Movie serials today is definitely an acquired taste that I've for the most part never acquired. Especially during World War II when the Axis powers were ready made villains for propaganda, movie serials reached the height of stupidity. Adventures Of The Flying Cadets is a great example of what the American movie going public liked to believe back in the day.
Robert Armstrong is the villain here whom we first see in hooded guise as the Schwarz Henker, German for the Black Hangman. He's going around murdering some people and even figuratively speaking signing his own name to his work. Eventually his murderous trail takes him to a man who was a guardian to four orphan kids who are now air cadets, Johnny Downs, Bobby Jordan, Billy Benedict and Ward Wood. Armstrong even frames them for his rotten deeds.
There's no end to Armstrong's evil schemes, he's even doublecrossing the Nazis he works for in the person of Gestapo Agent EDuardo Ciannelli. That's all right because Ciannelli is busy trying to cut him out of the scheme of things.
What everybody's after is a rich deposit of Helium gas located where oil was being drilled in West Africa. The Nazis under Rommel are in command of the Sahara, the British and French colonies are still under them in sub Saharan Africa, this deposit is in kind of a no man's land geographically speaking.
As the action shifts to Africa, we've got the kids trying to prove their innocence, and Ciannelli and Armstrong trying to kill them through 13 chapters all the while trying to double deal the others. And army intelligence in the person of thick as a brick Regis Toomey is always a step or two behind.
What floored me in the end is that when Armstrong is finally caught here comes Toomey with a complete dossier on Armstrong and his activities saying they had him in their sites all the time. That was just TOO TOO much. But remember in 1943 it wouldn't do to portray army intelligence as less than intelligent with a war on.
There are still folks who do love these old serials, but for me at best they're quaint and it worst they are mind boggling stupid.
Robert Armstrong is the villain here whom we first see in hooded guise as the Schwarz Henker, German for the Black Hangman. He's going around murdering some people and even figuratively speaking signing his own name to his work. Eventually his murderous trail takes him to a man who was a guardian to four orphan kids who are now air cadets, Johnny Downs, Bobby Jordan, Billy Benedict and Ward Wood. Armstrong even frames them for his rotten deeds.
There's no end to Armstrong's evil schemes, he's even doublecrossing the Nazis he works for in the person of Gestapo Agent EDuardo Ciannelli. That's all right because Ciannelli is busy trying to cut him out of the scheme of things.
What everybody's after is a rich deposit of Helium gas located where oil was being drilled in West Africa. The Nazis under Rommel are in command of the Sahara, the British and French colonies are still under them in sub Saharan Africa, this deposit is in kind of a no man's land geographically speaking.
As the action shifts to Africa, we've got the kids trying to prove their innocence, and Ciannelli and Armstrong trying to kill them through 13 chapters all the while trying to double deal the others. And army intelligence in the person of thick as a brick Regis Toomey is always a step or two behind.
What floored me in the end is that when Armstrong is finally caught here comes Toomey with a complete dossier on Armstrong and his activities saying they had him in their sites all the time. That was just TOO TOO much. But remember in 1943 it wouldn't do to portray army intelligence as less than intelligent with a war on.
There are still folks who do love these old serials, but for me at best they're quaint and it worst they are mind boggling stupid.