Dick Tracy Returns (1938)

Fans of the "Flash Gordon" serials will instantly recognise the nasty "Pa Stark" here as none-other than the dastardly "Emperor Ming" himself - Charles Middleton. Thereafter, though, this has really little to remind you of anything as it condenses, rather clunkily, fifteen episodes of crime-fighting into ninety minutes. It's all about how the eponymous detective (Ralph Byrd) and his feisty stalwart "Gwen" (Lynne Roberts) get on the trail of the vicious and malevolent "Stark" gang. These guys are involved in just about every criminal activity known to man, but it's their international antics - including espionage and sabotage - that particularly interest our sleuth. Again, as with "Flash Gordon" these worked far better as weekly episodes with jeopardy points at the end of each instalment. Cutting it all together like this robs us of much of the anticipation we would have felt before the next episode and actually reduces the story to little better than slightly repetitive series of gun-battles, pistol whipping, seemingly irreversible disaster scenarios with the damsel always in distress but sadly no railway track onto which we could tie the hugely annoying kid "Junior" (Jerry Tucker). The production is basic and the script does little to inject much spice to this overly abridged adaptation that is really turns out to be all too forgettable. Original is definitely best.