Gangsters are after Dr. Tymak's (John Merton) secret missile-destroying ray-gun (and sundry other technical marvels) to sell to an unnamed foreign power (hint, hint) and only the brains and fists of heroic Brick Bradford (Kane Richmond) can protect the "Peace of the World". Based on a then popular comic strip, this frugal Columbia Pictures serial is barely watchable. The strip had drifted into science fiction themed adventures so the serial includes trips to the moon and into the past, neither of which are essential to the storyline. The moon episodes are particularly pointless - the budget didn't extend to a 'rocketship', so Brick et al teleport to the moon, which has a breathable atmosphere, a civilisation dressed like ancient Romans and, most inexplicably, a group of exiles from Earth (how they got to the moon, and why, is never explained - presumably rockets to the moon were available as one took the receiver for Dr. Tymak's teleporter to the far-side at some point prior to the strory). The trip to the past is simply time-filler - the premise that perfecting Dr. Tymak's marvellous gadgetry requires notes from a 18th century British explorer that are hidden in a pirate's treasure chest is ludicrous at best (the temporal adventure does give us a look at a fine-looking Noel Neill (best known as Lois Lane in the 'Superman' serials) playing a sexy, feisty, skin-clad native-girl). The 15 episodes can be divided into three segments: on the moon, in the past, and back on Earth (all of which appear to take place in Bronson Canyon) and are very different in tone (the moon story is a cut-rate Flash/Buck adventure, the time-travel story is 'jokey', and the final sequence is nothing but repetitive chases and brawls). The cast is adequate for the material that they are given but in general the serial is weakly plotted, cheap looking, repetitive, and many of the 'cliff-hangers' are resolved by finding out in the following episode that Brick and/or his buddies simply weren't killed by the fall, blast, fire etc. Cheap and dumb - for dedicated genre fans and life-listers only. As always, I am amazed at how men in the 1940s kept their fedoras in place during the most vigorous melees.
Review of Brick Bradford
