The 1939 "Buck Rogers" serial clocks in at just about four hours, and though "Planet Outlaws" is just a bit over an hour itself, the repetitious nature of it's programming makes it feel almost as long as the original. I wasn't counting, but how many trips did Buck (Buster Crabbe) and sidekick Buddy (Jackie Moran) actually make between Earth and Saturn?
The film's limited budget really shows through in virtually every scene, and is never more apparent than in the shots of the space ships themselves. Keeping in mind that "King Kong" was made six years earlier in 1933 should give one a good idea of what kind of shoestring this must have been made on. In the story, Buck and Buddy go into suspended animation for a period of five hundred years after their dirigible goes down in an Arctic region in 1938. Amazingly, a record of their original mission still exists, which helps with their credibility once they're discovered.
The villain of the piece is one Killer Kane, attempting to rule the world, the universe and anything else beyond that. As Kane, Anthony Warde doesn't have that larger than life charismatic evil of say, a Darth Vader, or even a Ming the Merciless. What he does have though is the technology to render an entire 'Robot Battalion' of captured enemies to do his bidding. Interestingly, whenever a good guy removes a helmet from one of the slaves, the mind control connection dissolves, even when the helmet is immediately put back on!
Well, I guess it doesn't have to make sense. Buck Rogers was the product of a simpler time, when forays into outer space science fiction was a wide open experiment, along with the relatively new medium of talking pictures. Viewed in that context, the film has a unique perspective to offer if one can refrain from being too critical. Have some fun with this one, space ranger.
The film's limited budget really shows through in virtually every scene, and is never more apparent than in the shots of the space ships themselves. Keeping in mind that "King Kong" was made six years earlier in 1933 should give one a good idea of what kind of shoestring this must have been made on. In the story, Buck and Buddy go into suspended animation for a period of five hundred years after their dirigible goes down in an Arctic region in 1938. Amazingly, a record of their original mission still exists, which helps with their credibility once they're discovered.
The villain of the piece is one Killer Kane, attempting to rule the world, the universe and anything else beyond that. As Kane, Anthony Warde doesn't have that larger than life charismatic evil of say, a Darth Vader, or even a Ming the Merciless. What he does have though is the technology to render an entire 'Robot Battalion' of captured enemies to do his bidding. Interestingly, whenever a good guy removes a helmet from one of the slaves, the mind control connection dissolves, even when the helmet is immediately put back on!
Well, I guess it doesn't have to make sense. Buck Rogers was the product of a simpler time, when forays into outer space science fiction was a wide open experiment, along with the relatively new medium of talking pictures. Viewed in that context, the film has a unique perspective to offer if one can refrain from being too critical. Have some fun with this one, space ranger.