‘The Black Widow’: a serial in 13 chapters

The Black Widow was one of Republic’s 1947 serials that had a lot of potential. Untapped potential, it sadly turns out. The plot was engaging. The music, mysterious and oriental. The studio had plenty of stock footage to select the best cliffhangers from. And yet, it falls curiously flat.

Chapter one sets it all up, as we enter the fortune-telling parlor of the beautiful Madame Sombra. Evil, but hot. Confusing to 10-year-old boys who made up the vast majority of the audience, I’m sure. Anyway, she tries to bribe Michael Burns into divulging American atomic secrets and joining her foreign spy ring. He refuses and dies; death by spider bite. You see, there’s a mechanical spider hidden in the backrest of his chair. It pops out and sticks its poison-drenched fangs into the back of his neck. Exit Mr. Burns.

Burns’ death is the fourth in a series of crimes the newspapers are calling the “Black Widow Murders.” They are named thus because of the venom found in each body — a venom similar to that of the Black Widow spider. Yes, Burns wasn’t the first. And he won’t be the last. The spy ring is out to get valuable atomic secrets for an unnamed Asian country.

The country may be unnamed, but we can draw our own conclusions. The year is 1947 and the cold war is heating up. Communists are the bad guys. The serial music has an Oriental flair to it. There is a small statue of Buddha in the fortune telling shop. Put it all together, and see what country you think is behind Madame Sombra.

The first of Sombra’s henchmen that we meet is Blinky. He’s a wizened little man who acts as lookout on the street. He’s a street photographer who hangs around outside the entrance to her fortune telling parlor. When someone enters and heads up the stairs, he signals her via a small portable radio transmitter built into his fake hearing aid amplifier.

Hitomu, conqueror of the world!

We also meet Sombra’s father, Hitomu. His arrival is announced by the sound of a gong. He appears in a puff of smoke, seated on a throne in a curtained niche, wearing a strange turban-like hat and silk pajamas. The first words out of his mouth are: “I grow impatient, Sombra. Each moment of delay endangers our plan for world conquest.”

Hitomu plans on conquering the world with his atomic rockets. Where he keeps these, we aren’t told. We’re not even sure he has them built, yet. But that’s his plan. And he needs the atomic rocket fuel to power them. Sombra’s job is to acquire the secret atomic rocket fuel formula.

When the gong sounds, announcing the arrival of Hitomu, Sombra sends everyone out of the room. Why? We aren’t told. As soon as her conference with her father is finished, she calls them back again. Is this because only she can have the privilege of gazing on the face of Hitomu? Or is it to make it easier to reuse the same film footage, over and over? Something to ponder.

When it’s time for Hitomu to leave, he gives a wave of his hand, and poof! There’s another cloud of smoke, and he’s gone. It takes until the final chapter until Hitomu decides to get off the throne and walk out of the small niche in the wall and into Sombra’s headquarters. Geez, what a lazy world ruler!

Now, let’s get this straight. Hitomu is a supreme master who lives on the other side of the world, but who can be brought here in a matter of seconds by means of a teleportation device. So, why don’t the bad guys take advantage of that device? Why not use it to teleport other people, too? For some reason, its use is strictly reserved to bring Hitomu to the hidden chambers of Madame Sombra, and send him back again. Seems like an overlooked opportunity to me. And these guys plan on taking over the world?

A few words about Sombra. She is a master of disguise… er… a mistress of disguise. She has this strange, latex mask with which she can rearrange her face to take on the appearance of anyone. Well, any woman, that is. In one chapter, she kidnaps Doctor Weston‘s secretary and takes her place. In another, she replaces a female scientist. And near the end of this chapter play, she even takes the place of our heroine, Joyce Winters.

Assisting Sombra is her very own scientist, one Dr. Z.V. Jaffa. She also has a henchman and lieutenant named Nick Ward. Ward and Jaffa pretty much carry the action throughout the entire serial. There are a variety of other henchmen who pop up seemingly at random. They appear as needed and then disappear again. Ward and Jaffa are the only ones we can keep track of.

Steve Colt, savior of the world!

