All told, Columbia's 57 serials are a pretty shoddy lot. The Spider's Web is just about as good as they ever got, so you can imagine what the rest are like. Columbia's aim seems to have been to produce serials as cheaply as possible. Notice how the limited production quality even of this one has fallen off in Hull's next effort, Columbia serial number 7, Mandrake the Magician, whilst number 11, Deadwood Dick, stars no less a person than Don Douglas, an actor of no significance whatever, who limns even his fleeting role here with such a total lack of charisma it's hard to remember him at all - at least outside the credit titles.
Standing sets are pressed into service, whether suitable for the action or not; all the cliffhangers in this one, with the sole exception of a fade-out with the hero's accomplices trapped in a flooding room (and even this is undermined by inept staging), are really tame; the accent is on dialogue rather than action (and such dialogue it is, written by true Hollywood hacks); the direction, aside from a few touches which we'll discuss in a moment, is self-consciously dull in the studio scenes, whilst the outdoor action is almost invariably marred by an obvious lack of money for decent stuntwork and special effects. Overall, the film has a woebegone, shoestring look about it. Columbia's serials are the impoverished cousins of the all-action Republic and ultra-glossy Universal product.
Nonetheless, whether by happy accident (maybe the producer was scrounging around Columbia's costume department and found a dozen Franciscan robes left behind from some forgotten religious epic) or design, there are some things in The Spider's Web which make most episodes reasonably entertaining. Except the final episode, that is. An economy chapter if ever there was one, with perhaps the tamest hero-villain confrontation and climactic unmasking on record.
In no particular order these spurts to enjoyment are: the bizarrely costumed Octopus himself, all in white mind you, with a crippled leg and artificial hand to boot. No less than three actors supply his voice. The first is very effective indeed, putting all the usual villainous megalomania across with wonderful relish and even credibility. I suspect the same actor supplied the voice of Blinky McQuade, another agreeably grotesque figure. The heavy's robed lieutenants are another fascinatingly gothic touch. (Of course, why they indulge in all this rigmarole is never explained. But we like it).
It must be admitted too that there's a certain amount of suspense in the script, even though the scriptwriters handicap themselves by treating the maniac's identity in a remarkably perfunctory fashion. The question isn't even raised till Chapter 8 and is then off the agenda till 12. In the main the writers create tension by pitting the hero against both the villains and the police and showing how he ingeniously outwits both. The conflict is deepened by making the heavies unusually vicious by serial standards, and the police reasonably alert and sympathetic.
Another nice if minor touch is that the heroine actually gets to wear a few different costumes. Miss Meredith is certainly the most interesting of the goodies. Of the villains, Marc Lawrence makes the most impression, though Dick Curtis stands out in his one brief scene. Stoloff's music score is okay and occasionally even adds to the suspense, but finally it is the photography that I wish to commend. Generally the lighting is dull and flat, but sometimes Siegler is given his head, resulting in some really effective visuals, particularly of the Octopus and his henchmen strikingly outlined in the noirish gloom of their underworld.
Standing sets are pressed into service, whether suitable for the action or not; all the cliffhangers in this one, with the sole exception of a fade-out with the hero's accomplices trapped in a flooding room (and even this is undermined by inept staging), are really tame; the accent is on dialogue rather than action (and such dialogue it is, written by true Hollywood hacks); the direction, aside from a few touches which we'll discuss in a moment, is self-consciously dull in the studio scenes, whilst the outdoor action is almost invariably marred by an obvious lack of money for decent stuntwork and special effects. Overall, the film has a woebegone, shoestring look about it. Columbia's serials are the impoverished cousins of the all-action Republic and ultra-glossy Universal product.
Nonetheless, whether by happy accident (maybe the producer was scrounging around Columbia's costume department and found a dozen Franciscan robes left behind from some forgotten religious epic) or design, there are some things in The Spider's Web which make most episodes reasonably entertaining. Except the final episode, that is. An economy chapter if ever there was one, with perhaps the tamest hero-villain confrontation and climactic unmasking on record.
In no particular order these spurts to enjoyment are: the bizarrely costumed Octopus himself, all in white mind you, with a crippled leg and artificial hand to boot. No less than three actors supply his voice. The first is very effective indeed, putting all the usual villainous megalomania across with wonderful relish and even credibility. I suspect the same actor supplied the voice of Blinky McQuade, another agreeably grotesque figure. The heavy's robed lieutenants are another fascinatingly gothic touch. (Of course, why they indulge in all this rigmarole is never explained. But we like it).
It must be admitted too that there's a certain amount of suspense in the script, even though the scriptwriters handicap themselves by treating the maniac's identity in a remarkably perfunctory fashion. The question isn't even raised till Chapter 8 and is then off the agenda till 12. In the main the writers create tension by pitting the hero against both the villains and the police and showing how he ingeniously outwits both. The conflict is deepened by making the heavies unusually vicious by serial standards, and the police reasonably alert and sympathetic.
Another nice if minor touch is that the heroine actually gets to wear a few different costumes. Miss Meredith is certainly the most interesting of the goodies. Of the villains, Marc Lawrence makes the most impression, though Dick Curtis stands out in his one brief scene. Stoloff's music score is okay and occasionally even adds to the suspense, but finally it is the photography that I wish to commend. Generally the lighting is dull and flat, but sometimes Siegler is given his head, resulting in some really effective visuals, particularly of the Octopus and his henchmen strikingly outlined in the noirish gloom of their underworld.