KENNETH MacDONALD
September 8th, 1901 -- May 5th, 1972

Above: No, you haven't stumbled onto a comedy short site by mistake. Kenneth MacDonald (far left), in addition to being a frequent serial villain, also made frequent appearances in the Three Stooges' films. Here he and an unidentified henchman are intimidating Shemp, Moe, and Larry.

Crafty Kenneth MacDonald was a deep-voiced, hard-faced performer of many talents, but he particularly excelled at playing boss heavies in serials. His voice gave him the air of command necessary to keep his unruly henchmen in line, and his lined, no-nonsense features always lent conviction to the many acts of ruthlessness he (naturally) performed in the course of a cliffhanger. MacDonald’s superb poker face also stood him in good stead when he was playing both sides of the game in his serials--he could always make the good guys think he was on their side while plotting behind their backs, and even his own henchmen could never quite trust him.

Born in Richmond, Indiana, MacDonald was quite an athlete in his boyhood, as his high school letters in football, basketball, and track testify. He broke into movies by a clever piece of self-promotion that proved he was every bit as cagy as his serial villains. He authored a pamphlet called "The Case for Kenneth MacDonald" and distributed it to all the major studios. In this case, the squeaky wheel got the grease, and Kenneth entered movies in 1923. He kept working into the sound era without batting an eye, thanks to his terrific voice. His first two serials were both for Columbia Pictures--in fact, all his cliffhangers were made at that studio--MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN (Columbia, 1939) and OVERLAND WITH KIT CARSON (also 1939). In both, he was a "suspect" for the mystery villain: Webster, suspected of being the Wasp, in MANDRAKE, and Winchester, a gambler suspected of being Pegleg, in KIT CARSON (in both serials, he did not turn out to be the villain). After these two initial supporting roles, MacDonald appeared in myriad Columbia B-westerns, mostly with Charles Starrett and Bill Elliott (whose equally laconic and shrewd persona made him an ideal antagonist for MacDonald), until his third cliffhanger--and his first full-fledged serial villain role. PERILS OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED (Columbia 1942), featured Kenneth as Mort Ransome, a treacherous badman fomenting an Indian revolution in the Canadian northwoods, and doing his best to rid himself of Sergeant MacLane (Robert Kellard), the heroic Mountie who stood in his way. ROYAL MOUNTED was played mainly for laughs by director James W. Horne (a great comedy director, but ill suited for the task of handling serials), but MacDonald gave a magnificent performance as the no-nonsense Ransome, and stole the serial simply by playing it “straight” in stark contrast to the wild overemoting of the rest of the actors.

Above: The hero (and the assorted suspects) in OVERLAND WITH KIT CARSON (Columbia, 1939). From left to right: Olin Francis, William "Wild Bill" Elliott, Hal Taliaferro, LeRoy Mason, and Kenneth MacDonald. Looming over the rest is Trevor Bardette.

Now MacDonald was on a roll, as Columbia immediately put him into another cliffhanger. The Western serial THE VALLEY OF VANISHING MEN (Columbia, 1942) had Kenneth playing Jonathan Kincaid, a greedy, ruthless tyrant, so nasty that he kidnapped innocent men and made them slave in his secret gold mine. MacDonald was also involved in a plot to conquer Mexico, but hero Bill Elliott, son of one of Kenneth's unwilling mine workers, discovered the villain's plot and smashed his evil setup. Elliott and MacDonald played off each other as smoothly as they had done in B-westerns like SON OF DAVY CROCKETT. VALLEY also gave us a particularly rich example of Kenneth’s treacherous nature: in one chapter, Elliott spread word of a gold strike hoping to trigger a rush that would result in a prospector finding the secret mine. MacDonald knew what his antagonist was up to, so he invited all the gold-seekers into his saloon for free drinks before they set out to look for wealth. He genially slapped them on the back and talked them into drinking more while his henchmen busily filled the cellar with explosives. MacDonald excused himself to set the fuse and only Elliott’s “interference” kept the unsuspecting prospectors from being blown to bits.

Above: Kenneth MacDonald (masked, far left) is about to give Kenne Duncan (center) a working-over in THE VALLEY OF VANISHING MEN (Columbia, 1942). George Chesebro (far right) is holding Duncan for his boss. I don't know what that big idol is doing there.

MacDonald followed up VANISHING MEN the next year with another memorable bad guy portrayal, Dr. Max Bremmer in THE PHANTOM (Columbia, 1943). Bremmer, a foreign spy engaged in building an airbase for his (unnamed) country in the lost city of Zoloz, had the mysterious jungle ruler known as the Phantom murdered to keep him from interfering with his plot. However, MacDonald quickly learned that the Phantom was truly "the man who never dies", as Geoffrey Prescott (Tom Tyler), the Phantom's son, donned his father's identity and kept Bremmer from destroying the Davidson expedition, who were searching for Zoloz and endangering Kenneth's scheme. Despite all the thugs, bombs, and hostile natives that MacDonald could throw at him, the Phantom emerged triumphant over the evil spy. MacDonald was at his villainous peak in THE PHANTOM; the sheer menace he displayed at one point when about to kill an underling (Paul Marion) for disobedience was only equaled by the aplomb with which he kept the good guys thinking that he was a kindly, altruistic physician.

