Kato, Kato, and, oh yes, Kato!

 While Bruce Lee's TV Kato is the best-known version to today's audience...

...he wasn't the first.

When the radio show debuted in 1936, the character was described in early episodes as Britt Reid's "Japanese valet" and became Britt's "Fillipino valet" in 1938...long before Pearl Harbor.

Japanese-American Tokutaro Hayashi/Raymond Toyo (above) initially played the character until 1942, when he, for all intents and purposes, disappeared.

There are rumors he was sent (as were many other Japanese-Americans) to an internment camp, but no conclusive answer has ever been found.

In an audio version of "white guy playing Asian", he was followed by Rollon Parker, Michael Tolan, and Paul Carnagie.

When The Green Hornet came to the big screen in movie serials in 1940 and 1941, Chinese-American Keye Luke handled the role, which was now defined as Britt's "Korean valet"!

Kato, as portrayed in both the serials and radio show, was the technical genius behind the high-powered auto, the Black Beauty, as well as being the developer of the Hornet's main weapon, a gas gun, and the knockout gas it used.

He even designs the Hornet's mask and insignia!

(It's never explained on the TV series who created the car, weaponry, and mask.)

The radio/movie Kato knew some judo and karate, but usually acted as backup to the Hornet, who tended to go into situations alone and would then have to be rescued from whatever deathtrap the villains had ensnared him in.

The radio/movie serial Kato would also use the gas gun or gas grenades against enemies.

Very much unlike the TV series where Kato would enter first and leave last, silently lurking around the Hornet, keeping watch on their opponents, as well as kicking multiple butts with gung fu when required.

And TV's Kato never used the Hornet's gas gun, but he did use the Hornet Sting sonic weapon once, to blast a door open.)

Depending on the situation, the serial and radio Hornet and Kato would both drive the Black Beauty.

In the TV series the Hornet never got behind the wheel, though he did operate the Black Beauty by remote control in one episode!

On radio and in the movies, there were references to Britt saving Kato's life several years earlier, as well as an adventure where they encountered a rare and lethal giant green hornet, which gave the hero the name of his alter-ego.

On TV there was no explanation as to how or why Britt recruited Kato to be not just a valet/cook, but to work with him battling evil.

We hope you've enjoyed our look at Kato, one of the best-known, yet least-known, sidekicks in popular media!

Have a look at the other participants in...

Please check out the rest of the astounding entries by clicking HERE.

From Savior to Slaughterer...the Saga of MING!

After dominating three movie serials, Ming did not appear in the 1950s Flash Gordon tv series.

But when a big-budget feature film came about in 1979-1980...

...the man called "the Merciless" was front-and-center!

Minor segue: In the 1970s, a young filmmaker (and major Flash Gordon fanboy) named George Lucas wanted to do a feature film version of Flash.

The character's owner, King Features Syndicate, turned him down, feeling that a guy with only two films (THX-1138 and American Graffitti) didn't have sufficient cinema cred to do the character justice...so they sold the rights to Dino DeLaurentis, who had already done successful movies based on Euro-comics Barbarella and Danger: Diabolik!

(BTW, George Lucas, despite the heartbreak of not being able to film his childhood idol, still does occasional work in the entertainment industry...)

Dino, who was a major European comics fan, but knew little of American material, gave the scripting assignment to Lorenzo Semple, Jr, who had shaped the campy style of 1960s Batman tv show, and the directing reins to Mike Hodges, a competent director who had never done a big-budget film before.

Add a leading man as Flash who re-defined the term "wooden", and even Dino realized he needed someone with serious acting chops to kick-start the on-screen action.

He got Jesus Christ.

Correction, he got the award-winning actor who played Jesus Christ in The Greatest Story Ever Told...Max von Sydow!

Many are the rumors as to why von Sydow, noted for doing Ingmar Bergman movies and similar high-brow cinema, would do such a film, but it came down to two things...lots of money, and a chance to experience the movie equivelent of hanging out with lots of friends and having fun!

While Sam Jones as the lead was almost a black hole on screen, the supporting cast included Timothy Dalton, Ornella Muti, Topol, Mariangela Melato, and Brian Blessed.

Yet, von Sydow dominates them all.

From the trailer, featuring the voice of Ming (and how often does the villain's voice dominate a movie promo?)...

...to every scene he's in...

..von Sydow demonstrates his range from smirking satisfaction to almost primal-scream rage, and everything in between.
In this incarnation, Ming is the ultimate over-the-top villain.
He doesn't need a logical motivation for doing what he does, just his own desires and lusts.
And his own child takes after him, in her own unique way...

