The Black Coin - 15 chapter movie serial

Absolutely, this is a dark and, an all too often, difficult-to-watch, print. But the price is dirt cheap and if you're a serial fan you just might like to add it to your collection anyway.Yes, the plot is totally ludicrious, impossible to follow, and frankly incomprehensible. And yes, the "fistfights" are mostly a couple of guys wildly swinging at each others shoulders... And I never had any idea who was chasing what or why, ("He has the papers! Get him!") Yet, I found myself thoroughly enjoying it. This serial has some of the most unusual and inventive cliffhangers I've ever seen.You get, not just a hero falling out of a tree, he falls out of a tree and over a cliff... after being struck by lightning! They don't just do the old run the sedan over the cliff, they run TWO sedans, side by side!So hey, spend a few bucks, have some popcorn, forget making any attempt to follow a plotline, squint through the dark scenes and enjoy the loopy ride. You're guaranteed a good laugh from time to time and more than once I expect you'll find yourself saying.... "Well, that was different"!

"The Black Coin" is a 15-chapter serial produced by Louis Weiss and released in 1936, with many credits familiar from their previous serial, "The Clutching Hand." The original story is by George M. Merrick, with screenplay by Dallas M. Fitzgerald, Eddy Graneman, Bob Lively and Albert Herman, the latter directing the serial. Herman had directed "The Clutching Hand," and also "The Whispering Shadow" for Mascot in 1933.Those expecting slick productions like the ones from Republic or Universal may be disappointed with the Weiss serials, but despite many shortcomings, technical and otherwise, they feature fairly large casts and there are plenty of plot complications to keep up the interest. They avoid "retrospective" chapters, though some of the stock footage may show up more than once. Prints of these "independent" serials are often poor, and Alpha's transfer quality doesn't help, but with some patience and guesswork the story can be followed.The title coins are Arabic, overstruck with Christian symbols during the Crusades. Many years later twelve of these were marked to show the location of a treasure, saved from Pirates by the crew of a Spanish ship off the coast of California. Over time, the silver content has caused the coins to turn black. Several persons know about the coins, including Frank Caswell (Bryant Washburn), president of the Caswell Shipping and Salvage Company. Two U. S. Secret Service agents, Dorothy Dale and Walter Prescott (Ruth Mix and Ralph Graves) are tracking contraband that they believe is being shipped by Caswell's firm to Mexico and have followed Caswell's agent, Terry Navarro (Dave O'Brien) to Tangier. Navarro is there to get some valuable papers, but he also buys one of the "Black" coins from a beggar, not knowing its value. He soon finds himself at odds with the smuggling ring, headed by a man named Henry Jensen (Matthew Betz), whose agent James Hackett (Robert Frazer) has been planted in Caswell's company as a business manager. And there's a disreputable sea captain, "Shark" Malone (Robert Walker) working with Hackett, until he finds out about the coins.It is not surprising that the low budget shows; some of the fist fights have more action in the parts from stock footage, and a couple cliffhangers are rather roughly tacked in from other films. We get the same shipwreck sequence used in Mascot's 1931 serial "King of the Wild," which has a few clips from the 1929 British film "Atlantic" but most of it looks a lot older. There is plenty of unintentional humor, an outstanding example being the sound track added for the "sheep ranch" in Chapter Eight, with two-legged sheep intoning "baa...baaa...bah!" suggesting they hired a bunch of film critics. Still, the plot is inventive, with both good guys and bad guys having factions that aren't cooperating fully. The intentional comedy is better defined than it was in "The Clutching Hand," mostly restricted to "Snub" Pollard as Vic Moran, who occasionally helps Terry Navarro. If there are a few holes in the plot, it is clear that an honest effort was being made. Ralph Graves is more than a little wooden, but otherwise, the acting isn't as horrible as might be feared, with Robert Walker doing quite well as "Shark" Malone, and it's nice to have Ruth Mix involved in the action, an improvement over her role in "The Clutching Hand." Caswell's daughter, Virginia (Constance Bergen), in love with Terry, is only