Matinee Melodrama: Playing with Formula in the Sound Serial

Scott Higgins

Published by Rutgers University Press 2016

Matinee Melodrama

Playing with Formula in the Sound Serial

Scott Higgins

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813563305

Overview
Contents

About this book

Long before Batman, Flash Gordon, or the Lone Ranger were the stars of their own TV shows, they had dedicated audiences watching their adventures each week. The difference was that this action took place on the big screen, in short adventure serials whose exciting cliffhangers compelled the young audience to return to the theater every seven days.

Matinee Melodrama is the first book about the adventure serial as a distinct artform, one that uniquely encouraged audience participation and imaginative play. Media scholar Scott Higgins proposes that the serial’s incoherent plotting and reliance on formula, far from being faults, should be understood as some of its most appealing attributes, helping to spawn an active fan culture. Further, he suggests these serials laid the groundwork not only for modern-day cinematic blockbusters like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, but also for all kinds of interactive media that combine spectacle, storytelling, and play.

As it identifies key elements of the serial form—from stock characters to cliffhangers—Matinee Melodrama delves deeply into questions about the nature of suspense, the aesthetics of action, and the potentials of formulaic narrative. Yet it also provides readers with a loving look at everything from Zorro’s Fighting Legion to Daredevils of the Red Circle, conveying exactly why these films continue to thrill and enthrall their fans.

Author / Editor information

SCOTT HIGGINS is a professor and chair of the College of Film and the Moving Image at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. He is the author of Harnessing the Technicolor Rainbow: Color Design in the 1930s and Arnheim for Film and Media Studies.

Reviews

“Higgins won me over with his clarity of writing, his high principles of research and observation, and his humor. He understands the through-line from serials to Star Wars, Raiders, and other action-adventure films that followed.”

— Leonard Maltin

"Matinee Melodrama will transform the study of Hollywood serials. Illustrated by frame stills, and drawing on industrial research, formalist analysis, and game theory, it will soon become a classic."

— Steve Neale, Exeter University, England

"Scott Higgins offers an incisive and compelling analysis of the Hollywood sound serial as a distinct film genre--the form, story world, and style of which has much to tell us about enduring elements of popular American cinema."

— Charles Wolfe, University of California, Santa Barbara

"As someone who screens Zorro's Fighting Legion for his students every year, I derived particular enjoyment from Higgins' canny analysis of the ingredients that make up every chapter, and how the storytellers cleverly stretch and compress time. I hope this valuable book inspires other film teachers to explore the wonders of the sound serial."

— leonardmaltin.com

"Matinee Melodrama manages a mean feat: making a mostly forgotten, formulaic format seem new and exciting, shining an informative, fascinating light from film history onto today’s television, comics, and videogames."

— Jason Mittell, author of Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling

"Matinee Melodrama demonstrates the value of mining even the most prosaic of cinematic forms, and how it Is laregely obscured tracks still guide and propel mass entertainment."

— Film Quarterly

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
1. Serials, Melodrama, and Play: Why Study Serials? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Storytelling on a Schedule: Narrative Form in the Sound Serial Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
3. The Serial World Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
4. Cliffhanging Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	72
5. Narrative and the Art of Formula Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	98
6. Film Style and the Art of Formula Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
7. Cliffhanger Legacies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	156
8. Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	178
Appendix: Some Sources for Sound Serials Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
Selected Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
Filmography, 1930–1956 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211

Language: English
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 224
Illustrations
- Other: 34 photographs

eBook

Published: February 26, 2016
ISBN: 9780813563305