SECRET SERVICE IN DARKEST AFRICA (1943)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*


SECRET SERVICE IN DARKEST AFRICA was the second and last adventure for heroic G-Man Rex Bennett (Rod Cameron), last seen in G-MEN VS. THE  BLACK DRAGON, which appeared in theaters the same year six months earlier. The earlier serial was directed by long-time veterans William Witney and Spencer Bennet, while SERVICE is credited to Bennet alone.

Athletic Rod Cameron is every bit as good here as in G-MEN, though his acts of derring-do are more predictable: Bennet has him do almost nothing but fistfights, often as many as three separate battles each episode. He has strong support from female lead Joan Marsh, who, despite playing a reporter, gets to shoot bad guys fairly frequently. I didn't care much for the lead villain in G-MEN, but he was a little more interesting than German villain Baron Von Rommler (Lionel Royce). (I like how the casting assigns the German officer aristocratic status, though the film does nothing with this trope.) Rommler's last name clearly invokes that of the real-life German scourge of North Africa, General Erwin Rommel, but Rommler has none of the charisma of Rommel. Rommler starts out the film by having his fellow Nazis abduct and imprison a prominent Arab chieftain, one friendly to the Allied cause, but not someone Rex Bennett has met before. Rommler then assumes the Arab's identity and
uses this position to spy on Bennett's counter-intelleigence plans to stem the Nazi tide in North Africa. (Since the action never strays out of that area, "Darkest Africa," whether it's a reference to jungle-heavy environments or to their inhabitants, seems little more than a buzz-word.)

Rommler may have lifted his identity-stealing trope from any number of earlier serials--1941's JUNGLE GIRL, for example-- and his next move is to get hold of a celebrated dagger, with which he can turn all the Muslim tribes in North Africa against the Allies. This was probably loosely borrowed from Sax Rohmer's 1929 novel THE MASK OF FU MANCHU, which in turn influenced at least two other Fu Manchu flicks, particularly DRUMS OF FU MANCHU. However, after the first few episodes the serial writers forget about this plot-thread and simply have Rommler pursuing assorted unrelated plots against Bennett.

One plot moves the serial's phenomenality into the realm of the marvelous: the Nazis capture an American device that is essentially a death-ray, able to blow up munitions from a mile away. (This is tossed off as if it's a common part of the American army's arsenal). For those more partial to uncanny devices, though, some hostile Arabs, thinking that Bennett has killed their chief, sentence him to a colorful death. He's tied to what looks like a mill-wheel-- at any rate, it's turned by the use of flowing waters-- while a metallic knife-pendulum swings down to gut him when he comes into range. These two perils add some variety in contrast to the expertly-done but sometimes repetitive fisticuffs.