occasionally involved in the plot. There are lots of well-known "B" movie actors in small roles, like William Desmond as the bartender at the casino, Clara Kimball Young and Josef Swickard as Terry Navarro's parents, with Frank Hagney, Richard Cramer, Yakima Canutt, Milburn Morante, and Blackie Whiteford as some of the more-prominent henchmen.Alpha's edition, # ALP 5054D is on a single disc. The serial runs 5 hours and 20 minutes, and while cramming it all on one disc isn't going to do good things for the image, it isn't likely the main reason for the bad quality. The sharpness is not what it might be, but the worst problem is the gray scale, where highlights wash out, sometimes including faces. Nearly everything vanishes in the darker scenes, and if there is no significant movement a pattern appears across the screen, like a partially-illuminated cheesecloth, further obscuring anything that was still visible. The framing isn't bad; while some of the opening credits get cut off, the people who can be seen aren't missing much of their heads. Alpha freeze-frames the opening credits, starting in Chapter Three, possibly because the picture has a lot of sideways motion, but the relief ends at the scrolling recap text. While Alpha's logo appears during the titles it is kept out of the final moments of the cliffhangers. The sound has some noise and is a little muffled, but the dialogue is clear enough. Not a good transfer, but I won't rate the DVD lower than Amazon's 3-star "OK" level because I learned something from it; the first chapter runs nearly 40 minutes, nine minutes more than the ancient Video Yesteryear edition, which otherwise was better in just about every respect.VCI's edition on VHS, # 1705, appears to be from the same print source, if not the same print as Alpha's DVD. The gray scale is also poor but the image is sharper and slightly better framed than Alpha's. If minor details like people are still hard to see in the darker scenes they don't completely vanish and no odd patterns appear when things stop moving. There is the same sideways wobble, but no still-frames are used, nor do any logos appear during the credits. The sound is about the same as Alpha's, with some "sprocket" racket noticed especially during the title music, and the expected background hiss, but the words come through. Copies can still be found, and if not exactly from a clean, clear and crisp print it is easier to watch and as complete as Alpha's DVD, for those with working VHS players.Sinister Cinema has the serial on their website, but only in VHS, from the same edit as the old one from Video Yesteryear. The missing nine minutes of the first chapter included extended fight and chase scenes, but also some things that helped explain the plot. Sinister's print isn't in very good shape, which may be why they haven't issued it on DVD. It has scratches and other damage including lack of the "next week" titles, but better gray scale than VCI's and the image doesn't wobble around, so despite the format it is a fairly good version that is still available.Those with VHS copies can bypass Alpha's DVD, but it is not "unwatchable" in the recommended dose of one chapter at a time. Don't try to watch all five and a half hours of it in one sitting, since that would induce numbness in many parts of the body, and eyestrain from trying to see what was in those dark scenes. Despite its faults, Alpha's edition is an inexpensive way to discover this unusual serial.

Kills time

Great Movie Serial

Just a throw back to my childhood of watching serials on Saturday at the "picture show." Entertainment purpose only

This product is OK. CMK 10-29-2020

Film was very old,bad copying otherwise it was ok

I bought this as I enjoyed Dave O'Brien in the Captain Midnight Serial. Unfortunately the print for this DVD is very poor. Most images are washed out to the point identifying the different actors can be difficult at times. In fact it finally got the best of me, and I did not finish watching it. Old serials like these from the non-surviving studios must be rare and good prints even rarer. It is doubtful it would be economically viable to restore this one or others like it. The main hope here is if one of the volunteer projects funded by donations and a few of the studios decides to tackle these. Until then I would not recommend this one to anyone except for the collector that just has to have every serial available.

Didn't watch it all as the picture quality left much to be desired. The sound was okay but the picture ruined it.