DON DAREDEVIL RIDES AGAIN (1951)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

As far as I know, DON DAREDEVIL is the first of two times that Republic Studios recycled footage from the 1944 ZORRO'S BLACK WHIP to cut costs on a new, equally western-themed serial. This was made possible by the writers devising a new hero with a costume very similar to that of an earlier one, so that clips from the earlier work could be repurposed. I made a comparison between the 1944 WHIP and the second clip-show serial, 1954's MAN WITH THE STEEL WHIP here. At the time I wrote that dual review, I was amused that sometimes I could see the male hero being "played" by a female stunt double for the heroine of ZORRO'S BLACK WHIP. DON DAREDEVIL came three years before STEEL WHIP, and on the whole the 1951 serial looks better, with less use of clips that make the male hero look as if the size of his body changes. 

Unfortunately, all the plot-elements of this 12-episode chapterplay suffer more "recycling" than any visual elements. In BLACK WHIP, the heroine took the place of her brother, the first Black Whip, who was slain by the outlaws whom the young woman then pursues. In the 1951 serial, the first Don Daredevil was a costumed vigilante who overcame some unspecified outlaws, but he's been deceased for some time. In order to battle a new set of criminals,the "Daredevil" mantle is then taken up by the original's descendant, which mirrors the developments of 1937's ZORRO RIDES AGAIN-- which gives DON DAREDEVIL more of a likeness to the Zorro-movies than ZORRO'S BLACK WHIP, where the name Zorro only appears in the 1944 serial's title. Presumably the original "Don Daredevil" was an actual Spanish "don," since it's a major point that the unnamed town where all the action happens was founded by Caucasians from a Spanish land-grant.

Doug Stratton (familiar heavy Roy Barcroft), prosperous town-citizen, has the courts invalidate the land-grant. Thus all the settlers have dubious ownership of their property, which will make it easier for Stratton to buy up all the land cheap. To make certain the settlers sell, Stratton secretly commands a passel of outlaws with whom he terrorizes people. Stratton sets his sights upon the ranch once owned by the man who was Don Daredevil (though Stratton does not know this), where the late hero's grand-niece Patricia (Aline Towne) lives. Stratton is thwarted when Patricia's cousin Lee (Ken Curtis) rides up and shows off his law-degree by blocking Stratton's acquisition. The villain rides away, planning new villainies.

Lee, Patricia, and Patricia's ranch-hand Buck (Hank "GREEN ACRES" Patterson) are the only ones who know that the former owner of the ranch was Don Daredevil. As they reflect on the threat Stratton poses, Lee gets the bright idea of becoming the new Don Daredevil, and the other two immediately agree with him. Unlike Diego de la Vega, Lee gets into fights almost as often as his masked alter ego, and sometimes receives assistance from other locals in contending with the raiders.

For the next eleven chapters, nearly all of the fights, stunts and cliffhangers in DON DAREDEVIL whether original material or clips, are re-iterations of previous fights, stunts and cliffhangers from earlier Republic serials. One chapter even swipes a schtick from a prose Zorro tale, in which the masked hero is visibly wounded by the evildoers, causing the bad guys to see if the man they suspect of being Zorro's alter ego has an identical wound. This is the closest this make-work serial comes to suspense, and Lee gets out of the difficulty the usual way: someone else dons the costume and diverts the villains' suspicions. As it happens, Patricia takes up the costume very briefly to provide this diversion, though unlike the heroine in ZORRO'S BLACK WHIP Aline Towne's character gets no action-scenes.

Aside from the presence of Barcroft as the main villain, DON DAREDEVIL's main asset for modern viewers is that Ken Curtis, the actor essaying the non-clip exploits of the titular hero, is today best known for playing the scruffy "Festus Hagen" of GUNSMOKE fame.