Just for the record, Jack Holt HATED THIS PART and you can see it in his face some times. It’s like he’s thinking “Just keep plugging away, boy. Just keep saying the lines and punching the clock. It’s just a roll…and it’ll be over soon.”, but every so often he looks like he was having fun with it.
Rating: 4 / 5

Under director James W.; Horne with original screenplay by Basil Dickey, George Plympton and Wyndham Gittens, music score by Lee Zahler…the cast include Jack Holt (Agent Jack Holt, alias Nick Farrel), Evelyn Brent (Agent Kay Drew), C. Montague Shaw (Chief John W. Malloy), Tristram Coffin (Ed Valdin), John Ward (‘Lucky’ Arnold), Ted Adams (Quist), Joe McGuinn (‘Crimp’ Evans), Jack Cheatham (Agent Frank), George Chesebro (Rankin, Garrity – Henchman), Dale Van Sickel (Slugger – Henchman)…Columbia Pictures stuntwork is always good till the last drop and this serial is no exception…there is a great deal of entertainment here for the cliffhanger fans out there…all courtesy of VCI Entertainment, who in my humble opinion is the best there is in restoring early serials and features.

CHAPTER TITLES: (Disc One)

1. Chaotic Creek

2. Ramparts of Revenge

3. Illicit Wealth

4. Menaced by Fate

5. Exits to Terror

6. Deadly Doom

7. Out of the Past

8. Escape to Peril

9. Sealed in Silence

10.Named To Die

SPECIAL FEATURES: (Disc One)

VCI CLIFFHANGER TRAILERS:

1. Buck Rogers (Buster Crabbe)

2. Adventures of the Flying Cadets (Bobby Jordan)

3. Drums of Fu Manchu (Henry Brandon)

4. Jungle Girl (Frances Gifford)

5. The Phantom (Tom Tyler)

6. Zane Greys “King of the Royal Mounted” (Allan “Rocky” Lane)

7. Secret Agent X-9 (1945) (Lloyd Bridges & Keye Luke)

8. Adventures of Red Ryder (Don “Red” Barry)

9. Secret Agent X-9 (1937) (Scott Kolk & Henry Brandon)

10.Zorro’s Cliffhanger Collection (Reed Hadley, John Carroll & Linda Stirling)

11.Dick Tracy’s G-Men (Ralph Byrd)

12.Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (Buster Crabbe)

13.Jungle Jim (Grant Withers & Raymond Hatton)

14.Miracle Rider (Tom Mix & Tony Jr)

BIOS: (Disc One)

1. Jack Holt (aka Charles John Holt)

Birth Date: 5/31/1888 – Winchester, VA

Died: 1/18/1951 – Los Angeles, CA

2. Evelyn Brent (aka Mary Elizabeth Riggs)

Birth Date: 10/20/1899 – Tampa, FL

Died: 7/04/1975 – Los Angeles, CA

3. Tristram Coffin

Birth Date: 1910

Died: 3/26/1990

4. James W. Horne (Director)

Birth Date: 12/14/1880 – San Francisco, CA

Died: 6/29/1942 – Los Angeles, CA

CHAPTER TITLES: (Disc Two)

11.Ominous Warnings

12.The Stolen Signal

13.Prison of Jeopardy

14.Afair Afloat

15.Yielded Hostage

TRAILERS: (Disc Two)

1. The Secret Code (Paul Kelly as the Black Commando)

2. Superman (Kirk Alyn, Noel Neill and Tommy Bond)

3. The Great Adventures of Captain Kidd–King of Pirates” (John Crawford, Richard Crane and Marshall Reed)

4. The Vigilante (Ralph Byrd, Lyle Talbot, George Chesebro and Jack Ingram)

If you crave action, drama and plenty of adventure then this is the place for all of the above…if you enjoyed this serial check out another release from VCI Entertainment and Columbia Pictures present “Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere” (1951) (digitally remastered), 15 Chapters.finally for the first time on video the really great Columbia Serial that broke the mold…we have everything a serial fan would want…the tinted sequences by Cinecolor and unique inventions that were unlike any other serial out there in the ’50s…get out there as they’re going fast, this is the one you’ve been waiting for.

Great job by VCI Entertainment for releasing “Holt of the Secret Service” (1941), the digital transfere with a clean, clear and crisp print…looking forward to more high quality releases from the vintage serial era of the ’30s, ’40s & ’50s…order your copy now from Amazon or VCI Entertainment, stay tuned once again for top notch action mixed with deadly adventure from the “King of Serials” VCI…just the way we like ‘em!

Total Time: 280 mins on 2 DVD’s ~ VCI Entertainment 8411 ~ (12/28/2004)
Rating: 5 / 5

THE STORY:

Agent Jack Holt and his partner Evelyn Brent infiltrate a counterfeiting gang that’s kidnapped a government engraver and are producing undetectable bogus money.

THE CAST;

Jack Holt – Jack Holt (aka Nick Farrel)

Evelyn Brent – Kay Drew, R49 (aka Mrs. Farrel)

C. Montague Shaw – Chief John W. Malloy

Tristram Coffin – Ed Valdin [Chs. 1-10]

John Ward – ‘Lucky’ Arnold

Ted Adams – Quist

Joe McGuinn – ‘Crimp’ Evans

Edward Hearn – Agent Jim Layton

TRIVIA:

Jack Holt’s cinematic career began with a series of silent screen Zane Grey westerns. He was one of the few stars of that era to make a successful transition when “talkies” arrived in the late 1920s.

Leads Jack Holt and Evelyn Brent wear the same clothes for all 15 chapters! (Can you say: “major dry cleaning bill”?)

Director James Horne previously worked with Laurel & Hardy. He was notorious for injecting humorous moments into serials he supervised.

.

Once considered “lost,” the newly restored SECRET AGENT X-9 (1937) is one of the finest movie serials of any era.
Rating: 4 / 5

Jack Holt and Evelyn Brent comprise one of the most unusual tandems of heroes in serial history, long in the tooth but also plenty long on toughness. Masquerading as “Nick Farrel”, escaped tough guy, and his wife, Holt and Brent infiltrate a gang of counterfeiters. The setting is surprisingly widespread for a chapterplay, as the action moves from the gang’s hideout in a lost canyon to a gambling ship on the high seas to a small island country where the gang hopes to escape U.S. extradition. The main villain is a fellow named Arnold, but he hides behind the facade of one of his men, Quist, to shield himself from the Secret Service, and lets another one of his men, Valden (frequent serial henchman Tris Coffin), do most of his dirty work. The island nation has its own pocket dictator, who is also trying to rub out our boy Jack.

Jack Holt is, simply put, the toughest leading man in serial history, the type of guy who could swallow nails and crap thumbtacks. When he gets in a fistfight with four of Arnold’s boys and beats the hell out of the entire quartet, you can believe it.

As this is a James Horne serial, some of you might wonder about the “comedy” content. There is little of the funny stuff that you’ll find in such Horne classics as TERRY AND THE PIRATES or THE SPIDER RETURNS, unless you count the occasional “undercranking” that makes everybody look like they are rushing out of a burning house, or the fact that, unlike the Republic serials in which bands were used to keep the Fedoras on during fights, Columbia apparently just instructed their actors and stuntmen to crush their hats down tightly on their heads, making everybody resemble two-fisted Buster Keatons.

I give HOLT OF THE SECRET SERVICE a solid *** and recommend it highly. It’s available on DVD from a cheap company, and you get what you pay for — the VCI release is the one to get.
Rating: 4 / 5