After the opening scenes of chapter one, we are taken to the editorial offices of The Daily Clarion. Steve Colt, mystery writer and student of criminology, is hired by the newspaper to solve the mystery. Since the police aren’t getting anywhere, the paper decides to help out the authorities and get themselves a scoop at the same time.

Colt teams up with Joyce Winters, one of the paper’s top reporters. As they meet in the office of the newspaper editor, another murder is reported over the ticker tape. Steve Colt pieces together the clues and discovers that all five of the murder victims were associated with inventor Henry Weston in some manner. He decides to check out Doctor Weston immediately. And it’s a good thing he does.

For Madame Sombra has just stolen the formula for the atomic rocket fuel. It’s not on paper, but in a quartz tube. She grabs the tube and runs out of Doctor Weston’s laboratory, while Steve battles with her henchman. Steve quickly subdues the thug, and the chase is on! Steve’s car is sideswiped during the chase, and his car careens into a gas station. Chapter one ends with a terrific explosion.

Okay, we’ve seen enough of these serials to know what’s going to happen at the beginning of chapter two. Steve is going to jump out of the car in time. And sure enough, he does. Unfortunately, there are just too many cliffhangers that are resolved in this fashion. Not a lot of originality in the cliffhanger resolutions. More often than not, “he jumps in time.”

Anyway, chapter one was 20-minutes crammed full of plot, action and cool inventions. I only wish the rest of the chapters could have been as terrific. But now that everything’s been set up, the ensuing 13-minute chapters are pretty much a lot of running around. The bad guys try to get something; the good guys try to thwart them. The “thing” changes, one per chapter. And of course there’s a lot of fight-fights involved.

By chapter four, the secret fuel formula has been extracted from the quartz tube by Sombra’s scientist, and is being manufactured. Doctor Weston is perfecting the atomic rocket motor, and Hitomu wants Sombra to get it so he can deliver his atomic bombs to any part of the world.

In chapter five, we see the rocket fuel for the first time. When two liquids are mixed together, a gas is created that’s a thousand times more inflammable than gasoline. And anytime you have something that powerful, you just know it’s going to become a showcased peril for the next cliffhanger. And sure enough, Steve and Joyce are trapped in the mine tunnel with this stuff raging towards them.

Ann Curry, a prime candidate for kidnapping!

Assisting Professor Weston is Dr. Ann Curry of the Scientific Research Institute. A prime candidate to be imitated by The Black Widow. And sure enough, Ann Curry is kidnapped and The Black Widow uses her amazing latex mask to disguise herself as Dr. Curry. How lifelike that mask is. You’d think it was the other actor the whole time. You don’t suppose…?

The cliffhanger for chapter six is a good one. Of course, it might have impressed me even more if I hadn’t seen it recently when it was used in Daughter of Don Q from the previous production year. It’s the one where our heroine lies unconscious, her throat conveniently centered in an empty window frame from which the glass has been shattered. Above her, a large sharp shard of glass is suspended. As the final seconds of the chapter arrive, we see the sharp-edged piece of glass loosen and fall. I think we all know that next week she’ll roll out of the way in time. But the glass guillotine concept is a cool one, nonetheless.

Chapter seven contains an interesting reference to another Republic serial. As Joyce gets out of her car, she walks past a large movie poster advertising Jesse James Rides Again. This was, in fact, the serial that preceded The Black Widow in theaters. Jesse James Rides Again was released on Aug. 2, 1947 and 13 weeks later on Nov. 1, The Black Widow was released. In what other Republic serials did this type of self-promotion occur? I vaguely remember a few, but can’t pin down the specifics. Anyone?

The chapter eight cliffhanger has a clever resolution. Steve and Joyce have trailed Ward to a warehouse. Inside is Madame Sombra wearing sunglasses. No explanation for the sunglasses, but I digress. There is a fight. Drums containing the rocket fuel are punctured. The spilled fuel is accidentally set on fire. It seems to burn just like normal oil, not like something that is a thousand times more inflammable than gasoline… but I digress, again. The whole shebang goes up in a terrific explosion. Will Steve and Joyce escape in time?

