BLAKE OF SCOTLAND YARD Victory 1937 / 15 Chapters / British Crime Melodrama Source: Silent serial Blake of Scotland Yard (1927)
Hero: Jerry Sheehan (Ralph “Dick Tracy” Byrd) His Pal: Sir James Blake (Herbert Rawlinson) Leading Lady: Hope Mason (Joan Barclay) Mystery Villain: The Scorpion MacGuffin: A death ray Supporting Cast: Lloyd Hughes, Dickie Jones, Nick Stuart, Lucille Lund, Sam Flint, Gail Newbury, Jimmy Aubrey Directed by: Robert Hill
In this sound update of a popular silent serial of a decade earlier, Jerry Sheehan (Ralph Byrd) and Hope Mason perfect a death ray that retired Scotland Yard inspector Blake (silent serial star Herbert Rawlinson) hopes will end wars. When a clawed mystery-rogue called the Scorpion makes off with the cumbersome and dangerous device, "Jimmy" Blake comes out of retirement and enlists Jerry’s help to catch him ‑‑ through ingenuity, amusing disguises, and plain old fisticuffs. Dickie Jones, one of the youngest children to appear in a principal role in a serial, voiced the title character in Disney’s feature Pinocchio.
This early Sam Katzman production is a wonderful period piece which includes all the required elements for a successful cliffhanger -- an interesting macguffin in the “death ray,” a lurking caped fiend whose true identity is unknown, handsome hero, and lots of twists and turns and onscreen action. Its worst feature is variation in camera exposure in some sequences which appear to have been in the original release!
Sourced from a new high-quality digital transfer of a rare well-worn but original film print from the 1940s, with restored picture and audio. This serial in original form is extremely rare if not impossible to find; this may actually be the best source print of the complete chapter play in existence.
The release date for this serial has been delayed a bit to allow for improvement of picture quality through stabilization of the image (which we didn’t think we were going to have to do!), a time-consuming process but which is worth the results in image stability. Chapter Titles: 1: Mystery of the Blooming Gardenia 2: Death in the Laboratory 3: Cleared Mysteries 4: The Mystery of the Silver Fox 5: Death in the River 6: The Criminal Shadow 7: Face to Face 8: The Fatal Trap 9: Parisian House Tops 10: Battle Royal 11: The Burning Fuse 12: The Roofs of Lime House 13: The Sting of the Scorpion 14: The Scorpion Unmasked 15: The Trap is Sprung
2-Disk Collector's Set includes All 15 Chapters Theatrical trailer
