Pearl White, William Duncan, William Desmond, Ben Wilson, Walter Miller, Francis Ford, Charles Hutchinson, Jack Dougherty, and Eddie Polo are just a few of the stars to start up a whirlwind of enthusiasm among serial devotees. They took the movies by storm offering a thrills-a-minute world of ridiculous plots, weird disguises, hair-raising escapes, hidden treasures, diabolic scientific devices, wild animals, depraved men, runaway trains, and endless procession of knock-down, drag-out fights. Who could resist?
This comprehensive reference work highlights 446 serial performers who thrilled generations. Each entry includes the performer’s birth and death dates, details of life before and after the movies, as well as covering the major films.
Someone once told me that the cliffhanger serial is a lost art form, but it certainly inspired hundreds if not thousands of movies that are made today. This really an encyclopedia of actors who appeared in cliffhanger serials, with brief biographies and then a list of the serials they appeared in. Those lists are a bit detailed, but contains only the essentials and sadly, get reprinted page after page. I think it would have been better to have included an appendix in the back of the book listing all the serials in the same details (if not more) and after each actor list the serials by name and year. It probably would have saved the publisher (not joking) 100 pages of the 850 pages it took to fill this book. The price is $95 and could have been less if they applied this method. If you are a serial fan this book might not be of amusement because it is nothing more than an encyclopedia. It's not a reference guide you're going to find yourself turning to.
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