What’s the deal with all of the man-child types these days? Guys in their 30s ranting on Youtube about new Star Wars movies. Guys in their 40s speculating about Super Mario’s political stances. Guys in their 50s going to church dressed up as The Flash.
I mean, our grandparents were never like this, right? If you’re reading this in 2018, can you even imagine for a second your grandfather saying that a bad movie “raped his childhood”? What happened?
Is it because the older generation were raised better? Is it because they grew up in a time before the internet forced everybody have to have an opinion about stupid shit? Is it the lack of high fructose corn syrup in their diet during their formative years?
As I slogged through all twelve serial chapters of King of the Rocket Men, I think I figured out what happened. I think I’ve cracked the case of why none of our grandparents are (or were) as fiercely devoted to their childhood icons as later generations would be to theirs.
It’s because the junk culture stuff that your grandparents grew up with TOTALLY SUCKED.
Case in point: The old cliffhanger serials of the 1930s, 40s and 50s. They were usually twelve to fifteen chapters of rigid formula. No surprises. The heroes were usually stiffs. The villain was always hidden in shadow or under a mask and is eventually revealed as someone that the hero knows. The cliffhangers were always cheats. The makers were always on a mad rush to shoot what’s essentially a four-hour film on a budget lower than most two-hour films.
The intended audience were kids and the expected shelf life for these films was a couple years maybe. They were literal filler for the old-fashioned, multi-course spectacle that used to be going to the movies. The people who made them had no idea that some asshole named Jason would be electronically piping them into his living room in 2018 and judging them.
They’re curiosities and not much more than that. When George Lucas took inspiration from them for Star Wars and Lucas and Steven Spielberg built upon them for Raiders of the Lost Ark, it’s not because they thought these were great movies. Rather, they liked the IDEA of them. They liked the tropes. Lucas and Spielberg weren’t reverant or beholden to the old serials.
Nope. They just stole the good stuff and then ran.
That’s the pulp tradition. It’s like the blues tradition or the rock tradition. Everyone’s always swiping shit. That’s how ideas get passed down. Theft.
SO, King of the Rocket Men.
For the most part, it’s a serial exactly like a lot of other serials. Another villain is trying to take over the world by making several attempts to steal some scientific whatever-the-fuck. Meanwhile, our hero (played by Tristram Coffin, great name, not-so-great screen presence) reluctantly dons a helmet and jetpack and zips all over the sky to stop this madness and save the day.
If you really want to fly through most serials, all you need to watch is the first chapter and the last chapter. You’ll miss out on a lot of the goofball texture between (and I’m not about to take such a risk myself), but nothing of serious consequence to the plot ever happens in any episode except for those two.
And King of the Rocket Men has a doozy of a final episode. It’s fucking nuts.
The first chapter is good, too. The villain is killing off a bunch of top scientists and the first five minutes or so is a slam-bang bloodbath of murder. One after the other, in various ways, in simple shots that get the job done. Cool, cool.
Then, ten more episodes of dumbfuck cliffhangers follow, along with a cast with the charisma of a basket of turnips (despite the presence of pre-Code queen Mae Clarke as an intrepid lady reporter).
And then you get to the ending. That’s when the evil villain succeeds in stealing and then using the stupid electro-vibration ray gun that he’s been after for several chapters now. He aims it square at New York City and LEVELS THE PLACE.
Every building goes down. The Atlantic ocean floods. Millions dead. It’s like 9/11 times 911. The special effects crew and miniature artists worked overtime for this one.
In the world of this serial, if you lived in New York City by chapter 12, you were fucked without warning. You either drowned or you ended up wearing several thousand pounds of the Empire State Building as a hat. We even see innocent people die as hunks of concrete fall on them.
And then in the last three minutes the Rocket Man shows up and takes back the weapon and the day is (sort of) saved.
It all ends with everyone happy and smiling about a job well done.
I like to think that George C. Scott’s General “Buck” Turgidson from Dr. Strangelove was a low-ranking military man somewhere in the background here.