Movie Serials

Serials were a film genre that told their story in an episodic format. Each week, audience members would go to the theater to watch the latest episode in a film ranging from twelve to fifteen chapters. Each chapter ended with the hero facing certain death, so that you had to back the following week to see what happened. Serials began in 1912, where they helped to establish the fledgling motion picture business, and ended in 1956, when TV became the dominant vehicle for weekly doses of adventure.

These were great fun and my brother and I would regularly go to the movies on Saturday and enjoy these serials.