The Lost Jungle: Cliffhanger Action and Hollywood Serials of the 1930s and 1940s: Exeter Studies in Film History

Why has the Hollywood sound serial received so little scholarly attention? These short, usually weekly films ending in cliffhangers began in the silent era but continued to be extremely popular in the 1930s and 1940s after the advent of synchronized sound. In The Lost Jungle Guy Barefoot explores the popularity of particular serials such as Flash Gordon (1936) and The Lone Ranger (1938), contextualizing the serial in the broader context of American film culture during the Great Depression and Second World War. Barefoot also examines less familiar science fiction, western, jungle, and crime serials, and considers the production of sound serials, highlighting how they drew upon earlier conventions of silent cinema and melodrama.