The Last Frontier (1932/Serial/Western)
Picture: C
Sound: C Extras: C Chapters: C+
RKO was a major studio, but early on, it experimented with
the idea of doing Saturday Morning Serial.
The result was the one-off Western The Last Frontier (1932) here
in later Commonwealth release prints.
It runs twelve chapters as follows:
1) The
Black Ghost Rides
2) The
Thundering Herd
3) The
Black Ghost Strikes
4) The
Fatal Shot
5) Clutching
Sands
6) The
Terror Trail
7) Doomed
8) Facing
Death
9) Thundering
Doom
10) The Life Line
11) Driving Danger
12) The Black Ghost’s Last Ride
Lon Chaney Jr. (credited at the time as Creighton Chaney)
is The Black Ghost, dawning his mask to break up land stealing terrorists. As a genre piece, it is historic and
interesting, but the cliffhangers are mixed and the program in general shows
its age. This was an early sound film,
let alone serial, so this would have been more impressive in its time and
Western fans will find this more appealing than most. Dorothy Gulliver is cowgirl Betty, enough of a match for Tom
Kirby (Chaney) outside of his masked antics.
Chaney is very young here and the acting is of the stage
variety, with the actors standing around more and being a bit louder in their
dialogue delivery, but there is just enough energy to keep this 70+ years old
chapterplay going. General Custer, Wild
Bill, Kit Carson and the usual stereotypical “Indians” are also included. If watched in the better spirit it was
intended, it is not bad and not as racist as it might have been. For serial and Western fans, it is a
must-see.
The 1.33 X 1 monochrome full frame image shows its age and
is lucky to be in the shape it is in.
With Warner, the owners of RKO since they acquired Turner Entertainment
a few years ago just now getting to work on that long-neglected catalog (though
Turner did spend some serious money to save it, that was not enough) now
there’s, there is no guarantee that any materials from this serial have
survived in their vaults. You can
expect some variances throughout in quality even more than usually exists in
such serial sets, while the Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is just as aged, with
background noise throughout. It is not
as “hot” as many an untreated film soundtrack we have heard on DVD, but it is
limited. The only extras are text
biographies of the two leads and director, plus trailers for four other serials
and a general VCI Serial releases trailer, but the chapters run over 200
minutes and you get your money’s worth.
- Nicholas Sheffo
