LUCILE BROWNE
March 18th, 1907 -- May 10th, 1976

Above: Lucile Browne with her frequent co-star and real-life husband, James Flavin, in one of the half-dozen or so movies they did together in the thirties.

Lucile Browne, a pretty, blonde, wide-eyed, and very likeable actress, was similar to fellow cliffhanger heroine Jean Rogers in general personality and appearance. In fact, Browne is Rogers' only competition for the title of first serial queen of the sound era. However, Jean is very well-known among serial fans while Lucile (spelled with one "L") is seldom mentioned when cliffhanger heroines are discussed. And yet she did no less than six serials. It's long past time for someone to review her cliffhanger career....

Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Lucile Browne, like virtually every serial heroine (Kay Aldridge, Linda Stirling, etc.), started out as a model. She went from there to stage acting in a Chicago theatrical company, and from there to Hollywood was just one more short step. In 1930 she started work at Fox Studios (not yet Twentieth Century Fox in the thirties), and co-starred in a several movies, her first film being the part-silent, part-sound, George O'Brien Western, LAST OF THE DUANES.

In 1931 she did her first cliffhanger, DANGER ISLAND, which was released by Universal. She played Bonnie Adams, the daughter of a scientist who has discovered a radium mine on the titular isle. Two fortune-hunting crooks (Walter Miller and Beulah Hutton) "befriend" her in a hope of finding out the location of her father's mine, but sailor Harry Drake (Kenneth Harlan, a former silent serial star in his only sound-era hero role) and his sidekick Briney (a young Andy Devine) come to her aid. DANGER ISLAND sounds like an interesting jungle-sea serial, but unfortunately, there are no prints known to exist today.

Above: Lucile Browne is carried off by a gorilla in this scene from DANGER ISLAND (Universal, 1931).

Her next serial was BATTLING WITH BUFFALO BILL (Universal, 1931), a Western cliffhanger. Tom Tyler played Buffalo Bill Cody and went up against crooked gambler Jim Rodney (Francis Ford), who was trying to drive off the inhabitants of a town (with the help of some hostile Indians) so he could grab the town's gold-rich land. Lucile played Miss Archer, sister of Dave Archer (Rex Lease), who was the leader of the beleaguered townsfolk.

Above: Lucile Browne takes cover behind Rex Bell in the square photo insert on this pressbook ad for BATTLING WITH BUFFALO BILL (Columbia, 1931), while Tom Tyler battles an Indian in the round insert. Tyler is also shown on the right side of the ad.

Lucile's third and last serial for Universal would have a major influence on her later life. THE AIRMAIL MYSTERY (Universal, 1932) co-starred Browne with James Flavin, a forceful, distinctive actor better known for playing cops in millions of films, including MIGHTY JOE YOUNG and ABBOT AND COSTELLO MEET THE KILLER. Lucile and James were married a few years afterwards, and the union lasted until Flavin's death in 1976. In the serial, the future husband and wife played pilot Bob Lee and gold mine owner Mary Ross, respectively, battling the mysterious Black Hawk (Wheeler Oakman), a villain who was out to take over Mary's mine at all costs. As with DANGER ISLAND, we don't know how good AIRMAIL MYSTERY was; it is also one of the "missing" serials.

Above: Lucile Browne met her husband, James Flavin, for the first time when she appeared with him in THE AIRMAIL MYSTERY (Universal, 1932). The couple are shown together in this still from the serial.

Browne's last three serials were for Mascot Pictures, the low-budget studio that would later become the nucleus of Republic Pictures. Her first Mascot cliffhanger was LAST OF THE MOHICANS in 1932, a very loose "adaptation" of the classic frontier novel by James Fenimore Cooper, with Harry Carey Sr. playing Cooper's hero Natty Bumpo, or "Hawkeye." Lucile was actually a sort of secondary heroine in MOHICANS; she played the sister of primary leading lady Edwina Booth (Carey's co-star in the famous movie TRADER HORN). Both girls are kidnapped by the evil Indian Magua (Bob Kortman) and Hawkeye and his Mohican friends Chingachgook (Hobart Bosworth) and Uncas (Frank Cohghlan Jr.) set out to rescue them. Serial fans disagree violently over the merits of LAST OF THE MOHICANS; one thing they all agree on is that it was definitely a rather offbeat cliffhanger.

Above: In this color lobby card for LAST OF THE MOHICANS (Mascot, 1932), the good guys prepare to fight off Magua and his Indian henchmen. Walter Miller, as Major Duncan Heyward, is in the rear. Next to him are Hobart Bosworth and Frank Cohglan Jr. (as Chingachgook and Uncas). That's Harry Carey as Hawkeye in the coonskin cap, and the two girls are Lucile Browne (blonde) and Edwina Booth (brunette). The goofy looking guy at the front is preacher David Gamut (Nelson MacDowell).

Lucile was the main heroine again in her next Mascot serial, 1933's THE MYSTERY SQUADRON. She played Dorothy Gray, daughter of construction engineer Stephen Gray (Lafe McKee, who played "father of the heroine" in goodness knows how many cliffhangers). When the Grays and their dam-building project are threatened by the raids of the masked mystery villain the Black Ace and his Squadron, construction foreman Hank Davis (Jack Mulhall) sends for his pilot friends Fred Cromwell (Bob Steele) and Bill Cook (Guinn "Big Boy" Williams) in order to beat the Mystery Squadron at their own game. MYSTERY SQUADRON, with a great cast and breathless (indeed, sometimes too breathless) Mascot pacing, is probably the most popular and well-known of Lucile's serials.

Above: Lucile Brown is being menaced by someone or something in this publicity shot from MYSTERY SQUADRON (Mascot, 1933).

Browne's final cliffhanger was LAW OF THE WILD (Mascot, 1934), which starred former silent cowboy hero Bob Custer as a rancher and the owner of magnificent stallion Rex (Rex the Wonder Horse) and Rinty (Rin-Tin-Tin Jr.). When villainous Frank Moran (Richard Cramer) frames Custer for murder and steals Rex, Custer's girlfriend (Lucile) and his sidekick (Ben Turpin) must help Bob clear himself. LAW OF THE WILD was a good final serial for Lucile; she plays a major part in the plot and even gets to ride Rex in a climactic race at the end.

Above: A lobby card for LAW OF THE WILD, showing Bob Custer and Lucile together.

Lucile made sporadic acting appearances in the early fifties, but she devoted most of her time to her happy family life. Her husband died in 1976, and Lucile followed him less than a month later.

I hadn't intended to include Lucile Browne in my featured Heroines section when I began this site; as a matter of fact, I wasn't even aware she had done more than one serial. But as I became aware of the volume of her cliffhanger output, it became clear she demanded an article all her own. This page is a salute to an unsung heroine that ranks up there with the best of the cliffhanger actresses.

Above: Lucile happily embraces Bob Steele in MYSTERY SQUADRON (Mascot, 1933) while Big Boy Williams looks the other way.