As we mentioned in our YouTube Wednesday entry here, there were twoGreen Hornet tv episode compilation films produced after Bruce Lee's death.
This is the second one, which received very limited distribution in the US, but was very popular overseas.
As you can see from the ad art, the producers actually played down the connection to the Hornet tv series, playing up Lee with an illo based on stills from his other films!
Using the episodes "Trouble for Prince Charming", "Bad Bet on a 459-Silent", "The Ray is for Killing", and "Secret of the Sally Bell" as the basis of the film, the editors also added unrelated fight footage from other episodes to pad the running time (as was done in the first film).
It's an interesting, and sad, note to the Green Hornet's career, at a point where he doesn't even appear on the poster for a film version of his own show!
Enjoy.
It's not often someone can take on the captain of the USS Enterprise...and win!
The Green Hornet can!
OK, technically, he's not the captain of the Enterprise here, but Jeffrey Hunterwas the first man to sit in the captain's chair during the first Star Trek pilot episode, "The Cage".
When NBC said, "close, but not quite", and ordered a second pilot, Hunter turned down the option to return, preferring to do a pilot for Batman producer William Dozier called Journey into Fear based on a novel by Eric Ambler, previously done as a feature film in the 1940s starring Orson Welles!
Ironically, it was in competition for an NBC schedule slot against, among other shows, a secondStar Trek pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before" with William Shatner as the new captain of the Enterprise!
Trek sold. Journey didn't.
Hunter began doing tv guest-star roles, and when offered, took the guest-villain gig on Dozier's Green Hornet series, playing construction magnate Emmett Crown, who's also secretly financing an insurance company which offers "protection" to businesses!
Daily Sentinel reporter Mike Axford is investigating the matter and is told by his boss, Britt Reid, to work with The Green Hornet to expose the still-unknown head of the "insurance" company! Axford intends to do exactly that, and capture The Hornet, as well!
It's cross and double-cross as plans are made and plans go awry, resulting in kool fight scenes, Crown being exposed and captured, and The Hornet and Kato escaping the law again!
SideNotes:
More location shooting, this time at an active construction site outside LA, where Britt Reid is almost "accidentally" killed and, later, The Hornet and Kato face several of Crown's bulldozers trying to crush the Black Beauty.
Since the car's rockets are ineffective against the heavy metal blades of the bulldozers, The Hornet and Kato use the previously-unseen Hornet Mortar (located in the same rear trunk compartment where the flying Hornet Scanner is kept), to loft explosive shells over the blades and disable the dozers' treads. The Hornet Mortar is never seen or mentioned again.
Here's the 14th episode aired (but 15th episode filmed), "Freeway to Death".
Since The Green Hornet first appeared on radio in 1936, he's made the transition to motion pictures, comics and television.
Very little has been written about the masked marvel and what has been recorded in magazine articles and encyclopedias prior to this publication never explored the character as deeply... or accurately.
A complete history of the radio series from the creation to conception sketches, reprints from production files to the untold adventures, biographic details of the cast and the characters they played (including Mike Axford, Kato, Gunnigan, Lenore Case, Linda Travis, Ed Lowry, Clicker Binney, Commissioner Higgins, etc.) and background information is all provided under one cover.
Also included are details of the two cliffhanger serials produced by Universal in the early forties, the unaired 1952 television pilot, the long-running popularity of the comic books and the William Dozier television series (1966-67) starring Van Williams and Bruce Lee including a complete episode guide documenting every episode including unproduced scripts and plot ideas.
I highly recommend it.
Last night, I went to see The Green Hornet.
Last night, I didn't see The Green Hornet!
I was coming directly from a meeting with a client, so I had my laptop with me.
When time came to go in, the audience was told that we would have to check our cellphones, BlackBerrys, laptops, etc.
Now, my cellphone doesn't even have a camera. (I'm waiting for Verizon's iPhone.)
My laptop does have a camera, but it's on the inside lid, above the screen. The only way I could photograph the movie is if I turned the laptop around and pointed the keyboard and screen at the movie screen!
So, taking them from me was roughly the same as frisking a toddler at an airport security gate. It's stupid and useless, but you do it to maintain the appearance of political correctness.
(In addition, the film is already on several filesharing sites!)
Nonetheless, I was still prepared to surrender the items for the duration of the film.
While checking the items, I asked the guard about liability, specifically what happened if the items were lost or stolen while in his custody.
His response was a casual "Don't worry about it."
I pressed the matter, as both the phone and laptop contained proprietary material.
"Look, it's a free screening. Do you want to go in or not?"
To avoid holding up the line, I asked to speak to his supervisor, who also could offer no warranty on loss or damage.
Quite frankly, I had seen enough situations where, without such assurances, things had happened, and the responsible party wasn't held liable.
To safeguard my material, I had no choice but to not enter the screening.
NOTE: both the guard and his boss were cordial. VERY professional. NO raised voices, NO angry words exchanged.
And, in the future, I'll avoid bringing my laptop to screenings.
I'll hit a matinee this weekend, and let you know what I think on Monday.
This week, the NEW Green Hornet movie starring Seth Rogan and Jay Chou opens!
To celebrate (and contrast), we're offering a special treat...the FIRST Green Hornet feature film, complete and uncut!
Actually, it's a compilation of four tv series episodes, with additional fight footage tossed in, released shortly after the death of Bruce Lee, as you can tell by the promo posters!
The adapted episodes are "Hunters and the Hunted", "Preying Mantis", and the two-part "Invasion from Outer Space", all of which we've covered in previous YouTube Wednesday installments.
There was also a second compilation film, called Fury of the Dragon, but we were unable to find it online.
Enjoy this 90-minute slice of history, and if you go see the new flick, let us know what you think!
Navy brat Wendy Wagner was an expert scuba diver, swimmer, and surfer. She also looked incredible in a bikini.
So, naturally, she became both a professional model and underwater stunt-double for two tv series.
When producers realized she could also act, Wende began doing guest appearances on tv series and secondary characters in features, usually scantily-clad.
In 1966, Batman tv series producer William Dozier offered her a co-starring role in his new series Green Hornet as the hero's secretary/confidante. Though the show only ran one season, Wende made an indelible impression on fanboys then and since.
After the show's cancellation, she returned to doing guest appearances, until retiring from acting in the late 1970s.
Wende passed away in 1997 from cancer.
The cover art to Green Hornet: Year One #12 by Francesco Francavilla.
Part of the Green Hornet: Year One line of comics by Dynamite Comics.
Easily the best GH titles from Dynamite out there.
These are based on the 1940s movie serial / radio / comic book version of the character. BUY THEM!
With the new movie opening next week (and a special movie/tv entry planned for next Wednesday), we're winding up our look at The Green Hornet tv series with the two-part finale.
If you're going out, go out with a bang. And there's no bang bigger than an atomic explosion!
Mad scientist Dr Mabuse has created a citywide panic by faking a flying saucer crash and appearance by "stranded aliens".
Invading Britt Reid's townhouse (and zapping Kato), the spacesuited fiend demands the publisher help him and his fellow "aliens" get out of town without police interference so their mothership can send a rescue craft to pick them up in a remote area...the same "remote area" a secret military convoy transporting atomic weapons is due to pass through!
Though skeptical, Reid complies and Mabuse leaves, taking Lenore Case as a hostage.
Mabuse intercepts the convoy and hijacks an atomic bomb!
Rescue Casey from a leering lunatic and save the city from atomic Armageddon! It's a far cry from the gangsters and thieves the Hornet and Kato usually handle!
With a new producer and a totally-different approach, this ep seems like a last-gasp attempt to boost the ratings by going with a much more sci-fi/ fantasy-oriented storyline.
Thankfully, they didn't go to the campy level of Batman. It's still played straight.
Every last cent in the series budget was thrown in for location shooting and optical fx, including lots of highway stunt driving along with the show's best stunt-piece; The Green Hornet leaping from the back of Black Beauty to Mabuse's truck while both are barreling down a curving highway at 60+ mph.
Side notes:
The villain's last name, Mabuse, is taken from a famous German pulp supervillain. The GH character is not related to the German character, except in his revenge-crazed desire to blow things up. Larry D Mann plays him with all the scenery-chewing panache of a James Bond foe.
Linda Gaye Scott who played the villain's "shocking" sidekick Vama, appeared on numerous '60s genre shows including Batman, Lost in Space, and Man from U.N.C.L.E., usually in a skintight ensemble!
These are the only episodes without an appearance by reporter and (Hornet's nemesis) Mike Axford, but another red-headed reporter named "Bill" does appear!
And, it's the only episode where Kato is actually knocked unconscious (albeit by electric shock)!
NOTE: the clip provider, HornetNest1000, left out the end credits of ep 1 and opening credits of ep 2, to "flow" the two-parter better. The original source, Encore Action, had left out the "next week" teaser and "last week" recap when they aired the eps, so HornetNest100's choice makes sense.
Here's the finale of The Green Hornet (and hint of how the show might have proceeded if they had done a second season)...
The cover art to Kato: Origins #11 by Francesco Francavilla.
Part of the Green Hornet: Year One line of comics by Dynamite Comics.
Easily the best GH titles from Dynamite out there.
These are based on the 1940s movie serial / radio / comic book version of the character. BUY THEM!
When a local wax museum updates it's displays to include The Green Hornet and Kato, the wax figure of the previous "star" exhibit, The Scarf, apparently comes to life and resumes his murderous ways!
One of the weirder shows in the series, heavy on mood, no fight scenes, and no appearance of The Black Beauty!
