The Spider Returns

The Spider Returns (1941)

THE FAMOUS CRIME SMASHER OF "THE SPIDER" MAGAZINE WARS ON SECRET FOREIGN AGENTS!

The evil and masked "Gargoyle" is sabotaging all of America's industrial plants. It is up to the Spider to save the country.

Date of release
1941-05-09
TMDB
8.5 / 10 (4)
Runtime
5h 0m
Genres
Crime, Action, Adventure
Director
James W. Horne
Collection
The Spider Collection

Casting

Interesting facts

The Spider Returns is a 1941 15-chapter Columbia movie serial based on the pulp magazine character The Spider. It was the fourteenth of the 57 serials released by Columbia and a sequel to their 1938 serial The Spider's Web. The first episode runs 32 minutes, while the other 14 are approximately 17 minutes each.

Production

Columbia Pictures used their original serial The Spider's Web as the basic template for many of its early serials: the daring hero and his assistants adopt disguises to battle an exotic, secretive villain and his lawless gang. In The Spider Returns, The Gargoyle wears robes which would not look out of place being worn by Flash Gordon's longtime nemesis Ming the Merciless.

Both serials feature a dramatic wardrobe enhancement to the Spider's original magazine appearance: his simple black cape and head mask are over-printed with a white spider's web pattern and then matched with his usual plain black fedora.

James W. Horne, who had co-directed the 1938 Spider serial with Ray Taylor, was in complete charge of the 1941 sequel. By this time, Horne was filling his serials with tongue-in-cheek melodramatics, ludicrous fight scenes (in which the hero fights six or more men, and wins), and ridiculous-looking machines.

The action-filled screenplay employs a typical serial formula of fistfights, gun battles, explosions, and car chases, not forgetting secret weapons, death traps, and hairbreadth escapes as The Gargoyle tries to steal some top secret plans. The Spider serials are unique in that The Spider is also sought by the police with the same vigor that he is sought by criminals.

Dave O'Brien, who had performed The Spider's acrobatic stunts in The Spider's Web, is now a full-fledged second lead playing the role of Wentworth's assistant Jackson. This appearance led to a starring role in Columbia's later serial, Captain Midnight. Only three of the main participants in The Spider's Web (Warren Hull, Kenne Duncan, and Dave O'Brien) are on hand for this sequel.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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