The Black Hangman, a Nazi spy, is murdering members of an expedition that the Hangman (in his civilian identity of Arthur Galt- engineering consultant) undertook in Africa and uncovered a supply of helium in the caves of An-Ker-Ban. A group of four young Flying Cadets (Danny, Jinx, Scrapper, and Zombie) are the primary suspects for two of the Hangman's murders and they fly to Africa (with Galt) to clear themselves and break up the Nazi sabotage plan. Decent serial at the beginning with the Cadets going after the Black Hangman while he commits his sabotage acts, but after the he's revealed as Galt in chapter 3 and then heads towards Africa, the serial becomes mostly non stop talking scenes with the Hangman and all the Nazi agents just suspecting double crosses and shooting each other. Downs, Jordan, Wood & Benedict are very good as the young fliers (an improvement over the Dead End Kids in their 3 serials), while Ciannelli and Armstrong, make for good villains. I wish though the Black Hangman had more to do with the story later on in the serial. Holt is beautiful to look at, but she's not even seen until chapter 6, and she doesn't interact well with the story. A bunch of implausible cliffhangers, but decent dialogue. Rating, based on serials, 6.
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Mike-7642 January 2006
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Group of young men at a private flying school are angling toward a career in the army as fliers (Its during WW2). Into the mix comes the Black Hangman a Nazi agent who is killing industrialists and looking for the map to Ankaban a lost city in Africa. Moving from the airfield to the jungle this is a neat little movie that sucks you in and carries you along. Clearly Universal actually cared about this serial, something not always evident in some of their wartime chapter plays.To be certain it doesn't stand out as as one of the great serials of all time, it is however compulsively watchable as I found out when I put this on to watch a chapter or two and found myself five or six chapters in with out a thought. I really liked it. Plot wise I'm not sure if its a good thing that we know who the Black Hangman is in the second chapter (or first if you recognize the voice), I would have thought they could have used the masked villain to grater effect, but at the same time it is interesting that his Nazi masters clearly hold him in contempt and are planning on using him to their own ends.One doesn't usually get this many layers of good and bad guys. Definitely worth a look
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bkoganbing1 July 2011Movie serials today is definitely an acquired taste that I've for the most part never acquired. Especially during World War II when the Axis powers were ready made villains for propaganda, movie serials reached the height of stupidity. Adventures Of The Flying Cadets is a great example of what the American movie going public liked to believe back in the day.
Robert Armstrong is the villain here whom we first see in hooded guise as the Schwarz Henker, German for the Black Hangman. He's going around murdering some people and even figuratively speaking signing his own name to his work. Eventually his murderous trail takes him to a man who was a guardian to four orphan kids who are now air cadets, Johnny Downs, Bobby Jordan, Billy Benedict and Ward Wood. Armstrong even frames them for his rotten deeds.
There's no end to Armstrong's evil schemes, he's even doublecrossing the Nazis he works for in the person of Gestapo Agent EDuardo Ciannelli. That's all right because Ciannelli is busy trying to cut him out of the scheme of things.
What everybody's after is a rich deposit of Helium gas located where oil was being drilled in West Africa. The Nazis under Rommel are in command of the Sahara, the British and French colonies are still under them in sub Saharan Africa, this deposit is in kind of a no man's land geographically speaking.
As the action shifts to Africa, we've got the kids trying to prove their innocence, and Ciannelli and Armstrong trying to kill them through 13 chapters all the while trying to double deal the others. And army intelligence in the person of thick as a brick Regis Toomey is always a step or two behind.
What floored me in the end is that when Armstrong is finally caught here comes Toomey with a complete dossier on Armstrong and his activities saying they had him in their sites all the time. That was just TOO TOO much. But remember in 1943 it wouldn't do to portray army intelligence as less than intelligent with a war on.
There are still folks who do love these old serials, but for me at best they're quaint and it worst they are mind boggling stupid. -
xerses136 May 2013Wartime Serial from Universal, ADVENTURES OF THE FLYING CADETS (1943) was clearly aimed solely at the youth market. The plot is particularly predictable, most of it given away in Chapter One! Even a six (6) year old back then would have figured out that THE BLACK HANGMAN or 'Schwarze Henker' was Arthur Galt, Robert Armstrong with a bad German accent. This was pointed out by Kurt Von Heiger/Corby played by perennial bad-man Eduardo Ciannelli. The objective of our hero's is prevent those NAZI's from obtaining the precious HELIUM from a mine in Africa. This is accomplished in 13, somewhat thrilling chapters.
Each chapter though gets you moving with the jaunty song 'Here Comes The Air Cadets'. Air Cadets being a better rhythm for the lyrics then 'Flying Cadets'. There is no prologue recap between chapters, just a repeat, then on to the next adventure. Though not in the League with the FLASH GORDON franchise or BUCK ROGERS it is still a enjoyable ride. The young leads all former 'Child Stars' on the minor league level perform as expected. They are backed up by quality character actors. Most who would be appearing in 'A' or 'B' efforts at the major studios. Though half seemed to get killed off in the first chapter.
Our copy from ALPHA VIDEO came via the local flee market for $02.00. Which we feel was a good deal and what it is worth. There copy seems to come from a combination of transfers from film and video, but you can hear it and see it clearly. Remember 'digitally remastered' does not mean 'digitally restored'. Universal during the War years invested less and less in its Serial output and there would be only ten (10) more before it was discontinued. There efforts at this time were no way equal to those of REPUBLIC, but were way ahead of COLUMBIA. Now those were really bad!