''The Adventures of Captain Africa'' is a 1955 adventure serial film directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet and starring John Hart.

Plot

Trapper Nat Coleman and government agent Ted Arnold come upon a plot to take over an African nation. Its leader, Caliph Abdul el Hamid, has been exiled from his country and replaced by a look-alike usurper allied with an unnamed foreign power. The Caliph intends to return but enemy agents Boris and Greg are out to stop him. Captain Africa a masked jungle lord, appears occasionally to aid Nat and Ted.

Cast

* John Hart as Captain Africa * Rick Vallin as Ted * Ben Welden as Omar *June Howard as Princess Rhoda * Bud Osborne as Nat Coleman * Paul Marion as Hamid *

Lee Roberts Lee Roberts (June 17, 1913 – April 24, 1989) was a film actor during the Hollywood Golden Age. Sometimes he is credited as Robert Allen or Lee J. Roberts. Career Little is known about this man who appeared in over 100 films between 1943 a ...

as Boris

Production

''The Adventures of Captain Africa'' was conceived and filmed as a sequel to '' The Phantom'' (starring Tom Tyler). Well into production, Columbia found that its screen rights to the comic strip had expired. King Features wanted more money than producer Sam Katzman was willing to spend, and negotiations broke down. Katzman ordered a rewrite, and new scenes showed John Hart now wearing an amended costume that only used ''part'' of the original Phantom outfit, with the addition of a leather aviator's cap and riding breeches. The revised story featured a new hero, Captain Africa, who still bears a strong resemblance to the Phantom in both appearance and behavior. ''The Adventures of Captain Africa'' consists mostly of

stock footage Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is film or video footage that can be used again in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it saves shooting new material. A single piece of stock ...

from earlier serials ''

Jungle Menace ''Jungle Menace'' (1937) is the first serial (film), serial released by Columbia Pictures. Based on the success of Republic Pictures's 1936 serial ''Darkest Africa'', starring real-life animal trainer Clyde Beatty, Columbia made this exotic j ...

'' (1937), '' The Desert Hawk'' (1944), and ''The Phantom'' (1943) itself. Footage from '' The Phantom'' was reduced when this stopped being a sequel. Each of the 15 chapters uses only a few minutes of new material. Producer Katzman was well known for his thrift and shortcuts. Serial producers often economized by including a "cheater" chapter, in which flashbacks to earlier chapters are shown instead of new scenes. ''The Adventures of Captain Africa'' uses four cheaters among its 15 chapters. The frequent recaps were possibly necessitated by the hasty rewrites during production. ''The Adventures of Captain Africa'' was Columbia's last jungle serial.

Release

The serial was released on VHS, and on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

from a company called Serial Bowl, which specialized in movie serials.

Critical reception

Serial historian William C. Cline writes that ''The Adventures of Captain Africa'' is "an obvious remake of ''The Phantom'', it contained many stock shots from the earlier release and at times seemed almost like a repeat run."

Chapter titles

#Mystery Man of the Jungle! #Captain Africa to the Rescue! #Midnight Attack! #Into the Crocodile Pit! #Jungle War Drums! #Slave Traders! #Saved by Captain Africa! #The Bridge in the Sky! -- Re-Cap Chapter #Blasted by Captain Africa! -- Re-Cap Chapter #The Vanishing Princess! #The Tunnel of Terror! -- Re-Cap Chapter #Fangs of the Beast! #Renegades at Bay! -- Re-Cap Chapter #Captain Africa and the Wolf Dog! #Captain Africa's Final Move! _Source:

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Adventures of Captain Africa, The 1955 films 1950s English-language films 1955 adventure films American black-and-white films Columbia Pictures film serials Films directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet American adventure films Films with screenplays by George H. Plympton 1950s American films