Above: Tom Tyler as the Phantom confers with Dr. Brenner (Kenneth MacDonald, far left), not knowing that he is a villain. George Chesebro is on the far right, Guy Kingsford is between MacDonald and Tyler, and Frank Shannon is on Tyler's left. Ace the Wonder Dog plays Devil, the Phantom's dog.

Kenneth had a fine change-of-pace role in THE DESERT HAWK (Columbia, 1944), an excellent and offbeat “Arabian Nights” cliffhanger adventure. The plot of the serial dealt with Kasim, Caliph of Ahad, and his evil twin brother Hassan (both brothers were played by Gilbert Roland). Hassan managed to take his brother’s place as Caliph with the help of a treacherous palace official (Frank Lackteen), and Kasim was forced to assume the guise of the Desert Hawk, a legendary bandit, to combat his brother’s evil schemes. Kenneth MacDonald was Akbar, the stern and loyal Captain of the palace guards, who was unaware that he was taking orders from the usurping Hassan. MacDonald functioned as lead henchman for most of the serial and did his best to kill the Hawk, but when he found out that the Hawk was in reality his lawful prince Kasim, he changed sides and did his best to help Kasim regain the throne. In the final chapter, it was MacDonald who plunged a dagger into the heart of the evil Hassan, making up for his past mistaken service of the tyrant.

Above: Kenneth MacDonald (far left) with Gilbert Roland (center) and Ben Welden in THE DESERT HAWK (Columbia, 1944).

MacDonald's next serial, BLACK ARROW (Columbia, 1944) returned him to utter villainy, and, as in PERILS OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED, had him plotting an Indian insurrection for his own selfish gain. Playing a carpetbagger named Jake Jackson, MacDonald arrived in the Western town of Blue Mesa and promptly murdered the local Indian chief (Chief Thundercloud) in order to start a war and grab control of the gold on the Indian reservation. The chief's son, Black Arrow (Robert Scott) is banished from his tribe because he refuses to kill the just Indian Agent (Charles Middleton) in retaliation for his father's death. Black Arrow doesn't take this lying down, though; he joins with the Indian Agent and with storekeeper Mary Brent (Adele Jergens) to capture his father's murderer, and succeeds in preventing MacDonald's planned uprising. In the end, Scott proves to be Middleton's long lost son and Kenneth is once more defeated.

Above: Kenneth MacDonald (second from right) bawls out his cohorts-in-crime in BLACK ARROW (Columbia, 1944). I. Stanford Jolley is second from left.

After playing a minor good guy part--Police Inspector Hamilton in THE MONSTER AND THE APE (Columbia, 1945), MacDonald bowed out of serials for eleven years, spending a lot of time playing heavies in Three Stooges shorts (as shown above), as well as appearing in B-westerns and even a couple of major movies such as CAINE MUTINY and THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. However, Kenneth returned to serials for PERILS OF THE WILDERNESS (Columbia, 1956), the second-to-the-last serial ever made. The title was, appropriately, reminiscent of MacDonald's first serial as a brains heavy, PERILS OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED. The two roles, and even the two character names (Mort Ransome in ROYAL MOUNTED and Bart Randall in WILDERNESS), were similar too. Once again MacDonald was attempting to manipulate an Indian tribe, this time in an attempt to make himself "Gun Emperor of the Northwest", and again he was opposed by a heroic Mountie (Dennis Moore). The major difference in the two serials (WILDERNESS also used a lot of stock from ROYAL MOUNTED) was the presence in WILDERNESS of modern day gadgets such as automobiles and an airplane. Other than that, MacDonald's last serial heavy role was a virtual reprisal of his first; his illustrious cliffhanger career had literally come full circle.

Kenneth's best remembered role in his later years was as one of the judges on TV's PERRY MASON; he presided over no less than 32 cases during the show's run; indeed, most think of him as the show's definitive judge. His last movie before retiring was FORTY GUNS TO APACHE PASS in 1967. Directed by Republic serial pro William Witney (who had, however, never helmed any of Kenneth's serials) and starring Audie Murphy, FORTY GUNS gave Kenneth a small but important part as the father of leading lady Laraine Stephens and her brother Michael Burns. Shortly after, in 1972, Kenneth passed away.

Columbia's greatest heavy, in serials, B-westerns, and comedies alike, Kenneth MacDonald has carved his niche in the serial hall of fame. His tough, shrewd, and resourceful villains seemed unstoppable, at least for a while. Though he was always stopped in the end, he still deserves recognition as one of the cliffhangers' premiere Bad Guys.

Above: Kenneth MacDonald dons his mask for more skullduggery in THE VALLEY OF VANISHING MEN (Columbia, 1942).