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| Sunday, 18 January 2004 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Full serials : Oh, for the good old days! Some of the most memorable movies of my childhood days are the 'full serial' cliff-hangers on Saturday afternoons at the Capitol Cinema and the National Talkies. The National Talkies was situated where the Gamini Cinema was subsequently built. This was in the late forties and early fifties during which period those two second grade cinemas in Maradana screened most of the best Serials Hollywood ever produced. They were called serials as they were originally made in 15 chapters of twenty five to thirty minutes duration each, and they were screened chapter by chapter each week. This necessitated the earlier generation of serial fans to visit the cinema each week to follow the story. Each chapter ended leaving the hero or heroine or both in a cliff hanging situation. They were either tied across the railway line with a train rushing towards them, or hanging over a volcano with the strands of the rope burning away one by one. This type of ending sufficiently whetted the curiosity of the audience to make them comeback the following week to see how the hero escapes the imminent danger. In the forties, however, the 15 chapters were edited into one complete three hour feature and thus came to be called 'full serial.' My school mates and I used to fortify ourselves with a few slabs of kit kat and mars bar chocolates along with some bottles of Orange Barley (all of which including the price of the ticket cost only a few rupees then) and settle down on the wooden seats with bugs and all to enjoy three solid hours of the most exciting pure escapism entertainment ever put on celluloid. The serials were made for the whole family, for in spite of all the action and fighting in serials they were never sadistically violent or gory. They had beautiful heroines but their sex was never exploited. Good was good and bad was bad, there was no compromising. All the serials were made in America by famous studios like Republic, Universal and Columbia. They were in black and white and had a single theme - sheer excitement. The stories covered the entire gamut of high adventure. Science fiction ("Flash Gordan", "Buck Rogers"). Sea Action ("Don Winslow of the Navy"), Air Action ("The Black Hawks"), Detective ("Dick Tracy", "Shadow"), Spys ("The Spy Smasher", Federal Agents", "Holt of the Secret Service"), Westerns ("Red Ryder", "The Lone Ranger"), Swashbucklers ("The Green Arrow", "Sir Galahad", "Zorro"), Jungle ("Tarzan", "Congo Bill", "Jungle Jim"), and Comic book heroes ("Superman", Batman", "Captain Marvel", and "Phantom"). I know that serials can never fit into today's era of the permissive society and the anti-hero, but I am sure like me all those who were serial watchers fondly remember the wonder of those good old days. |
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