Title: SOS Coast Guard
Chapters: 12
Company: Republic Pictures
Release Date: 1937

Cast: Ralph Byrd
Bela Lugosi
Maxine Doyle
Richard Alexander
Lee Ford
John Picorri

Plot: Internationally-wanted criminal genius Boroff (Lugosi) invents a disintegrating gas
and hopes to smuggle the needed materials out of the country to produce the gas for a
high-bidding foreign power.

But, during a storm, his smuggling ship, the Carfax, is pinned up against outlying rocks.
He and his crew are saved by the Coast Guard in an effort led by Lieutenant Terry Kent
(Byrd). With Kent, along for the story, is his reporter girlfriend Jean Norman (Doyle) and
photographer Snapper McGee (Ford).

They rescue Boroff and Jean recognizes him. As Boroff is fleeing, he shoots and kills Kent's
younger brother who also a member of the U.S. Coast Guard.

With his precious cargo--disguised as kerosine--lost behind on the Carfax, Boroff decides
to have his giant, mute, and lobotomised man servant, Thorg (Alexander), recover the
cargo. A series of encounters pits Thorg and Boroff's men against Kent, with Kent and his
friends managing to temporarily thwart them each Chapter, but nearly losing their lives
each time, until Kent eventually triumphs.

Byrd does a very good job here as Terry Kent, very much as he does in his later Dick Tracy
work also for Republic. I kind of felt like this was a Dick Tracy vs. Dracula serial. Heh.
However, Byrd is mostly just a physical hero here, which leaves Jean and her scientist
brother to find the clues or to perform the scientific analysis that Dick Tracy would have
done more himself.

Snapper McGee, like Tracy's pal Mike McGurk, is of seldom use and is played as comic relief
-- painfully so--leaving the audience mainly wishing for a relief from his "comedy." Oh, I guess
I shouldn't be so hard on the comic relief. I'm sure someone must have love these guys.

Lugosi gives a good performance as the brain heavy in this one. His giant servant,
Richard Alexander, provides a great counterpart against the physical prowess of Byrd.


John Picorri plays his typical evil scientist role, but here he is forced into it after Boroff has
Thorg murder Picorri's defiant lab partner in the room next door. Great stuff. They decide
to make the disintegrating gas locally, and ship it out by placing the radioactive gas within
electric light bulbs. The gas doesn't work on glass. This makes a good cover for smuggling
it out of the country, and it's also a handy way of using the gas as a projectile weapon.

Sadly, no one really uses it like this. I think if they had, it would have made for deadlier
villians. Oh, well… Still a very fun serial.

Kind of funny to see the coast guard, armed with rifles, running through canyons...

…fleeing from radioactive disintegrating gas!

Hah! Well, that pushes all the buttons!

Show me the Carfax.

Yeah, I thought of that while I was watching it, Jimbo.
However, keep in mind that the writers were trying to capitalize on having a star
like Lugosi appear in their serial. So, I think they threw in a few things to tie back
to the horror movies. The name "Carfax" for instance, was the home that Dracula
purchased through Jonathan Harker near London. Lugosi's character's name in this
chapter play, Boroff, might be a contraction of "Boris Karloff." There's probably some
other stuff in there that I didn't catch.

Gosh! A serial that takes place on land and on sea both!
That's almost as good as an undersea serial.

Radioactive excitement in 1937!

Before it was cool!