Actually, the answer is a surprising, no! I figured this would be a typical cliffhanger resolution, in which we will be shown that the two run out of the building moments before the explosion. But I was wrong. During the fight, Joyce has fallen into an underground pit through an open trapdoor. So when Steve revives in the burning warehouse only seconds before the explosion, he simply jumps into the pit alongside Joyce. The fire and explosion are carried upwards, and they are safe down below. Not bad!

In chapter nine, henchman Nick Ward and scientist Dr. Z.V. Jaffa finally get to meet their supreme leader, Hitomu. This would seem to be an opportune time to go over what they’ve done, for his benefit. And so it would also be an opportune time for an economy chapter, for Republic’s benefit. And I suppose it is even an opportune time to remind the kids in the audience what they had seen two months earlier. Yes, the “economy chapter” rides again!

Cool bits and gadgets

There are lots of cool little bits and gadgets in this chapter play. A short stubby candle sits in front of the metal Buddha statuette. Madame Sombra waves her hand over the candle, and it mysteriously lights itself. A gong is struck, with apparently no one near it.

Then there are gadgets like the color-changing car. The driver adjusts a control panel on the dashboard and a gas is released which changes the color of the escaping vehicle from black to light blue. Well, it’s hard to tell in a black and white film, but I think it was light blue.

Another neat device is the sealed quartz tube containing “phosphero,” an inflammatory gas. Any attempt to open the tube would destroy the paper inside. The paper upon which the secret atomic fuel formula is written.

Then there’s the “vocatrobe,” a small portable electronic two-way radio, “similar to what the Nazi’s developed during the war.” Yeah, that’s what they said. It releases a cloud of hypnotic gas with which a person can be interrogated via the radio remote. Sombra uses it on Professor Weston. In her guise as Professor Weston’s secretary, she hides it beneath his desk. Later when no one else is around, it is activated and Dr. Weston falls under her influence.

There’s also a teletype machine that surreptitiously records audio onto the paper tape. The bad guys listen to the paper tape, later, to learn what Steve and Joyce are up to. And there’s a wire recorder hidden in a book that Steve uses to trick a bookstore owner.

Professor Weston perfects a “sinatrone,” which will counteract the sound wave vibrations created by the atomic rocket engines. We aren’t exactly sure what this new invention is, but we know one thing for sure. The Black Widow will want it!

Let’s talk about the laboratory in the cave. Or it could be a mine. The only difference seems to be whether there are any railroad tracks on the tunnel floor for a mine car. But that begs the question. Why is there always a cave in serials? And it’s never a small cramped space, like real caves. It’s always a large space with nice flat floors. Seems like a strange place to build a laboratory, to me. But in so many serials, including this one, we find a laboratory in a cave. In real life, has there ever… ever… been a laboratory in a cave? It just seems strange to me.

The final chapter

So, how does it all end? Just as you’d expect. Steve breaks into The Black Widow’s headquarters and there’s a terrific fight in the mystic reading room. Madame Sombra, otherwise known as The Black Widow, becomes a victim of her own mechanical spider. In her death throes, she shoots and kills her own faithful lieutenant, Nick Ward.

Steve enters the hidden headquarters behind the reading room and shoots Dr. Jaffa. Hitomu is shot as he is trying to escape in his teleportation throne. The world is safe from world dictators, once again! Or is it? As the final scene fades, Joyce is heading toward Miami to check on reports that Hitler was seen in the Everglades, and Steve is chasing after her.

Admittedly, this isn’t one of the top 10 serials ever made. Probably not even in the top 100. Somebody forgot to tell these guys that “yellow peril” stories went out of style ten years earlier. Plot, effects, acting… all could use a shot in the arm.

Yes, this is a pretty bad serial. But even a bad serial serves a purpose. For every good serial, there has to be a bad one. We wouldn’t appreciate “Spy Smasher” so much, if it weren’t for the likes of The Black Widow. No good without evil; no good serials without bad serials.

But why do you really watch serials? Even the bad ones? You watch them for the pulpy thrills; the suspension of disbelief. And in this one, you’ll need to suspend a lot of disbelief. This serial asks a lot of you. There are leaps of logic and plot holes aplenty, here. But, if you can put yourself in the mind of a 10-year-old boy in 1947, I think you’ll have fun with it.