The Purple Monster Strikes

Sound & image are crisp. Despite another repetitive transformation scene with someone morphing into Roy Bancroft, this is the 4th Linda Stirling serial and fun. Stirling came close to death when trapped in the water pit. She is given a more active role in the fight scenes. Dennis Moore is a more believable leading man than the last one. Nice souped up anti-aircraft gun as death ray.

The Purple Monster Strikes is a 15 chapter movie serial typical of the ones shown each weekend at "B" movie theaters in the 1940's. I actually saw this very serial each Saturday in the Fall of 1945 when my Dad took me to see the weekly western Shoot-em-Up at a Tuscaloosa, Alabama theater. I was 9 years old at the time and found the obligatory cliffhanger at the end of each chapter to be very thrilling. I couldn't wait to get back to the theater the following Saturday to see how the good guys could possibly survive the terrible explosions, fires, car crashes, acid vats, etc., that supposedly finished them off the previous week!I ran across this serial quite by accident and decided to order it to see if it would bring back some of that thrilling mystery and nostalgia from my boyhood. It did, but now in my 70's seems quite campy and considerably less thrilling than it did in 1945. It now doesn't take much ingenuity to guess how most of the weekly escapes will be accomplished, but it was a lot of fun to see the old cars, their chases, and the various sets and scenes from long ago!The acting was probably fairly good for its time, but is far from what would be considered fine today. The photography is well done, but some of the devices like the Purple Monster's rocket ship, anihilator, invisible poison Martian atmospheric gas, etc., seem crude and laughable compared to today's very realistic computer generated graphics......but I enjoyed watching it! In fact, I have watched it twice!If you are into these old serials, or just want to see what it was like at the Saturday matinae 65 years ago, I highly recommend this one! I still can't believe we got to see a cowboy flick, the Movietone News, the weekly serial episode, plus a Looney Toons cartoon all for the price of one thin dime! And for another nickel, popcorn! It was good to be a kid then!!

This is a DVD-R manufactured on demand. It is not a region 1 DVD as claimed. I have no problem with DVD-R releases, as long as it's communicated on the product page. This was not. On the contrary, it claims to be something it's not.

This is one of my favorite movie serials, and this DVD release is the best version of this released so far. I just wish that someone would put out a proper restoration of this serial.

Not a good transfer! Better copies on Ebay!

Quality as good as could be expected. Re-living Saturday matinees from 65 years ago! Only 4 stars because of lack of any liner notes. Had to get info from i-net.

A must for the serial lover, the Purple Monster has what your looking for. It wants to take over Earth. The problem is their space ships can't make the round trip. He wants to build it with help from earthly cohorts that are recruited with a show of technology. You'll need to get it to see if Earth lost the battle.Great serial fare.

I am an old serial junkie and this one is one of the best!