Especially since he was openly investigating as Britt Reid when he saved the bus and found the cut brake rods. He had no reason to keep that secret, since presumably the whole idea was to gather material to print in the newspaper. I have to say, though, it's pretty badass to save a bus from tipping over by crashing it into a building. I'm a little unclear on why he thought that was the better option, let alone why it actually was. (The concept of "brake rods" is interesting too. I don't know much about cars and such, but I gather brakes are hydraulically controlled these days, and when TV/movie bad guys sabotage brakes, they cut the hydraulic lines and the fluid leaks out. Were rods part of an earlier, more mechanical control system?)
I'm amused at how oddly mundane the various "rackets" in this serial are. Instead of mad scientists trying to conquer the world with their atomic zombies and death rays, we've had insurance scams, a car theft ring, and now an attempt to drive a bus line out of business . . . And, yeah, I keep waiting for Casey to get out of the office and actually get into some trouble. Strange to realize that we're six episodes in and she hasn't even met the Green Hornet yet!
I think they were trying to be like the radio series (even having the radio actor Al Hodge take over the voice when the mask went on), and thus be fairly episodic. I bet the radio series dealt with similarly everyday rackets. I have the impression that this kind of widespread organized crime was a real, pervasive problem at the time, which is why you had radio shows like TGH and Gangbusters that were all about breaking up "rackets." Given how formulaic this has been so far, I'm not sure that'll happen at all, until maybe the very end. (Oh, and technically she has met the Hornet, she just doesn't know it...)
Yeah, these kind of organized crime plots were popular at the time. Many a lurid pulp (and comic book) were devoted to them.
Indeed, in the old Buster Crabbe Buck Rogers serial (which TCM ran last year) "the rackets" have expanded to become the world government!
My second favorite movie. I have the special edition with the little Robby the Robot. I peeked in at TCM in the middle of the day earlier in the week and One Million BC was on-- not One Million Years BC with Racquel Welch, but the original One Million BC with Victor Mature and Carole Landis. Great movie. I wish that one would come out on DVD.
I first saw FP at a Trek convention in NYC in 1975 at age 13... it's been one of my favorites ever since. It plays so much like a lost TOS episode!
Coming up this weekend: "Near Dark," "Fearless Vampire Killers," the original "Rollerball," and, of course, more "Green Hornet."
Near Dark was ahead of its time, it's seems very contemporary for an 80s movie. Bill Paxton is deliciously evil. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow of the recently acclaimed The Hurt Locker. I haven't seen that in a while I might check it out again. If you have IFC, they have The Brain Eaters, the original Invaders From Mars and Kingdom of the Spiders with Shatner on their Saturday Drive-In at noon EST.
I saw about twenty minutes of a print of it, but was thoroughly bored. It is notable for being the last film that D.W. Griffith was involved with, although he left the project before filming, so his involvement was limited.
"Near Dark" is, far and way, the best vampire movie of the eighties. It always bothered me that it was eclipsed by "The Lost Boys," commercially and in the popular imagination. "The Lost Boys" is certainly an entertaining film, but "Near Dark" is vastly better . . . .
There's also a cartoon called Destination Earth coming up in about an hour. I never heard of it, but I'm curious. It's from 1956. Indeed. The first time I saw it was in 1969 on Channel 56, about the same time I started watching Trek. Sorry you didn't like it. I find old stuff like that appealing, and Victor Mature and Carole Landis are great.
Some questions occur to me after this week's Green Hornet serial chapters... How many times have they used that same sound clip of the Hornet saying, "It's no use, you haven't a chance!" while fighting the bad guys? Was that some sort of catchphrase for the character on the radio or something? How is it that when the Black Beauty (finally named in dialogue in Ch. 9) drives into the garage, it's facing the back wall, yet when they come back down to the garage, it's suddenly facing the doors? There's no room in there for a turntable. Why does the Black Beauty have license plates? Can't the cops use the license number to track down the car's ownership? And this is something like the third time the crooks have used "the old Martinson place" as a base of operations, or in this case, a trap. Cheaper than building new sets, I guess.
Meh. It was an "educational" film about the petroleum industry with Cold War overtones of capitalism versus communism. Not really worth it.
They must have used that Bond method for getting his car to change angles on two wheels in a narrow alley in Diamonds Are Forever. Maybe it keeps them from being pulled over casually? Surely they're not legit plates?