Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe

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Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe (or Commando Cody) was a science fiction serial consisting of twelve 30-minute episodes, released theatrically by Republic Pictures Corporation in 1953. It originally was filmed as a twelve-part television series, but union contract problems forced Republic to play it in theaters first. The episodes built on each other, and were intended to be shown in chronological order like the episodes of any other serial, but lacked the cliffhanger endings which had characterized serials for several decades. This has led to some controversy as to whether to count it as part of the Republic serial canon or as a short-subject series, among serial purists. Nonetheless, the episodes were numbered on the theatrical release prints and titled as "Chapters", and also shown as such in the advertising, and do form a continuous sequence of adventures with only partial resolutions at the end (the primary villain always escapes, and remains a menace at large), necessitating the showing of all of them to get a full resolution to the story, and material in most which would prevent them from being interchanged. Reference works on serials generally exclude this title, however, or mention it only as a TV series.

The series was first shown on television in syndication by Republic's TV arm, Hollywood Television Service, on NBC stations in 1955, with each episode slightly edited to 25 minutes to accommodate commercials.

Commando Cody loosely recycles characters, sets and concepts from the first Cody serial Radar Men from the Moon. Cody, for this outing, leaves behind his sport jacket, white shirt, tie and slacks and, when not in his rocket-man suit wears a black military tunic with many insignia, a garrison cap, and a black mask. This serial is also a prequel, in that the first episode finds Joan and Ted, Cody's established sidekicks in Radar Men, applying for their jobs and meeting Cody for the first time. Judd Holdren appeared as Commando Cody, with Aline Towne as his female colleague Joan Gilbert, and Gregory Gay as the villain, whose origins were left rather nebulous and who was called only The Ruler. Towne was the only performer from Radar Men from the Moon to reprise her role in this outing.

There was a fairly long break between the filming of the first three and the last nine episodes, during which Republic set about filming Zombies of the Stratosphere, also starring Judd Holdren and Aline Towne. Intended to also be a Cody serial, and the direct sequel to Radar Men from the Moon, it was subject to last-minute revisions of principal character names, and Holdren's "Cody" character became "Larry Martin." Meanwhile, the third episode of "Commando Cody" was filmed to apparently show the death of the Ruler, suggesting Republic may have considered not filming the remaining nine episodes and converting the three it had filmed into a feature film.

Once they finally resumed work on "Commando Cody", Republic had also lost the services of William Schallert as Cody's male colleague, Ted Richards (played by William Bakewell in Radar Men): a replacement was found in Richard Crane (a year before his tour of duty as Rocky Jones, Space Ranger), as Dave Preston. The Ruler also gained a hot blonde female sidekick, played by Gloria Pall, although she had almost no dialogue but rather simply stood beside the Ruler's communications scrambling device in a strapless white evening gown, while he received reports and gave instructions to his minions.

Cody and his associates use special badges that conceal two-way radios to communicate with one another, seemingly prefiguring some similar badges on Star Trek. There were a number of futuristic props and sets, as well as many shots of the intricate model-rocket special effects work of Howard and Theodore Lydecker. In each episode, the Ruler tried to take over the earth with a new scheme, each one designed to make the maximum use of Republic Studios stock footage of various disasters and action longshots. However, a number of space-concept scenes were lensed that had not been seen before in Republic serials, including "space walks" for several repair missions, aerial raygun fights between "hero" and "enemy" spaceships, and a black, starry (rather than sunny and cloud-spotted) exterior background when Cody's or the villain's ship were shown outside the earth's atmosphere. The world depicted has many similarities to that of Captain Video. We are in a near future, with the earth in radio contact with civilizations on other solar planets, as well as planets in other solar systems, but Commando Cody has just built the world's first space ship, and "out the window" the rest of the world still looks like the early 1950s.

Directors included Franklin Adreon, Fred C. Brannon, Harry Keller and Roy Wade. The episodes were scripted by Ronald Davidson and Barry Shipman. Other players included Craig Kelly as "Mr. Henderson," Cody's boss, and a rich assortment of Republic character players as henchmen of the Ruler, including Lyle Talbot, Mauritz Hugo, Lane Bradford, Peter Brocco, John Crawford, William Fawcett, Zon Murray, Denver Pyle and many others.

[edit] See also

• List of film serials

[edit] External links

• Commando Cody Episode Guide
• Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe at the Internet Movie Database (Note: misidentified and miscatalogued by IMDb as a TV Series)
• Commando Cody on TV.com
• A list of titles, casts and credits for several 1950s Republic space serials, taken from IMDb listings