Mystery of the Riverboat (1944)
A movie serial in 13 chapters: Some swampland becomes valuable, and various factions squabble over ownership of it.
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Sadly Over-hyped
Beautiful, moving film.
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.
The entertaining tale of a possible land swindle in the bayous of Louisiana (played rather unconvincingly by the Universal back lot), peppered with plenty of good old serial action. Fist fights, fires, explosions, boat crashes and chase scenes. The action does not take place aboard the steamer "Morning Glory" for the entire serial, only for the first five chapters.Mantan Moreland is the great asset here, and is enjoyable to watch as always, I will agree with other comments on that one. A decent DVD release by the Serial Squadron, on a pressed DVD, but unfortunately no commentary tracks. The only extra is the two minute trailer. The print used is by no means pristine. Many portions of splotches, lines and scratches, but always watchable. Having said that, the quality is better on some of the chapters than it is on others.
I was expecting this to be more of a western almost, with a gambling boat or something, from the title. The riverboat in question is a rather durable one, even for a piece of scenery in a serial. It survived a fire, a boiler explosion, a broken levee and flood, and crashing into several shanty boats along the way.Robert Lowery makes another predictable serial performance. He was fairly good in the Batman serial, but tries way too hard to be Kane Richmond. He does know how to swim though, as I believe he hit the drink in six of the thirteen chapters. Lyle Talbot is always enjoyable, and plays one of the many bad guys (as usual). The surprise here was Mantan Moreland, who I had not previously known had done any serials. Mantan gives the best performance of anyone here, giving the limited and somewhat comic role he was given. He makes the serial worth the time to watch, as do some above par special effects, particularly during the levee break sequences (though I am not sure if they were actually filmed for this serial or are stock footage).