Sea Raiders (1941)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Foreign "Sea Raiders" are bombing US freighters, a fact stumbled upon by "The Dead End Kids and The Little Tough Guys" in the second of their three "Universal" serials. They eventually help track down dastardly Reed Hadley (as Carl Tonjes) and the culprits. The billing implies two groups, but they are one. The studio probably did not call the group by their "Warner Bros." name due to potential legal problems, and then apparently discovered they could. Not affectionately called "wharf rats" herein, the waterfront gang consists of: Billy Halop (as Billy Adams), Huntz Hall (as Toby Nelson), Gabriel Dell (as Bilge), Bernard Punsly (as Butch), Hall E. "Hally" Chester (as Swab) and Joe Recht (as Lug)...This was the last appearance of Mr. Chester in any of the related films (he had also been appearing as one of the "East Side Kids"). Chester gets a lot of screen time during the second half. The first episodes of this serial are sloppy and confusing, but things pick up by Chapter 8, when Mr. Halop rescues Chester from a runaway whale. The Chapter 10 highlight has Halop in his boxer shorts, fending off a hungry octopus, then wrestling with a black panther. Huntz Hall (who learns to swim herein) and Chester help Halop out. At times, it appears as if the studio was inter-cutting any available footage into the adventure. With more focus in scripting, this might have been the best of the three "Dead End" serials.**** Sea Raiders (1941) Ford Beebe, John Rawlins ~ Billy Halop, Huntz Hall, Hall E. Chester, Gabriel Dell

Second of three serials made by a variation of the Dead End Kids, East Side Kids, Little Tough Guys and Bowery Boys is a step up from the previous Junior G-Men. Here the boys are once more fighting bad guys but this time in and around the docks, so instead of being land locked and stuck in and around the city we have water based dangers and adventures. To be certain the thrills are purely by the numbers but the waterside setting adds a point or two to the interest factor. As with the first serial the effects are less then special with many shot clearly using mattes, rear screen or models (one need only watch the opening credits to see model work). Made with slightly more care than the first serial its still clear that there is a certain amount of disinterest on the part of the cast and crew who seem to be going through the motions. Certainly watchable, this is something that I'd suggest for a slow undemanding afternoon when your other viewing choices are limited.

Universal's 52nd sound-era serial (and the second of three with the Dead End Kids and Little Tough Guys billed above the title) with its biggest drawback being that the "adult" hero is played by William Hall, a Universal contractee that the studio had long ago given up on as a lead player. (See 1938's "The Spy Ring" for reasons why. The film, not the site listing.)This one kicks right of when the Sea Raiders, a band of foreign agents, led by Carl Tonjes (Reed Hadley) and Elliott Carlton (Edward Keane), blow up a freighter on which Billy Adams (Billy Halop) and Toby Nelson (Huntz Hall) are stowaways, seeking to avoid Brack Warren (William Hall), a harbor patrol officer assigned to guard a new type of torpedo boat built by Billy's brother, Tom Adams (John McGuire.) Intended targets or not, getting blown up does not set well with Billy and Toby and, together with their gang coupled with the who-dat members of the Little Tough Guys, they find the Sea Raiders' island hideout, investigate the seacoast underground arsenal of these saboteurs, get blasted from the air, dragged to their doom, become victims of the storm, entombed in a tunnel and even periled by a panther (in various chapters titled as such) before they don the uniforms of some captured Sea Raiders and board a yacht that serves as headquarters for the Raiders. Edward Keane was the most-at-home-on-a-yacht player in Hollywood's history. Reed Hadley should have played Brack Warren and Hall one of the Henchies. Otherwise it is what it is and serves the purpose for which it was intended, and the producers and the intended audience thought it served that purpose very well (and it did), and neither gave a thought to what critics in the next century might think about it.

Some good action sequences in this otherwise routine Universal serial. Fans of the "Dead End Kids" will get a kick out of it, especially all the ad-libbing. The Rossini classical music tracks heard periodically are wildly inappropriate.