Above: A title card for THE GREEN HORNET STRIKES AGAIN (Universal, 1940).

THE GREEN HORNET STRIKES AGAIN

Universal, 15 Chapters, 1940. Starring Warren Hull, Wade Boteler, Keye Luke, Anne Nagel, Eddie Acuff, Pierre Watkin, Arthur Loft, James Seay.

I have now fully regained my childhood admiration and respect of both Green Hornet serials. Now that I can enjoy Universals and Columbias as well as Republics, I can look at the two cliffhangers on their own merits and see that the things I (and many others) have said about them for years are completely untrue. My confused memories of the serials' repetitive plotlines vanished like the mist as I began to re-watch the films themselves; my highly-Republic-prejudiced brain must have colored my memories to hostile purpose over the years. I've already set the record straight on THE GREEN HORNET, and I now owe the same treatment to THE GREEN HORNET STRIKES AGAIN.

This sequel opens up in Hawaii, as Britt Reid (now played by Warren Hull), attended as always by the faithful Kato (Keye Luke) is enjoying a peaceful, and, considering the hectic events of the preceding serial, well-earned vacation. Back in his home city, things are not well: Cunningham, his managing editor, is in the hospital with a broken leg, due to a car "accident", leaving new employee, assistant editor Harper (William Forrest) in charge of the Sentinel. Axford (Wade Boteler), Miss Case (Anne Nagel), and reporter Lowery (Eddie Acuff) suspect that Harper is using his position to back a shady lottery racket. And they're right--Harper is a stooge for racketeer Crogan (Pierre Watkin), the brains behind the lottery game and a million other shady set-ups. Miss Case telegraphs Britt, asking him to return immediately, but a nervous Harper gets wind of this and turns to Crogan for help. Crogan sends hit man Bordine (James Seay, in a peerlessly smug performance) to Hawaii with orders to get rid of Reid; he fails to kill the editor and only arouses his suspicion. Bordine boards Reid and Kato's ocean liner before it leaves, determined to have another go at Britt. Our hero is one jump ahead of him, though, and, having the Green Hornet costume handy (thanks to Kato's foresight), he corners the killer in his cabin and tries to make him talk. They are interrupted by a fire in the ship's engines. Escaping from the cabin onto the deck, Bordine tries to jump the Hornet, but is downed by the trusty gas gun and falls overboard. The ship makes it into port, where firefighters attend to the engines, and Reid is greeted by Axford and Lowery. Meanwhile, a panicky Harper prepares to clear out, while Crogan, figuring the assistant editor is of no further use, sends Tauer (Arthur Loft) to kill him. Tauer plugs Harper just as the Hornet is sweating the truth out of him, and the murder is of course blamed on the masked avenger. But that's no problem for the Hornet; he's used to dodging the police, and he keeps one jump ahead of the law while taking on this new Syndicate of scoundrels.

GREEN HORNET STRIKES AGAIN is a good follow-up to GREEN HORNET, differing from the original in some aspects but capturing its spirit quite well. It's surprising how much difference the passage of a year can make: GH is a serial of the thirties, with its nasty gangsters and urban crime, while GHSA is a serial of the forties, with its foreign agents and more widespread evildoing. The villains' activities in STRIKES AGAIN (including sabotage and arms-smuggling for "foreign powers" along with the expected protection rackets) are on the whole the traditionally generic schemes of serial heavies, rather than the utterly realistic and specific plottings in GREEN HORNET. I think this has something to do with why those who put down the first serial hail the second as an "improvement"--it's more typical of the serial genre. I don't agree, but neither do I think the first one is better than the second is--they're both equally enjoyable, and to try to make judgments between them is falling prey to the dread Comparison Urge William Cline writes about. The lead characters are the same in both, and the Hornet's crusade against crime is completely compelling in both, and that's all we need.

The switch in leading men is also indicative of the change in decades, from the gritty thirties to the slicker forties. While Gordon Jones' Britt Reid was a civic-minded, stand-no-nonsense tough guy, Warren Hull's Britt Reid comes off as more polished and suave in his crusading. He keeps his cool no matter what despicable racket he's investigating, and never lets the crooks know what he really thinks of them. As a kid, I must admit that I felt Hull far too slimy and slick for a hero, but I can now appreciate his fine interpretation of Reid. For whatever reason, Hull, unlike Jones, is allowed to voice the Green Hornet as well as play Britt Reid. Hull's radio background enables him to imitate Al Hodge's sharp, urgent tones to perfection; in my younger days, I thought that Hodge was dubbing Hull's voice as well. Suffice it say that Warren does full and complete justice to the intriguing double role.

Keye Luke's role of Kato is enlarged in STRIKES AGAIN, allowing him to interact more with the other characters and assist the Hornet in more of the action. He is still his imperturbable, super-efficient self, always on hand to come to "Mr. Britt's" rescue or to help him cover up his identity when the situation arises. The sequence where Axford nearly traps the Hornet (in Reid's house!) but is sabotaged by the deliberate "clumsiness" of Kato is priceless, with Luke's sly underplaying stealing the scene. Wade Boteler, returning as Axford, is as wonderful as ever, ever complicating things with his "charge in and bust their heads" attitude and his almost obsessive pursuit of the Hornet, while still managing to be funny and even endearing. As in the first serial, Boteler's continual bickering with Anne Nagel as to the true nature of the Green Hornet adds a welcome touch; Nagel herself is every bit as saucy and self-possessed as she was in the first serial. This time, she gets to accompany Britt Reid and Axford in an undercover mission in a later chapter, and, as in GH, gets a chance to meet her hero, the Hornet, face to face. Eddie Acuff (as Lowery, who was mentioned but never seen in the first serial) replaces Phillip Trent's Jenks as the Sentinel's chief reporter. Acuff creates a new character that differs from the eager-beaver Jenks; Lowery is laid-back and cagey almost to the point of cynicism, and delivers some pretty sharp banter himself in his conversations with Miss Case. Lowery perpetually enrages Axford with his teasing throughout the serial; this becomes a running gag that is amusingly resolved when Axford turns the tables on Lowery in the final chapter.

Since there are fewer "existing" rackets belonging to the Syndicate in STRIKES AGAIN, the chief villain is instrumental in setting up each plan. As a result, Pierre Watkin gets more screen time than Cy Kendall did in GREEN HORNET--even though, like Kendall, he never leaves his office. His brusque, acerbic orders to his men and his oily, sarcastic sneer when threatening someone with penalties for double-crossing make him a perfect brains heavy, and help him to dominate each of his scenes. When Hull finally gets on to Watkin and contacts him over the phone in the last chapter, we're treated to a great little duel between two very smooth and strong-willed personalities. Arthur Loft, who was Cy Kendall's sedentary lieutenant in GREEN HORNET, moves around a lot more in STRIKES AGAIN, directing most of the Syndicate activities while barking commands in his harsh, raspy voice. His function as "office heavy" is assumed by Jack Ellis, while the voluble Joe E. Devlin is another one of the key "action" henchmen. The gigantic William Hall is a crooked plant guard who afterwards becomes another key thug for Watkin and company, and smug, ruthless James Seay, apparently killed in the first chapter, returns later on, scarred and white-haired, seeking vengeance on the Hornet for his near-death in the ship fire. Loft, Hall, Devlin, and especially Seay function as a very competent and very menacing group of henchmen.

Unusual for a serial, GREEN HORNET STRIKES AGAIN has two secondary heroines: Jeanne Brooks as Gloria Manning and Dorothy Lovett as Frances Grayson. Brooks (later the leading lady in RIDERS OF DEATH VALLEY), whom Reid meets in Hawaii and later rescues during the ship fire, drops out of sight after Chapter One, but Lovett figures in two separate plotlines as a slightly irresponsible socialite who inherits the Aluminum Products corporation and is targeted by the Syndicate. Miss Lovett also gets to play Stella Moya, a brassy, down-on-her luck actress who Crogan hires to impersonate Frances Grayson; she clearly differentiates between Stella, Frances, and Stella-pretending-to-be-Frances. Louise Currie, later on a top heroine herself at Republic, plays Bordine's girlfriend in one scene, and William Forrest, Currie's co-star in MASKED MARVEL, is excellent as the furtive and treacherous Harper. Nestor Pavia plays a sloppy, seedy beachcomber who helps Bordine in his initial attempt to murder Britt Reid, and Karl Hackett plays a racketeer who promises to turn state's evidence and is murdered, just as he was in the first serial in his role of "Gorman."

Also among the supporting cast are Walter Sande, Forrest Taylor, John Holland, John Merton, Phill Warren, and Bob Kortman (all playing minor henchmen). Roy Barcroft appears very briefly as a policeman. Harry Cording and C. Montague Shaw have surprisingly small roles, as, respectively, a crooked construction foreman and an unscrupulous scientist. Richard Kipling overacts wildly as Shaw's scientific partner, Robert Barron is a shady nightclub owner forced to assist the Syndicate in a car-stealing racket, and Al Bridge is the ship's captain in Chapter One. Ray Teal pops up as a security guard, Pierce Lyden is the gang pilot, and Lane Chandler plays a police officer that assists Axford. I was unfortunately unable to identify the actor who plays Reid's friend Fulton, an oil-well driller swindled by the Syndicate, but I spotted James Blaine as a corrupt plant owner. Stephen Chase plays a honest businessman who seeks help against the Syndicate, Joseph Forte is a butler, and Jay Michael is so good as the silky-voiced racketeer Foranti that one regrets he only appears in Chapter Fourteen.

The screenplay, in the hands of the same team (George Plympton, Basil Dickey, Sherman Lowe) that wrote GREEN HORNET, is the usual well-written Universal script, with, however, the usual Universal "lived through it" cliffhanger resolutions. There are many fistfights throughout (more than were featured in GREEN HORNET, I think) and the cliffhangers, though not ingenious in resolution, are all exciting. Directors Ford Beebe and John Rawlins (assisted materially by the uncredited Ray Taylor) keep everything on a steady keel throughout, without having to recourse to any stock from the first Hornet cliffhanger. This serial is a great sequel to a great original, and it's too bad the Green Hornet didn't "strike" yet again at Universal.