#390 – S.O.S. Coast Guard (1937)

S.O.S. Coast Guard (1937)

Film review #390

SYNOPSIS: The renegade scientist Boroff has invented a disintegrator gas that unsurprisingly disintegrates everything around it when released. Boroff’s ship gets in trouble at sea, leading the coast guard to mount a rescue. However, he is recognised by some reporters along for the ride as a wanted criminal and they give chase as Boroff tries to escape. When one of the coast guards is killed as Boroff escapes, his brother Lt. Terry Kent, also a member of the coast guard, swears revenge and he and the reporters Jean Norton and Snapper McGee attempt to unravel the mystery surrounding Boroff and to put a stop to his evil schemes.

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: S.O.S. Coast Guard is a 1937 movie serial by Republic Pictures. The serial starts off with a ship in distress off the coast and the coast guard being deployed. Jean Norman, a newspaper reporter and Snappy McGee, a photographer for the newspaper, recognise the man rescued from the ship as Boroff, a wanted scientist who has been developing deadly weapons to sell to foreign powers. The coast guard give chase, which ends up in the death of one of them, Ensign Jim Kent. His brother, Lt. Terry Kent, who is also a member of the coast guard, swears revenge, and attempts to track down Boroff with the help of Jane and Snapper. The serial unfolds very much like every other serial, so there shouldn’t be no surprise with the cliffhangers, chases and fist fights that fill the chapters. The setting of the coast guard does make it stand out a little, with the scenes at sea and on the ships being well executed. There’s enough variety and a tangible thread of story all the way throughout to make it a watchable serial, but again the format does show its age, and if you’ve seen one you’ve more or less seen them all. The format meant that a lot of content could be produced quickly and at a small cost, but nothing original or innovative was attempted outside of those original constraints.

The characters are one of the noteworthy aspects of the serial, with some recognisable faces amongst the cast. The character themselves are pretty typical: you have the young, courageous American male for the lead, one female character, a mad scientist villain, and a comic relief character. Lt. Terry Kent is the typical lead, this time played by Ralph Byrd, who would be recognisable from the successful Dick Tracy serial that was released earlier in the same year. His character wears a hat most of the time so he distinguishes himself from Tracy enough that you wouldn’t be distracted by the similarities, but Byrd’s appearance in this serial definitely rides the success that Dick Tracy had. The villain is played by famous horror actor Bela Lugosi, who is not in a horror film role because of the ban on making horror movies that was put into effect between 1936 and 1938. The name of his character Boroff is more than likely a reference to fellow horror movie actor and Lugosi’s somewhat rival Boris Karloff. The character of Snappy McGee is very similar to the character of Mike McGurk in the Dick Tracy serial, and I was quite surprised to see it wasn’t the same actor, as they are very similar in terms of looks and mannerisms. Jean Norman’s actress Maxine Doyle also went on to marry the director of this serial (William Witney), so all round an interesting bit of trivia from the casting, even though their characters aren’t as stand-out.

Being set at sea for a decent amount of the runtime, there’s a lot of scenes on the ocean which are all executed fairly well. In the opening chapter we see Boroff’s ship the Carfax caught in a storm, and the set definitely looks like a boat in a storm, with huge waves soaking the set and the actors. There’s some decent effects and props which also breathe some life into the predictable storyline. While setting a serial in the coast guards might not sound as thrilling as a Flash Gordon serial or the like, it still manages a decent story with a good cast. If you liked the Dick Tracy serial, no doubt you would have sought this serial out as well.