Name: Ace Drummond
Release Date: 1936
Writers: Wyndham Gittens, Norman S. Hall, Ray Trampe and Eddie Rickenbacker
Director: Ford Beebe, Clifford Smith

Cast:
John ‘Dusty’ King: Ace Drummond
Jean Rogers: Peggy Trainor
Noah Beery Jr.: Jerry
Guy Bates Post: The Grand Lama
Lon Chaney Jr.: Henchman Ivan
Jackie Morrow: Billy Meredith
Selmer Jackson: William Meredith, Sr.
Robert Warwick: Winston
James B. Leong: Henry Kee

Chester Gan: Kai-Chek
Arthur Loft: Chang-Ho, The Dragon
James Eagles: Johnny Wong, Radio Operator
C. Montague Shaw: Dr. Trainor (as Montague Shaw)

Studio: Fimcraft Inc.
Run-Time: 255 mins. (13 episodes)

So here’s an historical curio.

This 13-part saga from long-forgotten studio Filmcraft Inc., was based on a newspaper strip scripted by the American WWI flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker and drawn by Clayton Knight. Running from 1935 to 1940, the adventures of the “G-Man of the Skies” appeared in 135 newspapers.

Here’s a look:

In 1936, the strip was adpated into a serial, with Broadway singing star John “Dusty” King cast as the lead and Jean Rogers as his lady-love Peggy Trainor.

The plot is matchstick thin: A fledgling American-based airline, International Airways, is trying to expand into Mongolia (which looks suspiciously like southern California), but finds its efforts frustrated by a shadowy figure known only as “The Dragon.”

As you might expect, Ace gets called in to help solve the mystery of The Dragon’s identity. Along the way, he helps Peggy search for her archaeologist father, who’s gone missing after discovering a mountain made entirely out of jade.

There’s the customary twist and turns, an annoying kid sidekick (Morrow) and some truly regrettable ethnic stereotyping of the serial’s Asian characters. At least once per installment, Ace breaks into the oddly dirge-like “Give Me a Ship and a Song” (which seemed calculated to advance King’s musical fortunes, because they add absolutely zero to the plot. and King couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag.).

Which is not to say that the series is entirely without its charms.

Chief among them is the presence of Lon Chaney Jr., who’s cast here as “Henchman Ivan,” a full five years before he was immortalized onscreen in “The Wolfman.”

Due, I’m sure, in no small part to Rickenbacker’s involvement, there’s plenty of rare footage of actual period biplanes in action. And each episode opens with a comic strip summary of the drama from the week previous.

As is so often the case with the vintage cinema I encounter these days, I found this serial airing on Turner Movie Classics one recent Saturday morning. On weekends, the cable channel offers great vintage action fare, making the viewer feel as if he or she really is spending a Saturday at some long-gone Bijou or Palace

As I’ve written before, serials played a key-role in the moviegoing experience of the Golden Age of Cinema, setting the stage for just about every action hero to come. While “Ace Drummond,” is hardly an exemplar of the genre, it does provide a rare glimpse of the action serial’s roots and how it would grow over its lifetime.

The complete series is viewable on YouTube. Here’s the first installment: