Kane Richmond Movies

Based on a popular comic strip, this 15 episode Columbia chapterplay produced by legendary cheapskate Sam Katzman (aka "Jungle Sam") heralded the beginning of the end of the American movie serial. Starring the otherwise watchable Kane Richmond in the title role, Brick Bradford had pretensions of becoming the next Flash Gordon, but Katzman's notorious reluctance to part with a dollar bill sealed its fate. Perhaps the cheapest producer releasing through a major company (Columbia) in the '40s, Katzman employed a generous dose of carelessly inserted stock footage in his serials, thus earning the epitaph as the typical cigar-chomping hack producer who is in the movie business merely to make a fast buck (actor Mike Starr eminently portrayed the prototype in Ed Wood, 1995). A Secret Service agent employed by the United States government to protect the Interceptor Ray, a newly invented missile, Brick Bradford gets involved with a mysterious scientist, whose "crystal door" transports him to the moon and back, to 18th century Central America, etc. All of this demanded inspiring sets and special effects and not Jungle Sam's tired potted plants and moth-eaten stock footage fauna. Comic strip hero Brick Bradford deserved better and so did his portrayer, Kane Richmond. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Crooked newspaper columnist Jeff Mann (James Cardwell), who apparently was blackmailing half the criminal gangs in the city, is murdered in his own office, and a police officer is killed the same night in the alley outside the newspaper's building -- and the prime suspect is the Shadow, the mysterious masked adventurer with the ability to cloud men's minds so they can't see him. The Shadow is, in reality, millionaire playboy and dilettante criminologist Lamont Cranston (Kane Richmond), who is about to get married to Margo Lane (Barbara Read); he's vowed to give up being the Shadow, but now he has to investigate this case to clear himself, much to Margo's dismay. Police Inspector Cardona (Joseph Crehan) wants to prove the Shadow committed the murders, and Mann's editor Brad Thomas (Robert Shayne) is calling for the Shadow's blood in his newspaper's editorial pages. This leaves Cranston with his hands full, especially after Margo -- anxious to get him to the altar -- tries to solve the case herself, at one point even masquerading as the Shadow. Between keeping her out of his way and staying ahead of the real culprit, the police, and the gangs that Mann was blackmailing, Cranston and his valet Shrevie (George Chandler) just about get themselves killed a couple of times, amid a string of comedic and mysterious twists that lead right back to the murder scene for the identity of the killer. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this comedy-mystery, an advertising executive begins looking into a touchy situation involving two brothers who are embezzling from his company. Also involved are two vicious thugs who are pursuing the brothers. When the ad man releases his new campaign, "The Three Springs," the brothers, whose surname is Spring, believe he is attempting to blackmail them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Shadow Returns was the first of three above-average Monogram features based on the popular radio melodrama The Shadow. Kane Richmond stars as wealthy man-about-town Lamont Cranston, who years ago in the Orient had learned the hypnotic power to "cloud men's minds," thereby transforming himself into the crime-fighting Shadow. When Inspector Cardona (Joseph Crehan) is unable to solve a high-profile jewel theft, Cranston goes into his mind-clouding act to investigate. He is "helped" by his lady friend Margo Lane, who though an intelligent and resourceful character on the radio series is herein portrayed as a blithering idiot by Barbara Reed. In fact, Margo comes off far stupider than the film's official comedy relief, Cranston's chauffeur Shrevvie (Tom Dugan). Outside of the irksome Margo Lane, The Shadow Returns is an entertaining mystery, with the "disappearing" gimmick handled with subtlety and inventiveness by director Phil Rosen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Shadow (Richmond) investigates the murder of an art dealer with his only clue being a stolen jade statuette. ~ All Movie Guide

Based on the popular comic strip by Dale Messick, this Sam Katzman-produced Columbia serial starred the beautiful and talented Joan Woodbury, an actress who never really lived up to her early potential. Brenda Starr, Reporter didn't exactly change that sad fact; a rather straightforward tale of a girl reporter who is mistakenly believed to possess the key to the whereabouts of a hidden fortune, the serial was a typically shoddy Katzman effort. A gang of crooks headed by the always watchable Wheeler Oakman spend 13 chapters attempting to force the secret out of poor Brenda, who is always saved in the nick of time by handsome Kane Richmond. In the end, Brenda Starr, Reporter had a couple of attractive leads, and a wonderfully hammy master criminal, but very little else. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Melodramatic gangster action characterizes this tough and freely fictionalized biography of notorious, murderous Chicago mobster Roger Touhy. Set during Prohibition, it centers on Touhy's rise from small time thug to the city's most powerful bootlegger whose empire is rivaled only by that of Al Capone (who is referred to, but never named in the story). It is his rival who frames Touhy for kidnapping and arranges for him to serve a life-long term in Stateville prison. Determined to be free again, the desperate Touhy and his cellmate Basil "the Owl" Banghart, begin plotting a violent break out. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Another of a wartime cycle of Hollywood films lauding the praises of America's Soviet allies, Three Russian Girls is a remake of Russia's The Girl From Stalingrad. Set just after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the film stars Anna Sten as Natasha, a Red Cross volunteer who is dispatched to a field hospital located in an old pre-revolution mansion. American test pilot John Hill (Kent Smith), who'd been in Russia on a goodwill mission, is wounded in battle and brought to the hospital. As he slowly recovers from his wounds, Hill falls in love with Natasha. A last-act crisis develops when the hospital personnel are forced to move immediately to Leningrad as the Nazis advance. Most of the "counter attack" scenes that follow were obviously lifted from the original Girl from Stalingrad. For the record, the other two "Russian girls" are played by Mimi Forsaythe and Cathy Frye. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the best serials ever made, Spy Smasher has managed to find favor even among non-serial aficionados. Like his fellow masked avenger, Batman, Spy Smasher possessed no super-human powers but was a mere mortal of flesh and blood. In brief, Spy Smasher, alias Alan Armstrong (Kane Richmond, and his twin brother Jack (also Richmond) pursue a nefarious German agent known only as The Mask (Hans Schumm). Witney and screenwriters Ronald Davidson, Norman S. Hall, Joseph Poland, William Lively and Joseph O'Donnell imbued their hero with a dark uniform very similar to the one he wore in the comics, but added a fancy belt decorated with a large "V" for "Victory" and the morse code symbol for the letter, three dots and a dash. The coup de grace, so to speak, was Mort Glickman's signature score adapted from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Leading man Richmond managed to make his identical twins a little less identical than the usual routine split-screen characterizations and the character of Jack Armstrong, the All-American boy, was actively mourned when killed off in chapter eleven, "Hero's Death," in perhaps the most unique chapter ending in the history of serialdom. Kane Richmond, who had been around Hollywood's action studios since 1930 and had even appeared as a Martian in Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938), became a major genre icon on account of his stellar performance as the Spy Smasher. Borrowed from Columbia Pictures, flaxen-haired Howard Hughes discovery Marguerite Chapman proved one of the best purveyor's of serial pulchritude thus far as Jack Armstrong's imperiled fiancee Eve Corby, and Tristram Coffin, later a serial hero himself, was capital as Drake, The Mask's chief henchman who manage to insinuate himself as Jack's friend. The subsequent feature release Spy Smasher Returns constituted not a sequel but an edited-down version of this serial. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Spy Smasher Returns is a 100-minute abridgement of Republic's 12-chapter serial Spy Smasher. The original 1942 chapter play was based on the comic book character created in 1940 by C.C. Beck, Pete Costanza and Bill Parker. As in the comics, Spy Smasher's alter ego is playboy Alan Armstrong, here played by Kane Richmond. For the purposes of the serial's labyrinthine plotline, Alan is given a twin brother named Jack, who is killed off halfway through the action (thus providing a misleading chapter climax). Spy Smasher's assignment is to ascertain the identity of The Mask, the mysterious head of a Nazi spy ring operating in America. The Mask has in his possession a death ray and a "bat plane", both props borrowed from earlier Republic serials. The truncated Spy Smasher Returns was prepared for television in 1966. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hard Guy (British title: Professional Bride) stars singer Mary Healy (later of "Peter Lind Hayes and?" fame) as Julie, a nightclub cigarette girl with a mission. Julie is determined to ascertain the identity of the man who murdered her sister, hence her current employment at the tawdry nightery owned by mobster Vic (Jack LaRue). Since the aforementioned Vic has a habit of knocking around his female employees whenever they get out of line, the unmasking of the murderer isn't much of a surprise. Before this happens, however, Julie falls in love with gangly Oklahoma-born detective Steve (Kane Richmond), whose inbred skill with a six-gun comes in handy during the inevitable shootout finale. Hard Guy was directed by Elmer Clifton, who'd been helming six-day quickies for so long that one wonders how he would have handled a seven-day shooting schedule. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide