy (Billy Halop) dives in to cut the rope. But the whale is diving!
CHAPTER NINE: BATTLING THE SEA BEAST (And this title doesn’t even refer to the whale!)
…Let’s talk cliffhangers. More specifically, cliffhanger survival. There are several ways to resolve a threat, with varying degrees of cleverness. Lamest is when the filmmakers simply declare the characters survived, because they had to. Best is when a clever, unexpected solution is hit upon, by the characters, to escape last second. This whale scenario rather splits the difference, as we already saw Billy cutting Swab’s rope. Thus it is no new shock when Chapter Nine reveals that very action simply worked. It isn’t a cheat, but it offers nothing new either. Oh well.
Formula having been temporarily satisfied via whales, the crew returns to their ship. Here they discover Nelson’s goon squad has escaped, and affected a mutiny with promise of some buried pirate’s treasure we’ve never heard of before. (It could be a lie, but more likely this is some random new strand the screenwriters have invented, and won’t follow through on.) Meredith is killed, his distracting function fulfilled. Boys brigged, Toby (Huntz Hall) laments the fact that Nelson is his uncle. Huh?! Wha’?! Is everyone a family member in this thing?!
…
Oh, there’s a submarine now! This movie’s gone off the deep end, and I like it. (A directionless plot is ok in this nutty serial format, as long as one can follow it.) More awesomely, a scene follows which verifies unequivocally that this specific film inspired Indiana Jones (more so than yesterday’s Last Crusade routine). That is, Tom leaps from the yacht and swims the shark-infested waters to the sub. A sub that is en route to a secret Nazi island! Nothing much comes of Tom’s effort, as the sub crew proves villainous, and captures him, but still!
Meanwhile, nautical Nelson’s new naval…boat comes within boy-swimming range of Evil Nazi-But-We-Won’t-Say-So Island. The Little Tough Guys escape their binds – with fistfighting – and swim for it. Nelson lets them go on their way, dismissively, as he and his crew vanish from the rest of the serial for pretty much no good reason. I don’t mind.
Most of the boys make it onto the island without incident. All except Billy, since as the main character this universe has a hard-on for his death. Meaning all potentially deadly creatures are immediately beholden to attack him. This tremendous cliffhanger thus reveals the titular “Sea Beast” Universal’s stock footage vault had prepared:
Whoo!
CHAPTER TEN: PERILED BY A PANTHER
Toby dives in to save Billy, actually screaming dialogue underwater in a very strange SFX violation of God’s laws. But Toby merely saving Billy wouldn’t be a clever resolution. Instead, the solution is something straight out of a SyFy original!
It’s Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octupus! (Or Sharktopus!) Whoooo! Movie completely grinding to a halt for this, the genuine highpoint of the whole endeavor, the Little Tough Guys nasally cheer on a 4 minute aquatic battle. (The shark wins.)
Perched on this island rock, more stock footage passes by our heroes’ “view.” First up is that same submarine. They yell at it.
Then, with a consistent degree of randomness, is some contextless freighter. They too yell at this. Then the submarine blows it up – with torpedoes. Ka-boom! (Considering Tonjes has a freaking sub, Lord knows what that whole deal with the torpedo boats was in the first half.)
Tonjes has his prisoners hauled to the big, evil island’s big, evil mansion. They’re locked away, and nothing much happens, because that stock footage carnival used up most of this episode’s running time, and we must devise another near-death for Billy.
Straight out of “24” (specifically, the single stupidest part of Season Two), a goddamn jungle cat leaps right out at Billy (he chose wisely). In a glorious moment of Ed Woodian filmmaking, this is accomplished by having Halop wrestle a cat-shaped throw rug. (Cinematography factoid: black objects against a black background are hard to see.)
CHAPTER ELEVEN: ENTOMBED IN THE TUNNEL
After a generous 4 minutes of previous footage replays unedited, Swab simply shoots the beast (titles call it a “panther,” dialogue “leopard”).
The submarine footage nears the island, to load up on more torpedoes. The Little Tough Guys sneak into the evil, evil mansion and free the prisoners.
And a U.S. battle cruiser is suddenly out in the cove, in response to nothing so far, to force the climax. So Tonjes resolves to do what must happen in all climaxes: explode everything. This especially involves blowing up the munitions cache down in the cave system, where for whatever reason the good guys have now gone. The blast bursts Billy!
CHAPTER TWELVE: PAYING THE PENALTY
But he survives. This is one of the bad cliffhangers.
Now, while that battleship model was necessary to indirectly inspire explosions, its work is done and it is never seen again. Instead, the good guy themselves earn their victory, as they overtake Tonjes’ yacht in the cove, and use the many torpedoes on board to destroy the submarine model. Tonjes remains on the island, and is never seen again, so one can only assume he’s been bested. We know the movie is over anyway, because somebody makes a lame joke I shall not transcribe, and everyone guffaws heartily. The end.
Sea Raiders ends a whole lot better than it started, even though it still isn’t exactly good. But it’s no longer frustrating, as this concentration of ridiculous adventure tropes even manages to temper the “Little Tough Guys”’ nauseating acting which ran so rampant in the first half. There is a recognizable pulpy cheese to the conclusion, with cheap and seam-ridden filmmaking that just makes things that much better.
The next year would see the third and final Little Tough Guys serial, Junior G-Men of the Air, which I shall not be able to see. [Phew!] It switches over from land and sea to air, naturally, and switches up the villains from Nazis to the Japanese. Which explains why there isn’t a single Asian actor in the cast, the ostensibly “Japanese” lead baddie played by Lionel Atwill (most famous for playing Professor Moriarty). (The closest thing to “Asian” this film gets is a Turk, Turhan Bey.) There is very little other information on Junior G-Men of the Air, apart from evidence indicating something every bit as formulaic as its serial compatriots. The best I can do is list out the chapter titles, and close the book on this Little Tough Guys franchise.
CHAPTER ONE: WINGS AFLAME
CHAPTER TWO: THE PLUNGE OF PERIL (This chapter title gets reused frequently.)
CHAPTER THREE: HIDDEN DANGER
CHAPTER FOUR: THE TUNNEL OF TERROR
CHAPTER FIVE: THE BLACK DRAGON STRIKES
CHAPTER SIX: FLAMING HAVOC
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE DEATH MIST
CHAPTER EIGHT: SATAN FIRES THE FUSE
CHAPTER NINE: SATANIC SABOTAGE
CHAPTER TEN: TRAPPED IN A BURNING ‘CHUTE
CHAPTER ELEVEN: UNDECLARED WAR
CHAPTER TWELVE: CIVILIAN COURAGE CONQUERS
Related posts:
• No. 1 Little Tough Guy (1938)
• Nos. 2 - 15 (1938 - 1943)
• No. 7 Junior G-Men (1940) Chapters One - Three
Chapters Four - Eight
Chapters Nine - Twelve
• No. 10 Sea Raiders (1941) Chapters One - Six
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