Legendary horror film star John Carradine as museum researcher (with an ominous secret) James Rancourt was the only famous guest-star on the series. Unlike Batman, where famous performers from Tallulah Bankhead to Liberace were given villain roles written especially for them, Green Hornet used dependable, but little-known, character actors as villains. Side Notes:
John Carradine had been considered for the role of The Joker on Batman, but his poor health precluded his doing the role.
SPOILER (sorta): The Scarf's statue really should have shown a younger version of Carradine. Since it looks just like the elderly James Rancourt (albeit with a Van Dyke beard) played by Carradine, it's obvious who The Scarfreally is from the very beginning!
The music score written specifically for this episode was never reused! (Most of the music on the series was reedited and reused in at several other episodes besides the ones they were originally written for.)
Background info on a number of the unnamed city's villains from the early 1900s up to the late 1940s, when The Scarf disappeared, is presented during a tour of the museum, but there's no mention of an earlier Green Hornet. So, the mention of gangster Glen Connors framing Britt Reid's father in "Frog is a Deadly Weapon"doesn't refer to Reid Sr being the 1940s Hornet. What the elder Reid had been blamed for is never explained.
Here's the 23rd filmed and aired episode..."Alias the Scarf".
Digitally-restored and remastered from the actual comic books (not second-gen pix from reference books or low-rez Internet files), these kool prints area available from comic-book cover size to 16"x23" on a variety of papers and canvas!
Choose from...
It's Christmastime, so let's go with the most-demanded Green Hornet vids of all...
When Titans Clash :
BatmanvsThe Green Hornet!
A decade before Superman vs Spider-Man, this was the first inter-company superhero crossover. The Hornet and Kato had already cameoed on Batman, in the episode "The Spell of Tut", where they appeared in a window during a Bat-Climb.
Celebrities ranging from Sammy Davis Jr. to Edward G. Robinson popped up for brief appearances during these sequences. Even characters from other ABC series like Lurch (Ted Cassidy) from the Addams Family and Col. Klink (Werner Klemperer) from Hogan's Heroes showed up!
Curiously, the visiting duo are regarded as heroes, not villains, and Britt introduces Kato by name.
(Metafiction aficionados have been driven nuts by these interludes, trying to fit them into their respective universes...)
And, as we've pointed out before, both Batman and The Green Hornet featured their characters watching each others' show on tv!
All that was basically ignored when it was decided that, to boost Green Hornet's decent (but not Batman-level) ratings, GH and K would appear as "Visiting Heroes" on Batman.
For whatever reason, none of the established Batman villains were used. (And The Green Hornet had no costumed or even ongoing opponents.)
Instead, a new baddie, Colonel Gumm, played by Roger C. Carmel*, was introduced, along with a plotline involving counterfeit stamps which drew The Hornet and Kato to Gotham.
The motif of GH and K being perceived as villains was utilized, resulting in the Dynamic Duo being as eager to capture them as to jail the corny counterfeiter!
In addition, it's shown that the two heroes' millionaire alter-egos, Bruce Wayne and Britt Reid, have known each other since childhood, and constantly competed over almost everything, including women!
So, it was inevitable the two costumed frat-boys would square-off in the climax...
On-set photo of Van Williams and Adam West during the climactic fight scene
Unfortunately, the gambit didn't pay off. The Green Hornet's ratings didn't improve, and the show was cancelled.
(Note: the show's ratings were good enough to make them eligible for renewal, but, since the producers didn't want to implement network-demanded budget cuts, the network axed the series anyway. Batman, OTOH, continued, with a reduced budget and cut from being twice-weekly to weekly, for another year, before being cancelled.)
Without further adieu, here is the legendary two-parter; "A Piece of the Action" and "Batman's Satisfaction"...
*Roger C. Carmel played numerous flamboyant villains on everything from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to Hawaii Five-0 to Transformers to Star Trek, where he portrayed Harcourt Fenton "Harry" Mudd on both the classic and animated series!
He's also the answer to the trivia question; "Who's the only actor to play a villain opposite Batman, Captain Kirk, and The Green Hornet?"
Posters derived from the covers to the hard-to-find (and never reprinted) three-issue comic book run based on the 1960s tv series, digitally-restored and remastered. Available in several sizes up to 16" x 23".
With a new movie coming out right after Christmas, any (or all) would be the perfect Christmas gift under the evergreen for the Green Hornet fan in your life!
(Tina)
(Rosemary's Girl Friend)
"Skid Marks on a Dry Run" 
[1966] (Lenore "Casey" Case)
[1965] "Flipper's Monster" 
(stunts)
(stunts)
[1940] and 
[1940]
[1936-1952] 
collectible series
, this was the first inter-company superhero crossover.
to 
to 
to 
, where he portrayed Harcourt Fenton "Harry" Mudd on both the classic and 
series!
