THE ADVENTURES OF SMILIN' JACK (1943)

 

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

ADVENTURES OF SMILIN' JACK was the longest running aviation-themed comic strip, in which the titular pilot had a number of improbable and light-hearted exploits. The serial, appearing in theaters a little over a year after the US joined the Allied war effort, was explicitly a morale-building film about Japanese aggression in the Pacific theater. The "Jack Martin" of this story, played by one Tom Brown, is never given the "smilin'" monicker and for the most of the serial has only one expression, that of grim determination. He also spends very little time in his plane. He's a civilian pilot who plans to go back home and enter the Air Force in the months just prior to Pearl Harbor. However, Jack gets involved helping the Chinese Nationalist army fight a Japanese spy organiation known as the Black Samurai (whose name was probably derived from a real-life fifth column group, the Black Dragons). 

Japan presumably occupies large parts of China at the time, and according to the script their main ambition is to cross through mountainous terrain to reach India. (It would have been nice to state why the Japanese want India so badly-- petroleum reserves maybe?-- but the subject is not addressed in detail.) The mountains are inhabited by an isolated tribe known as the Mandan, and rumor has it that the tribe know a hidden pass through which armies could enter India. Jack and his allies-- mostly the sister of a captive flier and a junior Chinese officer-- enter Mandan to solicit the secret from the king of the realm, but Japanese spies attempt to do the same. 

Surprisingly, the serial keeps up the quest for this information for the length of all thirteen episodes, even though that requires some of the Mandan people to leave their domain in order to confer with the United Nations, making them targets for the spy ring. However, most of the suspense is generated through talk rather than action, as there are only a couple of decent fight-scenes and one cliffhanger-trap. 

What makes some of the espionage-threat work is that, even if a mountain pass isn't all that exciting, one realizes that much of the strategy of large-scale wars depends on the warring nations making allies, even non-combatant allies, for the purpose of resources. The turpitude of the Japanese regime is constantly stressed, but without any overt racism. Late in the serial Jack reacts with horror when he learns from a Japanese officer that Pearl Harbor is going to be attacked without previous declaration of war, and the script does a good job of selling that wartime sense of betrayal.

The villains don't like each other either. Though a Japanese man named Kageyama (Turhan Bey) is head of the Black Samurai ring, he's obliged to take orders from a German female plotter, Fraulein Von Teufel, whose surname means "devil" and who's essayed by Rose Hobart. Bey and Hobart generate good chemistry hating one another, and the serial delivers on its subordinate theme of "no honor among thieves." One wishes that the serial had given these talented actors more to do than to stand around talking out their next plans.

The aforementioned trap is administered by Von Teufel, who imprisons Jack beneath a row of spikes being lifted by an incoming tide. This alone might not qualify the serial for uncanny status, but the spy-mistress also utilizes a concealed weapon predating those of the cinematic James Bond: a pencil that can fire poisonous darts. 

A number of familiar faces add to the watchability of JACK, such as Sidney Toler, Marjorie Lord and Keye Luke. It's a handsome looking but slow-paced effort, nowhere near either the best or the worst of chapterplays.