By the humble standards of the Children's Film Foundation, this five-episode serial is surprisingly well produced with lots of stylishly moody on-location photography, a reasonably suspenseful plot and -- best of all -- a really outstanding cast led by young Anthony Newley, and featuring Bernard Lee, Wally Patch, Ronald Shiner, John Longden, Billie Brook and Michael McKeag. I'd never heard of director Darrell Catling before, but he did a really good job here. In fact, the movie not only looks surprisingly realistic and expensively produced, but provides solid entertainment for adults as well as children. The pacing is always smart and there is only one weak performance (by a poorly made-up support player) in the entire movie. In fact, the serial was so popular at kids' matinées, it was re-issued in 1951 as "The Adventures of Dusty Bates". This is the version now available on an excellent Alpha DVD. Notice the cut when one of the characters is clobbered. The censor allowed this in 1947, but changed his mind for the '51 re-issue!
Review of The Adventures of Dusty Bates
