Search - Don Winslow of the Navy - Volumes 1 & 2 (Complete Serial) (2-DVD) on DVD

Once outside the burning....

Hal Owen | Burbank, California USA | 03/24/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"For anyone old enough to remember the Saturday afternoon matinee movie experience, the action/adventure serial was usually the highlight of a weekly theater line up that might start with six to eight cartoons and end with another gang of cattle rustlers and varmints either behind bars or at least being run off the range by the likes of Gene Autry or William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd. While the cartoons were mostly fantasy fun, (except for the sing-alongs which seemed out of place in a auditorium screaming with the manic energy of hundreds of sugar-jazzed kids,) and the westerns rarely reached for anything more symbolic than crime doesn't pay horse opera story lines, the serials helped define the real world as a place full of dangerous men who sometimes wore very elaborate costumes or at least off the rack ill-fitting suits with hats that never blew off their well oiled hair while driving cars with fancy hood ornaments that could serve as the perfect paint spray applicator when a color change was deemed essential to loose a tail. Over the years, the movie serial evolved into a multi chaptered series of adventures that usually opened showing just how the hero manages to escape certain doom by some trick of fate or clever editing to live and fight his way towards the concluding episode. Which brings us to the 1942, twelve chapter, classic, "Don Winslow of the Navy," starring the rugged and genuine man of the world, Don Terry. Terry was perfectly cast to fight villians, as he had at one time been a boxer among other things and was under contract at Universal when preproduction for this serial began. First released some two months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, "Don Winslow of the Navy" quickly became a symbol of the matinee-militia in short pants resolve to see that the Pacific theater of World War Two included military victory over the land of the rising sun. But I'm getting ahead of the story for here we have presumably the timeless beauty of the Universal City palm-leafed backlot to suggest a more dangerous pre war South Pacific along with a fair amount of U.S.Navy approved stock footage serving as the backdrop to a tale of "a ruthless gang of saboteurs who seek to destroy supply ships carrying rations and equipment for the troops and undermine the entire United States' war effort." If you want to see what we as kids saw, minus the political correctness and superb special effects of today's filmakers, "Don Winslow of the Navy" might be for you. Yes it looks and feels like film making of another era but, for better or worse, it's the real thing. My only serious complaint has to do with the sometimes poor print quality through out the twelve chapters on two seperate DVDs. Otherwise, grab the Milk Duds, the popcorn and the soda and brace yourself for an afternoon of high and wide movie watching the likes of which you may not have experienced in quite some time."