Serial film
As a serial production form of numerous series - movies in the U.S. and other countries is called. They ran weekly in the first half of the 20th century than shorter supporting films with a duration of about 30 minutes ( three rolls of film ) before the main film and consisted of at least 15 individual films. The films usually ended with the words To be Continued ( " continues " ) and a cliffhanger scenario. In the sequel was briefly introduced into the past history and then resolved the cliffhanger. However, it came more often here before that doing a scene not shown in the last film was inserted, from the became apparent why the hero or heroine could now escape their deadly fate at all.
Characterization
A typical Saturday film show of the 20s and 30s of the 20th century in the United States consisted of at least one film a serial, a cartoon, a newsreel and two long feature films. Through the Serial film with its open action of the audience was forced to regularly go once a week to the cinema to ever mitzubekommen the whole story, no matter what (r ) followed the main movie (s).
In production, only a complete movie script has been created and then divided into appropriate chapters. In most cases the films were produced cheaply and quickly, there were exceptions, however, such as the serial with the adventures of science-fiction hero Flash Gordon with Buster Crabbe. In France, made in 1913 René Navarre as Fantômas in a five-part film series by Louis Feuillade for excitement, a U.S. version in twenty parts followed in 1920 with Edward Roseman as Super Bandit.
Especially popular were the serial in the 1920s and 1930s. 1936 alone wrestled eleven different serial simultaneously for the favor of cinema visitors and 1937, the number rose to 12 different serial. Were you there at first many movies in the action with the so-called Damsel dealt in Distress ( persecuted innocence ) as one of the most famous early serial The Perils of Pauline (1914 ) with Pearl White, whose story in 1933, 1947 and 1967 filmed again was, so was the sound era hardly a topic that was not housed in a serial about the science fiction hero Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers ( also with Buster Crabbe in the lead role ), the successful already in Comics Snoop Dick Tracy, the masked " avenger of the oppressed" Zorro, the devious Chinese Fu Man Chu to Western intrepid heroes Lone Ranger and the transfigured adventures of Kit Carson Scouts.
Western Adventure presented by far the largest number of early serial, in which also the later movie star John Wayne as a singing cowboy began his career. From the 1940s espionage themes and adventures of comic book heroes are then increasingly recorded.