The Cinema of Dreams - A Short History of Fantasy Cinema

Part Four - Rise of the Fantasy Serial

The fantasy explosion of the 1930s was not limited to Hollywood horror features. Serial adventures also became more fantasy-based as the decade progressed. The serial cliffhangers had always required the same "suspension of disbelief" that is necessary in fantasy stories, and elements of fantasy had been common in the serials from early on, when the Louis Feuillade's French thrillers presented exotic villains and breathless action. Typically, the plotlines of the first American fantasy-related serials involved an an amazing invention or discovery which has to be protected from a gang of criminals. An element of fantasy is involved in these serials, but the stories are mostly about the constant chases and brushes with death involved in protecting the amazing discovery than with whatever fantastic qualities the discovery itself possesses.

In 1935, The Phantom Empire permanently introduced fantasy as an nearly-pervasive element of the Hollywood serial. Inspired by books such as James Churchward's The Lost Continent of Mu, The Phantom Empire starred Gene Autry as a singing cowboy who discovers the underground civilization of Murania in caverns connected to a radium mine beneath his ranch. In this serial adventure, bizarre costumes combined with robots, six-guns, and lots of singing to create one of the most complete excursions to fantasy ever to come out of Hollywood.

The Phantom Empire was a huge success, encouraging the production of other fantasy serials. Some of these serials, like Flash Gordon (1936), where pure fantasies from the moment their stories were first created. Other serials were derived from less-fantastic sources, but incorporated elements of fantasy when brought to the movie screen. Chester Gould's Dick Tracy comic strip, for example, was often dominated by gritty plotlines closer to the early hard-boiled detective fiction of Dashiell Hammett than to any science fiction tales, but in the Dick Tracy serials, violent gangsters were replaced by super-villains who used every high-tech device their mad scientist henchmen could devise in their crime sprees.

The fantasy serial proved that production values were not the ultimate determining factor in successful fantasy cinema. Almost all of the serials were produced on very low budgets, and followed predictable plotlines. But while the special effects, costumes, and acting in the serials were often wholly unrealistic, the sheer unusualness of the stories created an environment where realism was nearly irrelevant. When serial episodes slow down, and expository scenes try to explain the proceedings of the adventure's far-flung plot, the serial cannot help but be judged in traditional narrative film terms, and the serial's technical weaknesses become terribly apparent. But when a serial is moving along, and presenting a mix of exotic fantasy and quick action, the sight of a bizarre robot tank clumsily racing along an Atlantean valley while pursued by gladiators becomes an experience closer to the magic films of Georges Méliès than to the dramatic Hollywood descendents of Film d'Arte theatrical cinema, and the fantasy serial can be just as entertaining as any other type of movie.