Radar Men from the Moon is a 1952 black-and-white Republic Pictures' 12-chapter movie serial, the first Commando Cody serial starring newcomer George Wallace as Cody, Aline Towne as his sidekick Joan Gilbert, and 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 serial recycles the flying sequences from Republic's earlier 1949 serial King of the Rocket Men. It was later released by Republic in 1966 as the 100-minute television filmRetik the Moon Menace. The odd naming choice of the serial's main hero, "Commando Cody," was possibly an attempt by Republic to make young audiences think they were seeing another adventure of Commander Corry, the hero of the popular ABC TV and radio series Space Patrol. However, there is no surviving evidence that this was a consideration by anyone at Republic.
Plot
Commando Cody is a civilian researcher and inventor with a number of employees. He uses a streamlined helmet and a sonic-powered rocket backpack attached to a leather flying jacket. Cody also uses a rocket ship capable of reaching the Moon. When the U. S. finds itself under attack from a mysterious force that can wipe out entire military bases and industrial complexes, Cody surmises that the Earth is coming under attack from our own Moon. He then flies his rocket ship there and confronts the Moon's dictator, Retik, who boldly announces his plans to both conquer Earth and then move the Moon's entire population here using spaceships. During the next 11 serial chapters, Cody, now back on Earth, and his associates Joan, Ted and Dick battle an elusive lunar agent named Krog and his gang of human henchmen led by Graber and Daly, who use Lunarium-powered ray cannons to disrupt defense forces and weaken public morale. After a second trip to the Moon, in which he captures a sample ray cannon for duplication in his lab, Cody tracks Retik's minions to their hideout where Krog is killed by one of his own devices, and Graber and Daly subsequently die in an over-the-cliff car chase. Retik flies to Earth to take personal charge of his collapsing operations but is blasted out of the sky by one of his own ray weapons.
Radar Men from the Moon was budgeted at $172,840, although the final negative cost was $185,702. It was the most expensive Republic serial of 1952 and was filmed between October 17 and November 6, 1951 under the working titlePlanet Men from Mars; the serial's production number was 1932. The serial's budget was so tight that a stunt double was not always used for lead actor George Wallace. His nose was broken by accident while filming an energetic fight scene with actor Clayton Moore. For the camera's close-up flying sequences, Wallace was suspended in mid-air above a sound stage; he was lying on a horizontal board with the rocket suit's jacket closed around it, with a rear projection screen behind him. Wallace performed his own stunt flying take-offs by jumping onto a springboard that would send him up and over the camera rig set-up. This serial is heavily padded with rocket-suit effects footage first filmed for the earlier King of the Rocket Men, to which some believe this was a pseudo-sequel. A repainted Juggernaut vehicle from Republic's much-earlier Undersea Kingdom serial is also reused here as Retik's lunar tank. All spaceship footage was filmed new for Radar Men from the Moon. Outer space is shown as brightly lit, and the characters are shown walking on the Moon, in normal Earth gravity and in daylight, without pressure suits. The laboratory building is actually a Republic Pictures office building with a prop "Cody Laboratories" sign added to its exterior. Two different aerodynamic helmets were used with the Commando Cody rocket backpack, with the lighter weight version being used only in the stunt sequences; the single-hinged visors of both helmets were always getting stuck open or closed.
Release
Theatrical
Radar Men from the Moon's official release date is January 9, 1952, although this is actually the date the sixth chapter was made available to U. S. film exchanges. Republic's next new serial, Zombies of the Stratosphere, which also used some of the Cody flying suit and spaceship footage seen here, followed in the summer and began as a sequel to "Radar Men": for unspecified reasons, Republic changed the character names of Cody and Joan at the last minute. In between these two serials, Republic had begun filming on its first attempt at a TV series, "", but stopped production of that after the first three episodes were filmed to begin work on "Zombies of the Stratosphere". After that serial was finished, Republic resumed filming 9 more episodes of the Commando Cody TV series, but then, after the series was completed, it was theatrically released for contractual reasons, finally going to TV two years later. Radar Men from the Moon was re-released on September 30, 1957 between Republic's re-releases of the similar Zorro's Black Whip and Son of Zorro. Previously, the final original Republic serial was King of the Carnival released two years earlier in 1955.
Television
Radar Men from the Moon was one of 26 Republic serials syndicated for television in 1966 as 100 minute TV feature films under their Century 66 package marketing name; the title given the TV-movie was Retik the Moon Menace. In 1979, Firesign Theatre used segments of this and other serials in their made-for-TV parody comedy movie, J-Men Forever. In 1989, the serial regained notoriety as the first shorts shown by the cult seriesMystery Science Theater 3000. The first eight-and-a-half chapters of this Commando Cody serial were lampooned before their main feature-of-the-week.
Critical reception
In his 1984 book In the Nick of Time author William C. Cline dismissed the serial as a "quickie".
Copyright
Because of a failure to renew copyright, Radar Men lapsed into the public domain in 1979.
