Black Arrow

As a watcher of far too many serials (I'm beginning to regret my passion for them), this one is better than average, but still falls prey to the normal pitfalls of plotting of most of them: a token female who really serves little if any purpose to the plot; a truly nefarious bad guy who has a seemingly endless supply of henchman who get disposed of along the way; a brutal, unjustified murder that must be avenged; a bumbling, well-meaning sidekick along for largely comic relief; a variety of cliff-hanger endings (you can only use falling off a cliff once - and this was a fifteen parter!); incredibly bad aim when shooting (I've a game of counting how many shots are fired by both sides in a gun battle versus how many shots actually find their targets); enormous plot holes (the heroine leaves AFTER the bad guys, but still gets to the shack to warn the good guys BEFORE their enemies arrive!); countless improbable recoveries (from being knocked cold, they can get up and carry on fighting within a matter of seconds); and finally, and most importantly, the dimwittedness of the bad guys, whom have already shown themselves to be stone cold killers, to NOT kill the good guy when he comes under their power ('okay, go and tie him up', when they could simply have shot him).

This serial makes ALL of these blunders, but still, it is better than average. They did have only one set of bad guys, thus not needlessly complicating the viewer's efforts to figure out who is working against whom. They didn't use any stupid masks (ala The Crimson Ghost and even The Phantom). They did portray a relatively sympathetic attitude to Amerindians - indeed, the title character is supposedly of the Navajo tribe, and a general respect for following law and order supercedes several angry attempts to 'lynch him!'.

The genealogical revelation at the end seemed somewhat unnecessary, except for the existence of a subconscious racism working below the surface, but this is mere speculation. At least it didn't end with the hero kissing the heroine!

Not as bad a time waster as others I've seen, and I've really grown to like Kenneth MacDonald as a deep-voiced, conniving villain.