Ming dominates the film to the very end, escaping certain death as he did in the serials, leaving the door open for his almost-inevitable return...
BTW, you can read the comic book adaptation of the 1980 feature film HERE!
It's drawn by Al WIlliamson, who not only illustrated a number of Flash's comic adventures, he also did the comic book versions of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi!
(Yes, it's a George Lucas link between Flash and Star Wars...)

Every version of Flash Gordon since, live-action tv/animated/comic, has featured Ming as the antagonist.
No other villain is as connected to a hero as Ming is to Flash.
There have been Superman productions without Lex Luthor, Batman movies without The Joker, but Flash Gordon without Ming is all but inconceivable!

We hope you've enjoyed our contributions to...

and you can see many other movie villains by clicking HERE!

The Spaceman Always Mings Thrice in FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE*!

Space hero Flash Gordon returned to the silver screen for the third time in 1940's Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, along with...

...aww, you guessed!

Yes, we know.

He "died" at the end of the previous serial...and the one before that!

This time, there's no explanation for how he survived, he just did!

Not only that, but he managed to re-establish his base of power in Mingo City.

But Ming doesn't control Mongo as he once did.

War rages across the planet as the Forest People led by Prince Barin and his wife, Aura (Ming's daughter) fight to keep freedom alive allied with the inhabitants of the Ice Kingdom.

But Ming makes the mistake of testing out his new "ultimate weapon", Purple Death Dust, in Earth's atmosphere.

Once Dr Zarkov deduces the poison is from Mongo,  he rounds up Flash and Dale, and it's off to Mongo where they discover they were wrong about Ming's death.

But, they do what heroes must...try to stop the Most Evil Man in the Universe...who, in fact, is so evil, that he declares that he is the embodiment of the Universe!

(Which explains why a good guy like Flash would want to conquer anything, much less the Universe!)

Buster Crabbe returned as Flash for the third time, after taking a break to play the other big-name spaceman of the 1940s, Buck Rogers.

Frank Shannon reprised Zarkov, and none but Charles Middleton could have donned the now-European military-style mantle of Ming!

In fact, though adapted from a plotline from the Flash Gordon comic strip, this serial seemed steeped in current events with Ming paralleling Hitler and the Forest and Ice kingdoms filling in for besieged England and Scandinavia under constant air raids from Ming's aerial fleets!

(Ming also had slave labor camps and Gestapo-like secret police!)

The action never stops as Flash and Ming match wits for twelve chapters from the icecaps and jungles of Mongo to the Land of the Dead!

Ming stops at nothing, even risking his own daughter's life to capture or kill the rebels and Earthmen, but the end is never really in doubt...

Note the hint that there's one way for Ming to escape...but that "he'll be too frightened to think of it".

Now, is this finally, really and truly, once and for all, the End of Ming the Merciless?

Be back tomorrow for the startling answer!

To paraphrase Mel Brooks: "It's good to be the Ming!"

*I dare you to come up with a better post title!

And for more villains than you can boo and hiss at, see the other contributors to...

by clicking HERE!

"Ming is Dead! Long Live Ming! Oh, Wait...He's Back!"

Due to the incredible box-office generated by the Flash Gordon movie serial, a sequel was planned, again using a plotline taken from the comic, involving Azura, the Witch Queen of Mongo.
The storyline was moved from Mongo to Mars...along with the studio-demanded addition of Ming, who wasn't in the originial comic story...
But wait!
Ming was incinerated in a creamatorium at the end of the previous serial?
How did he survive?
As it rurns out, his robes are fireproof!

Note: a number of sources claim the serial was set on Mars instead of Mongo to capitalize on Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio show hoax.

But the serial opened in March of 1938, seven months before the Halloween radio show!
The more likely explanation was to be able to include Ming (who didn't appear in the "Witch Queen" plotline in the comic strip) in exile on Mars, planning to use the Martian army to retake Mongo.
But, to do that he has to convince Mars' ruler, Queen Azura, that he can provide her with a weapon that can defend Mars from any Mongo counter-attack: Ming's Nitron-ray, which he tests against Earth, leading Zarkov, Flash Gordon, and Dale to investigate, seeting the serial into high gear!

The original cast, including Charles Middleton as Ming, returned, along with Beatrice Straight as Azura.
Ming received a bit of a makeover, with the elimination of the taped-up "Asian" eye make-up (which was painful to apply and remove) and addition of a skullcap.

