Adventures of Smilin' Jack

• In the opening of Chapter 10, a group of men in the “Department of Internal Affairs – Territorial Division” are going over a list of names of civilian/military casualties the previous day during the attack on Pearl Harbor. One of the names mentioned is William Sickner. William A. Sickner was the cinematographer on this chapter play.
• “Fraulein von Teufel” translates more or less as “Devil Woman”. This is alluded to in the final (13th) episode, where Kageyama’s last words before dying are “Teufel. Devil.”
• Chapter Titles: 1. The High Road to Doom; 2. The Rising Sun Strikes; 3. Attacked by Bombers; 4. Knives of Vengeance; 5. A Watery Grave; 6. Escape by Clipper; 7. Fifteen Fathoms Below; 8. Treachery at Sea; 9. The Bridge of Peril; 10. Blackout in the Islands; 12. The Torture Fire Test; 13. Sinking the Rising Sun.

• Errors in geography: Though Mandon is supposedly located on the border between China and India, the walls of the high priest’s temple are decorated with Egyptian hieroglyphics. (Universal recycled the set from the 1940 film “The Mummy’s Hand.”)

2) All in all, I liked this for what it was: an un-subtle manipulation oftheater patrons. The main enemy in this serial is Japan, and theJapanese are diminished to Japs and Nips (always said with a slightsneer), while the Chinese are simply Chinese. There's a Germanubiquitous female agent who fancies herself to be in command of theJapanese, but she is just one dimensional: harsh, nasty, humorless.

The plot is a bit thin. A peace loving Chinese province bordering theHimalayas has a secret passage (the Stillwell Road?) of some sort toIndia, through which vital troops and supplies could be funneled tofight the Japanese. The spiritual leader of the province agrees toreveal the secret to the Chinese and British, with numerous conditions,and the Axis tries to kidnap or kill him before he can talk. There isdelay upon delay for no reason but to string this out to 13 chapters.

There are the usual hairbreadth escapes after each cliffhanger episode,and some of them are pretty silly. As in all serials, the viewer ischeated, in that a bit of film is held back, film in which the heroescapes death in the nick of time. There are also the usual fistfightswithout a knuckle getting skinned, the usual chases, etc.

As serials go, this is fairly standard, directed toward the puerileaudience that filled theaters on Saturday afternoons.

3) There are basically three types of mysteries/adventures:

1. The audience discovers who the villain is at the very end along withthe"good guys".2. Somewhere during the story the villain is found out and the remainderofthe story is spent proving his or her guilt.3. The audience knows who the villain is at the beginning and the entirestory is spent watching the "good guys" try to find out who the villainisand then capture him or her.

The third is by far the least entertaining (with the possible exceptionofColumbo). The Adventures of Smilin’ Jack falls into the third category.What is even worse is that the villain is not being chased butaccompaniesthe `good guys’ all over the Pacific while leaving behind a string ofnefarious deeds.

Before viewing this serial I had visions of Dixie Lee (possibly the mostalluring heroine ever to appear in a comic strip), Slickville andeverythingelse that made Smilin’ Jack a great comic strip. With Charlie Chan,NumberOne Son and Danny Thomas’ future wife in the cast, my expectations whereheightened all the more. Unfortunately, there was no Dixie Lee, noSlickville and very little plot. By the seventh episode I was bothfeelingextremely sorry for Jack because he was so dumb and bored to boot.Althoughthere was `aerial action’, so to speak, it involved planes catching fireandbeing shot out of the air by a Japanese submarine (if you can believethat).There were none of the aerial stunts and acrobatics that usuallyaccompanies Jack’s adventures and made the strip so interesting. Maybetheywere not included because of the expense involved.

I am a fan of serials. I really enjoyed the classics like The MaskedMarvel, The Phantom, Daredevils of the Red Circle, Captain Marvel, et.al.They were extremely entertaining and usually kept you guessing. Eventhough you knew who the villain was early in a few of the true classicstheymanaged to hold your interest to the very end. The Adventures of Smilin’Jack can’t hold a candle to the classics. It has difficulty holding uptothe mediocre serials.