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Above: The stellar cast of DON WINSLOW OF THE COAST GUARD (Universal, 1942) are featured in literal head shots on this title card. That’s Lionel Royce on the far left with Phillip Ahn next to him. June Duprez is on the other side of the cast box. Don Terry and Elyse Knox are in the middle of the right hand side of the card, and Walter Sande’s head is directly above them. DON WINSLOW OF THE COAST GUARD Universal, 13 Chapters, 1942. Starring Don Terry, Walter Sande, Elyse Knox, June Duprez, Edgar Dearing, Lionel Royce, Phillip Ahn, Charles Wagenheim, Nestor Pavia, Henry Victor. As I mentioned in my review of DON WINSLOW OF THE NAVY, both of Universal’s DON WINSLOW cliffhangers were extremely popular in their original release but have been passed off as weak and routine efforts by pseudo-critics in more recent years. DON WINSLOW OF THE NAVY was totally undeserving of revisionist critiques, and so is DON WINSLOW OF THE COAST GUARD. The beginning of DON WINSLOW OF THE COAST GUARD finds our old friends Commander Don Winslow (Don Terry) and Lieutenant Red Pennington (Walter Sande) back aboard their destroyer the 620. War has broken out since the end of DON WINSLOW OF THE NAVY, and Don and Red are doing sterling service in the fight against the Japanese navy. After a fierce battle, Don and Red are summoned to Navy headquarters and are informed that they’re to be transferred to the Coast Guard. Wanting to be where the action is, Don protests until he learns that his old enemy, the Scorpion (Nestor Pavia), has put his spy ring at the service of the Axis powers and has set up a string of bases on islands along the Pacific Coast. The Japanese are using these bases to make devastating submarine raids on American troop, hospital, and convoy ships, and if that isn’t bad enough, German and Japanese agents under the Scorpion’s direction are committing acts of sabotage on the California/Oregon mainland, sabotage that can cripple the war effort. It’s up to Don, Red, Chief Petty Officer Ben Cobb (Edgar Dearing), Don’s girlfriend Mercedes Colby (Elyse Knox), and the Coast Guard to blast the Japanese from their island strongholds and to track down and eliminate the treacherous spy ring. Arrayed against them are the dangerous, lovely Tasmia (June Duprez), Japanese officer Hirota (Phillip Ahn), German agent Reichter (Lionel Royce), and the sinister Scorpion himself. Who will come out on top? Well, since the Japanese didn’t conquer the American mainland during World War 2, I think we have an inkling of who will come out on top. But it’s still a lot of fun watching the Coast Guard and the Scorpion agents battle it out for 13 thrilling episodes. DON WINSLOW OF THE COAST GUARD deserves a place with the best of the non-Western Universal serials, right next to the first DON WINSLOW serial, the two SECRET AGENT X-9 serials, and GANG BUSTERS. It has the strong cast and involving plot of the best Universals, and quite a lot of action into the bargain, more than usual for this era of Universal cliffhanger-making. There are several chapters that consist of sheer non-stop action, in which the heroes race from one danger spot to the next. However, unlike FLYING G-MEN’s choppy storyline, WINSLOW never becomes too disjointed and never loses sight of its overall plot. Fistfights are not much more prominent than they were in the first Winslow serial, but there are some intense shootouts (some of which could more properly be called small battles), fine airplane action, and, as you would expect in a seagoing serial, naval fights. Of course, several of the air and sea scenes consist largely of stock footage from actual battles, but the footage is blended quite skillfully with original action shots. If you’re not bothered by Universal’s stock-footage Indians in their Universal serials, the stock-footage planes, ships, and subs in this serial won’t bother you either. The serial is quite violent at times, and both good guys and bad guys take bullets in the many tough battles, a far cry from the bloodless gunfights in Columbia serials like OVERLAND WITH KIT CARSON or FLYING G-MEN. There’s also some impressive miniature work, especially in a dogfight between Don’s plane and a Scorpion plane in Chapter Three and in a sequence where Don is trapped atop a flaming oil tower. The cliffhanger of Chapter One, with Don, Red, and two drowning sailors trapped in a blazing sea of oil, is strikingly shot, with a real sense of claustrophobic menace. Another chapter ending, in which a cab containing Don and two spies careens down a steep street as the three men battle, narrowly missing other vehicles till it plunges into the harbor, is also very memorable. There are almost no “live-through-it” resolutions, but, surprisingly for Universal, about three of the cliffhanger resolutions in the middle section are definite “cheats.” None are as blatant as those in THE VIGILANTES ARE COMING, though. The serial’s locations, like those in the first serial, are varied enough to keep the serial from getting repetitive, with the action shifting expertly between the sea, various islands, the waterfront Crow’s Nest Cafe, and various mainland cities. The Scorpion’s cave-like base is obviously the same set used for the Tangita Island spy base in DON WINSLOW OF THE NAVY, but the writers realize this and incorporate a clever comment by June Duprez when she first arrives there: “Nice hideout; reminds me of Tangita.” This also establishes a nice feel of continuity between the first and second serials; of course, Tasmia never visited Tangita in the first serial but she presumably was there before the events of that cliffhanger took place. The script, by George Plympton, Paul Huston, and Griffin Jay, is smoothly plotted, following the formula of MASKED MARVEL and other wartime serials in so far that the heroes thwart plan after plan of the villains, but drawing out each individual situation much more than was done in