However, Ming is uncomfortable in any alliance, thus, he also plots to eliminate Queen Azura, and once Flash and crew arrive, plans to use them as scapegoats.
While Ming initially convinces the Martians that the Earthlings are dangerous, Flash and the others win over individuals, then groups, then, finally, the Queen herself!
In desperation, Ming orders Azura's death, then hastily tries to have himself crowned ruler of Mars.

But Flash arrives with witnesses to Ming's treachery and the fiend tries to escape, but is determined to kill the Earthman who spoiled everything first...
The Earth is saved from destruction.
Mars is saved from becoming Mongo II.
The box office is saved with ticket sales equal to the first serial's!
And Ming is dead (Flash said so)!
So is this, really and truly, the End of Ming?
Find out tomorrow!

Note: a couple of months after the serial ended its' run, Orson Welles unleashed his Halloween War of the Worlds radio show hoax on America, and the country went Martian-mad!
So, a feature film compilation of the serial entitled Mars Attacks the World, which had been scheduled for release over the Christmas holidays, was moved up to before Thanksgiving, and did very good ticket sales.

And Men Shall Call Him "Merciless"! For He is...

...for decades, the single greatest menace in movies.
There have been cinema villians who threatened cites, threatened countries, even threatened whole planets!
But only one has ever proclaimed that not only did he rule the Universe, that he was the Universe!

Ming!

Conceived in 1934 as the antagonist of the brand-new Flash Gordon newspaper comic strip, Emperor Ming of Mongo was a futuristic version of the "Yellow Peril" menace popularized by Sax Rohmer's insidious Fu Manchu and the Han, conquerors of Buck Rogers' 25th Century America!

When Universal Studios adapted Flash Gordon into a 13-chapter movie serial in 1936, they defied movie convention by keeping Ming as the villain and faithfully adapting the strip's plotline.

(Studios usually made radical changes to comic strip and pulp characters they used, most frequently replacing the original pulp and comic villains with the studios' own creations.)

With handsome Olympic athlete-turned-actor Buster Crabbe as the embodiment of an all-American hero, who could portray the ultimate villain to oppose him?

How about a guy who also tried to kill Dick Tracy and Jack Armstrong: All-American Boy in other serials, as well playing opposite Laurel & Hardy and the Marx Brothers (and even sang a song with Groucho and his brothers in Duck Soup*)?

Charles Middleton, who could not only chew the scenery, but spit it out like toothpicks, got the role, and certainly made the most of it...

...making Ming the most hissable foe any movie hero ever faced!
When not plotting to destroy and/or conquer Earth, and lusting after Dale Arden, Ming also had to keep an eye on his own daughter, Princess Aura, who lusted after Flash Gordon, and kept saving him!

By the end of the serial Ming had been fried to death in a creamatorium, Earth and Dale were safe, Aura fell in love with Prince Barin, the true ruler of Mongo!
And that was the end of the man called "Merciless", right?
Be back here...tomorrow...for the answer to that, and many other questions!

And for more villains than you can boo and hiss at, see the other contributors to...

by clicking HERE!

Captain's Library: SON OF FRANKENSTEIN!

Most aficionados are familiar with the 1960s Dell comics that adapted the Universal Monsters...

...but many don't know that only one comic adaptation was produced during the first run of the films in the 1940s!

This fumetti/photonovel version of Son of Frankenstein (1939) appeared in DC Comics' Movie Comics #1 (1939).

(Another adaptation from this comic series, The Phantom Creeps, appeared on this blog HERE.)

Using photographs was certainly one way around the problem of getting an exact likeness of the actors!

The design/compositing/additional art was done by Jack Adler, a production artist/illustrator who rose thru the ranks and eventually became DC Comics' Production Manager/Vice President of Production, innovating a number of printing techniques that became standard comics practices.
The writer of the adaptation is unknown.

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Captain's Library & Theatre: STAGECOACH

Nobody personified Western movies like John Wayne.

Stagecoach (1939) was his breakout film, after a series of roles in b-movies and serials.

This landmark flick was immortalized in print with a unique fumetti-style adaptation in DC Comics' Movie Comics #2 (1939).

Stagecoach was even the cover feature with a picture of star...

 ...Andy Devine???
 (Who also got top billing in the adaptation)

Movie Comics ran for six issues, adapting everything from Westerns to romances to science fiction.

