''Brick Bradford'' (1947) was the 35th serial released by

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...

. It was based on the

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

Brick Bradford ''Brick Bradford'' is a science fiction comic strip created by writer William Ritt, a journalist based in Cleveland, and artist Clarence Gray. It was first distributed on August 21, 1933 by Central Press Association, a subsidiary of King Features ...

'', which was created by

Clarence Gray Clarence Gray (November 14, 1901 – January 5, 1957) was an American comic strip artist, best known for drawing the science fiction adventure strip ''Brick Bradford'' for more than two decades.Sara W Duke,''Biographical sketches of cartoonis ...

and William Ritt.

Plot

Brick Bradford is assigned by the government to aid Doctor Gregor Tymak, scientist and inventor who is working on an "Interceptor Ray" that can destroy incoming rockets. Unfortunately, it can also be used as a

death ray The death ray or death beam was a theoretical particle beam or electromagnetic weapon first theorized around the 1920s and 1930s. Around that time, notable inventors such as Guglielmo Marconi, Nikola Tesla, Harry Grindell Matthews, Edwin R. Scot ...

, bringing it to the attention of foreign spy agent Laydron. Tymak uses his door into the fifth dimension to escape criminals and it takes him to the far side of the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

(which luckily has air and is a rocky terrain without craters). There he is captured and sentenced to die by freezing to absolute zero by the Queen Khana, despot of the Moon, because they do not believe he has come from the Earth. The action moves to the Moon as the ray requires a special element called ''Lunarium'' (with an

atomic mass The atomic mass (''m''a or ''m'') is the mass of an atom. Although the SI unit of mass is the kilogram (symbol: kg), atomic mass is often expressed in the non-SI unit dalton (symbol: Da) – equivalently, unified atomic mass unit (u). 1&nbs ...

200 __NOTOC__ Year 200 ( CC) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Severus and Victorinus (or, less frequently, year 953 '' Ab ur ...

) previously only found in a meteorite. Working with exiles in the lunar wasteland, the heroes overthrow Queen Khana and return with the ''Lunarium''. However, the device still requires a formula hidden on an uncharted island 200 years in the past, so Brick and sidekick Sandy Sanderson travel in Tymak's

time machine Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a w ...

, the Time Top, to retrieve it. The final third of the serial is spent on modern day Earth with more trouble from the spy Laydron.

Cast

Kane Richmond Kane Richmond (born Frederick William Bowditch, December 23, 1906 – March 22, 1973) was an American film actor of the 1930s and 1940s, mostly appearing in cliffhangers and serials. He is best known today for his portrayal of the character La ...

as Brick Bradford *

Rick Vallin Rick Vallin (born Eric Efron; September 24, 1919 – August 31, 1977) was an actor who appeared in more than 150 films between 1938 and 1966. Early years Born in Feodosia, in the Crimea, Russia, Vallin came to the United States at age there ...

as Sandy Sanderson * Linda Leighton as June Salisbury (as Linda Johnson) *

Pierre Watkin Pierre Frank Watkin (December 29, 1887 – February 3, 1960) was an American character actor best known for playing distinguished authority figures throughout the Golden Age of Hollywood. He is best remembered for his roles of Mr. Skinner the b ...

as Prof. Salisbury *

Charles Quigley Charles Quigley (February 12, 1906 – August 5, 1964) was an American actor. Early years Born in New Britain, Connecticut, Quigley was the son of Charles P. Quigley, who was sales manager for a hardware business. He was a 1924 graduate o ...

as Laydron *

Jack Ingram Jack Owen Ingram (born November 15, 1970) is an American country music artist formerly signed to Big Machine Records, an independent record label. He has released eleven studio albums, one extended play, six live albums, and 19 singles. Although ...

as Albers * Fred Graham as Black *

John Merton John Merton (born Myrtland F. LaVarre; February 18, 1901 – September 19, 1959) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 250 films between 1927 and 1959, mostly as a villain. He was the brother of filmmaker André de la Varre an ...

as Dr. Gregor Tymak *

Leonard Penn Leonard Penn (13 November 1907 – 20 May 1975) was an American film, television and theatre actor. Early life and education Penn was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to parents Marcus Penn and Eva Monson. He majored in drama at Columbia U ...

as Eric Byrus *

Wheeler Oakman Wheeler Oakman (born Vivian Eichelberger; February 21, 1890 – March 19, 1949) was an American film actor. Early years Oakman was born as Vivian Eichelberger in Washington, D.C., and educated in that city's schools. He grew up in Fairfax, Virg ...

as Louis Walthar *

Carol Forman Carol Forman (19 June 1919, Epes, Alabama – 9 July 1997, Burbank, California) was an American actress best known for playing exotic villains in action serials, particularly Spider Lady in the 1948 Superman serial, as well as Sombra, the ...

as Queen Khana * Charles King as Creed h. 1-7, 9-15* John Hart as Dent h. 1-6, 9-15*

Helene Stanley Helene Stanley (born Dolores Diane Freymouth; July 17, 1929 – December 27, 1990) was an American actress. She is best known for being the live model for Cinderella, Aurora, and Anita Radcliffe. Early life Stanley was born in Gary, Indiana. ...

as Carol Preston h. 4-6

Production

''Brick Bradford'' was the first of only three science fiction serials released by Columbia. The serial was broken into three sections, each of which was written by a different screenwriter. The first section, chapters one to five, was written by George Plympton. The middle section, chapters six to ten, was written by Hoerl. The end of the serial, chapters eleven to fifteen, was written by Clay.

Critical reception

Harmon and Glut describes the serial as a "rather shoddy, low budget space cliffhanger." Hoerl's middle segment is full of in-jokes at the serial's expense while the final section by Clay is boring with a constant repetition of capture and escape sequences. Cline considers ''Brick Bradford'' to be a "mediocre serial that enjoyed a wide audience."

Chapter titles

# Atomic Defense # Flight to the Moon # Prisoners of the Moon # Into the Volcano # Bradford at Bay # Back to Earth # Into Another Century # Buried Treasure # Trapped in the Time Top # The Unseen Hand # Poison Gas # Door to Disaster # Sinister Rendezvous # River of Revenge # For the Peace of the World _Source:

Alternative titles

*''Brick Bradford'' (Latin America) *''Aventures of Brick Bradford, Les'' (France) *''Zÿn Avonturen Brick Bradford, En'' (Belgium)

References

External links

* *
''Brick Bradford'' at Todd Gault's Movie Serial Experience
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brick Bradford (Serial) 1947 films 1940s English-language films 1940s science fiction films American black-and-white films Columbia Pictures film serials Films based on comic strips Films directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet Films directed by Thomas Carr Moon in film American science fiction films Films with screenplays by George H. Plympton 1940s American films