Classic Serials: Undersea Kingdom (Faster-Paced Version), Chapter Three

(originally posted November 15, 2008)

Our snappier-paced, YouTube-length-limit-friendly edit of Republic's 1936 serial Undersea Kingdom continues!



And this week, snappier pace really is the name of the game. In each of the three previous installments, there was some GNDN sequence that I could easily clip out, saving several minutes. Last week, as I mentioned, I scarcely needed to do any additional editing, apart from shuffling some shots.

This week, not so much. As usual, I saved a minute by removing the tedious title cards that needlessly describe the characters, and I shortened the recap. Beyond that, I took it from nineteen minutes to ten by abbreviating sequences, sometimes on a shot-by-shot basis. Professor Norton, telling Unga Khan again that he refuses to help him in his mad scheme? Out. Unga Khan, describing—again—what the transforming ray is, and what it does? Out. One of Sharad's men, taking a four-second shot to cross the damn room? Out. Way too many reaction shots of Sharad and Billy during Crash's big fight? Out.

Probably the insane part of how I'm going about this is that, so far, I haven't watched chapters in advance of the one I'm working on. I mean, I saw the whole thing a couple of years ago, so I more or less remember the plot (such as it is), but if there's a chapter that's going to defeat the effort to cut it to less than ten minutes, I'm blissfully ignorant of it at the time of writing.

(Be glad Blogger is still being temperamental about uploading images. I was going to treat you to a screenshot of the Final Cut timeline to show you all the slicing-and-dicing this week.)

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(and, about three weeks late, this re-post, originally posted November 4, 2008)

And now, about two weeks late, here's a trailer from the 1950 re-release of Undersea Kingdom.