Using photographs was certainly one way around the problem of getting an exact likeness of the actors (as we showed you HERE with Movie Comics' adaptation of Phantom Creeps which used the same fumetti-format)!

The design/compositing/additional art was done by Jack Adler, a production artist/illustrator who rose thru the ranks and eventually became DC Comics' Production Manager/Vice President of Production, innovating a number of techniques that became standard comics practices.
The writer of the adaptation is unknown.

Here's a fascinating piece called Screen Scoops featuring tidbits about the actors from the various movies adapted in that issue of Movie Comics...

Art and script by Walter Galli

Remember, there was no Internet, DVDs, VCRs, or even TV, so the only way to see these movies was in the theater, and once they finished their runs, they were gone! until they were re-released, usually every 4-5 years after their premiere showings.

Adaptations in other media, including radio and comic books were used to promote the movies and were released either just before the movie opened for its' initial run, or when it was re-issued to second-run theaters.

Besides this comic, there was a radio adaptation done for the Screen Directors Playhouse in 1949, during the movie's re-release.

Reprising their roles on radio were John Wayne (Ringo Kid) and Claire Trevor (Dallas), along with Ward Bond (Doc Boone, played in the movie by Thomas Mitchell)

You can play that radio show by clicking HERE!

Plus, you can compare the adaptations with the film itself...

Catch the flick on TCM, August 1st at 9:15 am (ET)!

There's lots more John Wayne (and other stars) stuff during the  

2012 TCM Summer Under the Stars Blogathon!

For a plethora of posts (and info on how you can participate) check out ScribeHard on Film and/or Sitting on a Backyard Fence for details!

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50's Monster Mash Blogathon: PHANTOM CREEPS

Graphic by Rachel Hood. Adapted from ROBOT MONSTER.

In the 1950s, Universal Pictures took a number of its movie serials and re-edited them into 75-80 minute features for television.
For example

• Buck Rogers serial was condensed into Planet Outlaws, 
• Flash Gordon became two features: RocketShip and SpaceShip Into the Unknown.
• Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars was edited into Mars Attacks the World.
• Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe became Purple Death from Outer Space.

Some serials like Green Hornet retained their title for the feature film version.
So did The Phantom Creeps.
It was this version I first saw in the early 1960s on Saturday afternoons on WNEW in New York.

BTW, the title refers to the giant robot, The Phantom, not a group of phantom people or beings called "Creeps" or a villain called "The Phantom"!

Phantom Creeps stars Bela Lugosi in his final serial appearance, once more as a villain.
(His previous serial role was as the heroic Chandu the Magician in The Return of Chandu, which was also released as two features in the 1950s.  Universal Pictures sure knew the meaning of "repurposing"!)

Here, he plays Dr Alec Zorka, a genius who has developed numerous super-science devices including a near-invulnerable giant robot, an invisibility device, and a suspended-animation raygun!
With both the US government and various "foreign powers" attempting to acquire his weaponry, it's literally "Zorka Against the World", with the mad scientist holding the advantage since the Americans both want to capture him alive and prevent both the scientist and his devices from ending up in enemy hands!
You'll note that some pics from this film have Lugosi clean-shaven, and others (left) show him with a beard.
There are two reasons for this..
1) Lugosi's character shaves his beard midway through the film.
2) It was done in order to match stock footage taken from Universal's feature The Invisible Ray, where Lugosi played another scientist, but with a beard.
Along with stock footage, the serial borrowed props, sets, costumes, and music from earlier genre features (A common practice to keep costs down).
Interestingly, when a comic adaptation of the serial was done, the artists (who were using a weird combination of photos and illustrations in a semi-fumetti,) kept the beard on him for the entire story!

C'mon, admit it, that was kool, although it is a severe abridgement of the serial script (and pretty close to the feature film version)!

The design for The Phantom was so unique that, unlike most other robots of the era, he never appeared in another live-action movie, either in new or stock footage!
However, Rob Zombie loved the robot so much he built a duplicate, which has appeared on-stage during his concerts and in the video for his single, "Dragula"

Zombie also "recast" The Phantom as Murray the Robot, transformable cybernetic aide to Susi-X in his animated feature Haunted World of El Superbeasto!

He didn't have that gun in Phantom Creeps!

Both the original Phantom Creeps serial and feature are available on inexpensive DVD, or free at YouTube, and the Internet Archive.
Since it's PD, the source prints are pretty battered, but still watchable and very entertaining.

I hope you enjoyed my contribution to the Blogathon.
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