Radar Men from the Moon

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Radar Men from the Moon (Republic Studios, 1952) was the first Commando Cody serial, in 12 chapters, starring newcomer George Wallace (1917-2005) as Cody and Aline Towne as his sidekick Joan Gilbert, with serial veteran Roy Barcroft as the evil Retik, the Ruler of the Moon. The director was Fred C. Brannon, with a screenplay by Ronald Davidson and special effects by the Lydecker brothers.

This famous serial recycles the rocket-powered flying suit from King of the Rocketmen (1949). Commando Cody (his strange title is never explained; he is a civilian researcher with a large laboratory building -- actually the front office of Republic Pictures with a "Cody Laboratories" sign attached next to the door -- and a sizable staff of employees) has available for his use the rocket-powered flying suit (described in dialog as an "atomic-powered rocket suit" in the previous but unrelated serial in which it was used, King of the Rocket Men) and a rocket ship capable of reaching the moon. Suddenly the U. S. finds itself under attack as a mysterious something wipes out military bases and industrial complexes. Cody deduces somehow that the earth faces a menace from our own moon, and rockets there to discover and confront the moon's dictator Retik, who boldly announces plans to conquer our planet and move his subjects there. However, there is a singular lack of science-fictional derring-do in the episodes. Many of the cars are old enough to have completely vertical uncurved windshields, and Cody spends most of his time fist-fighting on Earth with an elusive lunar native, Krog, and the gang of crooks he has hired to steal and stockpile supplies for the invasion, and to continue to create strategic damage with a truck-mounted raygun. Watch for Clayton Moore as Krog's chief earthling assistant. Stock footage from earlier Republic Studios serials, all the way from The Purple Monster Strikes (1945) to King of the Rocket Men, is used extensively. Virtually nothing really happens until the final confrontation with Retik in Chapter 12, and anyone who remembered The Purple Monster Strikes from seven years before had already seen all of that confrontation!

Republic reused the rocket-powered flying suit in Zombies of the Stratosphere (also from 1952), in which the hero was called Larry Martin, and played by the serial Captain Video, Judd Holdren, but who had available Aline Towne and all the other pseudoscientific equipment and facilities previously used by Cody. Holdren went on to star as Cody in Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe (1953).