MARVEL or other Republic releases. The villains also manage to succeed in their schemes more than once, mowing down a whole boatload of shipwrecked sailors at one point. This makes the heavies much more menacing, and, of course, makes us all the more eager for their downfall. The scripters also score high on dialogue, and we’re treated to some sharp verbal exchanges between the villains, convincingly easy-going banter between the heroes, and some amusing insults directed by the heroes towards the villains (when Don Terry and Walter Sande accuse Henry Victor of being a Scorpion agent and he feigns not to know who the Scorpion is, Terry snaps “the Scorpion is a rat!” and Sande adds “and if you’re a pal of his, you’re a brother rat!”). Richard Brooks, later a famous producer-director-writer of major movies like IN COLD BLOOD and BLACKBOARD JUNGLE, is credited with additional dialogue, so maybe we have him to thank for some of the witty scripting (personally, I think his work on WINSLOW is more enjoyable than his later, more pretentious films!) One word of warning--those squeamish types who wish to rewrite history for the sake of Political Correctness may be offended by the vocal anti-Japanese propaganda sprinkled throughout the serial (it’s fully as “offensive” as the propaganda in THE BATMAN), but it’s perfectly understandable in view of wartime Japan’s frequent atrocities--does anyone remember the destruction of Nanking, Pearl Harbor, or the Bataan Death March? The cast of COAST GUARD handle the well-written script with all the flair and enthusiasm at their disposal. Don Terry and Walter Sande fit smoothly back into their leading roles, with Terry as authoritative and energetic and Sande as quick-thinking and dependable as they were in the first Winslow serial. We never stop rooting for their characters, and it’s a joy to watch them defy death again and again as they determinedly take on the bad guys. Many serial heroes are somewhat lacking in charisma, and few serial sidekicks seem to be equal in guts and smarts to the hero, but that can’t be said of Terry and Sande; they function as the very best--hero/co-hero team in serial history, even edging out Lee Powell and Herman Brix in FIGHTING DEVIL DOGS and Paul Kelly and Clancy Cooper in THE SECRET CODE. Elyse Knox, taking over Claire Dodd’s part from the first DON WINSLOW serial, fits in well with Terry and Sande, and is just as breathtakingly beautiful as her predecessor. Veteran character actor Edgar Dearing (who can be seen, it seems, in nearly every movie made from 1935 to 1950) has one of the biggest parts of his career as Ben Cobb, a tough old salt who provides trusty backup for our heroes. His best scene comes in a chapter where he feigns drunkenness at the Crow’s Nest Cafe in order to set a trap for the spies; he does such a fine job that you don’t blame the bad guys for being fooled by it. The villains are all highly individualized and are all well-played by a great group of players. It’s mind-boggling to see June Duprez, female lead in such A-movie classics as THIEF OF BAGDAD, THE FOUR FEATHERS, and AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, playing a villainess in a serial. She does an excellent job as Tasmia, however, even though I can’t figure out how she ever wound up doing a serial in the first place. Her beauty and clear, bell-like voice make her seem like an odd choice for a heavy at first, but she combines her charm with a smooth, sinister sarcasm that makes her villainy quite convincing. Nestor Pavia, always a fine character actor, does an acceptable job as the Scorpion, handling the standard lead villain business with polish, but he lacks the satanic evil needed to make the character truly stand out from his equally sinister co-conspirators and seem like the all-powerful spy master he’s supposed to be. It’s a pity that Kurt Katch, who played the Scorpion in DON WINSLOW OF THE NAVY, couldn’t have reprised his role in this outing. Lionel Royce, the suave Baron Von Rommler of Republic’s SECRET SERVICE IN DARKEST AFRICA, shows how versatile he was by playing an entirely different type of heavy here. His harsh-voiced Reichter is brusque and thuglike, but intelligent and efficient as well. He also isn’t afraid to talk back to the Scorpion himself on occasion. Phillip Ahn is urbane and self-possessed as the villainous Captain Hirota; his quiet-spoken confidence gives him ten times more menace than another actor could have derived from a chuckling, fiendish portrayal. Henry Victor, Sig Ruman’s put-upon aide Schulz in the classic comedy TO BE OR NOT TO BE, is the dignified and intelligent Scorpion agent Heilrich, and Charles Wagenheim, usually a pathetic tramp, stool pigeon, or farmer, is excellent as the vicious henchman Mussanti, a snappish, aggressive little wretch who tends to duck out when the odds are against him but who doesn’t hesitate to murder good guys in cold blood if he thinks he can get away with it. Stanley Blystone has a rare good guy role as a police detective, Eddie Dean is Don Terry’s HQ orderly, Al Ferguson pops up as a farmer who mistakes Don, Red, and Mercedes for enemy spies, and Harry Strang is a Coast Guard officer in the first two chapters and in the final chapter. Paul Bryar, a villain in the first WINSLOW serial, is a dam guard, George Magrill is the Scorpion’s radio operator, and Dale Van Sickel appears as a sailor at the Crow’s Nest Cafe. Van Sickel also handles some of the fight scenes, and I’m pretty sure I spotted Fred Graham doubling for Walter Sande in a fight scene in the final chapter. Directors Lewis D. Collins and Ray Taylor (Taylor is truly an unsung hero among serial directors) tie the whole cliffhanger together into one fine package of serial entertainment. And now (this has become customary for me, it would seem) I will sign off with a snatch of the serial’s theme song, the Coast Guard anthem: “Coasting, with guns up
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