LOUISE CURRIE
February 2nd, 1921 --

Above: Louise Currie in her first of two starring serials, ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL (Republic, 1941).

Like Helen Talbot, Louise Currie only made two starring serials. But, also like Helen Talbot, both of her cliffhanger appearances were memorable ones, and will always be treasured by fans.

Above: Louise Currie is shown here on one of the cast cards from Chapter One of THE MASKED MARVEL (Republic, 1943), her second starring serial.

The pretty, feisty-but-friendly looking heroine of two of Republic's finest serials was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and took drama lessons as a high school student. Following her graduation, she entered films in the early 1940s, starting out as the leading lady in several of Bob Steele's "Billy the Kid" B-westerns at low-budget PRC Studio. She chose to be a free-lance actress, and turned down a Term Player contract offered her by Columbia Pictures' head Harry Cohn, in order to maintain acting freedom. During this time she made her first cliffhanger appearance (and one that is never mentioned in overviews of her career; I didn't even know of it till I started this section--and I've seen the serial in question!) in THE GREEN HORNET STRIKES AGAIN, in a small part as the hard-boiled girlfriend of slimy hit man Bordine (James Seay) in Chapter One. She was still acting on a free-lance basis when Republic hired her to play the heroine in one of their best serials (some say the best of all time), ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL (Republic, 1941). Based on the Fawcett Comics superhero, the screenplay of CAPTAIN MARVEL took some liberties with the character, but remained basically faithful to the comic books. In the serial, Billy Batson (Frank Coghlan Jr.), a teenage radio broadcaster covering an archeological expedition in Siam, was given the power to become super-powered Captain Marvel (Tom Tyler) by the ancient mystic Shazam (Nigel DeBrulier) when the expedition uncovered the Golden Scorpion, a fantastic device that could turn base metals to stone and evaporate living beings, depending on the arrangement of the device's "lenses." Since Billy advised against desecrating the resting place of the Scorpion, Shazam chose him to defend the world against the Scorpion's terrible powers lest it should fall into the wrong hands. The wrong hands turn out to be those of the Scorpion, a masked criminal who covets the golden Scorpion, and begins murdering the members of the expedition in order to gather all the lenses as part of a plan for world conquest. Louise Currie was Betty Wallace, the expedition's secretary, who helps Billy investigate the Scorpion's crimes. She is unaware that Billy is also Captain Marvel, who frequently shows up to save her when things get hairy. Despite the fact that the dominating figure of a costumed superhero shared the stage with her, Louise managed to hold her own and give a memorable, noticeable performance. That she avoided being relegated to the background in such a fantastic, action packed serial says a lot for her screen presence and acting talent.

Above: In this still from ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL (Republic, 1941), Betty Wallace (Louise Currie) has just been knocked unconscious by the robed Scorpion, who is after her part of a treasure map.

Louise's last serial also had the word "Marvel" in the title, and was, as far as I'm concerned, just as marvelous (pardon that pun) as Currie's first serial. THE MASKED MARVEL (Republic, 1943), was one of Republic's few original superheroes, and a very memorable one. Played by Tom Steele (who did a great job in the part but got no screen credit for it) the Marvel was a masked crimefighter who was secretly one of four insurance investigators, and set out to smash the sabotage ring of Mura Sakima, a slithery Japanese spy (masterfully portrayed by Johnny Arthur), which he accomplished in the course of twelve incredible, action-packed, furniture-busting chapters. Louise was Alice Hamilton, the daughter of the owner of World-Wide Insurance, Warren Hamilton (Howard Hickman). When her father, who had gathered valuable information on Sakima, (who was a former Japanese representative of the World-Wide) was murdered to prevent him from getting the dossier to the Marvel, Alice joined the masked man's fight against the evil Oriental and his minions. As the only person privy to the Marvel's identity, Currie received even more screen time than she had enjoyed in CAPTAIN MARVEL, and created one of serialdom's most distinctive and likable heroines in the person of Alice Hamilton.

Above: Louise Currie shows a message from THE MASKED MARVEL (Republic, 1943) to William Forrest, unaware he is one of the villains of the piece.

Louise appeared in several B-westerns for various studios, including United Artists (a Hopalong Cassidy outing entitled FORTY THIEVES) and Universal (GUN TOWN, which starred Kirby Grant). Her last movie was QUEEN FOR A DAY in 1951. She married architect John Good and the two ran a family business for many years, John designing houses and Louise decorating them. Despite a false report of her death that was circulated about a year ago, Louise Currie is still with us, a popular guest at many film fests, and still a favorite heroine of millions of serial fans for her contributions to two marvelous--in a double sense--Republic serials.