Mysterious Mr. M: 2k Restored Edition

First and foremost for me and my wife, this has closed captioning!! My wife is very hard of hearing and can't enjoy a lot of the older serials/movies because there's no CC! Secondly, this is a fun serial! No one most people have heard of, but that doesn't make it a lesser serial! Very entertaining! RP

"Mysterious Mr. M" was made in 1946, and the fact that it was Universal's last serial tells you all you really need to know. But let's take care of the details first. A professor (John Hamilton, aka Perry White, who does not survive into Chapter 2) has designed a super-duper submarine. Naturally, enemy spies want the plans. After the professor is murdered, a strange man, long believed to be dead, assumes the title "The Mysterious Mr. M." As the police are on his trail, he must go into hiding, while another man steals his identity as Mr. M and sends him phonograph records (that whispering is most annoying) with instructions he must follow if he wishes to live a while longer. The criminals have also developed a drug called Hypnotrine; one shot and the victim will do anything Mr. M wants.It's more than a little confusing, and there are long stretches of dialogue where absolutely nothing happens. The only really exciting part is in the next-to-last chapter, where a woman who doesn't know how to fly has to bring a plane in for a landing. By that time, you probably will have guessed the identity of the Mysterious Mr. M. And you probably won't care!I sort of have a love-hate relationship with serials. On the one hand, I love the idea that I can watch the next chapter next week (or even sooner) in my own living room. On the other hand, I find the acting hard to take. Sometimes I will even yell at the screen: "WHO TOLD ANY OF YOU PEOPLE YOU COULD ACT!" Most serial actors remained in serials for a reason. They couldn't even make it in B-movies.Want to know an easy way to tell the difference between a DVD and a Blu-ray? A DVD picture covers my entire screen; Blu-ray movies only cover about 75%. On the front of the DVD package for "Mr. M" it states: "RESTORED IN 2K from the STUDIO 35MM FILM MASTERS!" This film covers about 85% of my screen; it looks more like a Blu-ray movie than any DVD I have. It's kind of a shame that the film is so bad!

VCI Entertainment struck a deal with Universal Studios to release the cliffhanger serials that we all wished were remastered, restored and released on DVD and BluRay. VCI should be commended because each of these releases are upgrades from what we collectors and fans of cliffhanger serials have had from prior releases. Truly, they do not get any better. I, for one, will continue to buy them every few months when the next release is made available. I like the fact that they numbered them on the spine to ensure we do not miss any in the series. Keep up the good work!

Update, 23 February 2020: Since my old review is linked to the current editions, I will just make additional comment on the new transfer. It is very good, so I've upgraded my rating to 5 stars. More details later. "The Mysterious Mr. M" was Universal's last serial, released in 1946, directed by Lewis D. Collins and Vernon Keays.The police are baffled by a number of bodies found in the river, with tags marked "Mr. M." Detective-Lieutenant Kirby Walsh (Richard Martin) is told by his boss, Police Chief Dan Blair (Joseph Crehan), that the lab found traces of an unknown chemical in the victims, who rather than drowning appeared to have died of brain paralysis. The villain is soon revealed to the audience, Anthony Waldron (Edmund MacDonald), a criminal thought by the police to be dead, who uses a drug, "hypnotrene" to put people into an hypnotic state, though it has taken him several tries to get a non-fatal dosage. He uses the stuff to keep his grandmother, Cornelia Waldron (Virginia Brissac) from finding out he is alive and hiding in the basement, with the help of two associates, Marina and Derek Lamont (Jane Randolph and Danny Morton), posing as caregivers. Anthony Waldron needs grandma's respectability as a cover for his operations. His main interest is getting the plans for a new advanced submarine engine, the invention of Dr. Kittridge (John Hamilton), to sell to a foreign government. He abducts the scientist and injects him with hypnotrene, but only finds out where the plans are stored before Kittridge dies unexpectedly of heart failure. The plans are destroyed, along with Kittridge's lab and one of Waldron's minions, since the lab safe was booby-trapped. And Kittridge's disappearance has alerted the authorities in Washington, who send agent Grant Farrell (Dennis Moore) to help with the investigation. Also helping out is an insurance investigator, Shirley Clinton (Pamela Blake) who finds that Cornelia Waldron had a financial interest in Dr. Kittridge's laboratory, and works with Mrs. Waldron's lawyer, Wetherby (Byron Foulger). Kittridge farmed out manufacture of various parts of his engine, which in true serial-movie fashion must be collected to recreate the plans. But this being a Universal serial, there is even more. Someone knows about Anthony Waldron, and sends a phonograph record with a whispered message, claiming to be "the Real Mr. M" and threatening to tell the police what he knows if Waldron doesn't follow orders.Universal dropped out of the serials market owing to changes in company ownership, when the focus was changed to higher-end films. More serials were already in the planning stage, so it isn't too surprising that the quality of their last serial is typical of their output. The atmosphere is mostly realistic, the story taken seriously without "comic relief" characters. The plot moves along fairly well, if not as directly as one might hope, but there are enough scientific gagets to keep up the interest. Dennis Moore does a lot of smoking for a serial movie hero but is believable as a Government agent, and Pamela Blake is directly involved in the investigation, not just present to be rescued. Edmund MacDonald is suitably sinister as Anthony Waldron, and the distrust among the bad guys, accusing each other of sending the recorded messages, adds an interesting dimension. As was usual for later Universal serials the chapter introductions are given as short acted-out segments, and one tires of hearing all the plot details, though it isn't as bad with a day or more between the chapters, the way serials should be watched.(more update 23 February 2020:)VCI's new Blu-ray is remarkably good, sharp image, little if any grain, excellent gray scale and good sound. There are also subtitles in English for those whose hearing isn't what it once was. "Chapter" marks within the chapters only appear at the start of the long-winded recaps and at the end titles. There are no other "extras" nor does it have the "Universal Pictures" logo before the start of the chapters, where the MPPDA certificate numbers would have appeared. the sound fades up at the start of the chapters and is sometimes slightly truncated on the end "next week" titles., but these are minor faults indeed. The source, from Universal's archives, is otherwise as it would have been shown in theatres in 1946. The Blu-ray is currently on a real "pressed" disc. I don't know if VCI did the same for the DVD edition, but they have been doing that on other new releases. Either would be much better than their old VHS tape, or "public domain" editions from other source prints. I retain information on VCI's VHS edition for historical purposes: VCI's old release on VHS tape, # 1743, used a print with main titles from "Serials Incorporated" having a reduced picture size and still-frame background, probably a 16mm reduction intended for television. There are some scratches, dirt, muddy contrast and other ills often seen in older video releases of Universal serials, though it is reasonably free of splices, and the "next week" titles are the originals. The image isn't especially sharp, and the contrast is a little high but not to the point of faces going blank. The sound, while fairly clear is of restricted frequency range, even on the Hi-Fi track. The package has a 1994 copyright and it was in VCI's catalog for several years, but unfortunately some copies, including the one I got, were duplicated at EP speed, still on two shelf-space-consuming cassettes with no indication of the speed on the outside of the package, and the duplication process wasn't done well. The tracking on my copy needed to be readjusted during some of the chapters, a problem not corrected by "auto-tracking" VCR's, and it was often hard to find a good setting for video tracking that worked with the hi-fi sound, even when tried with several VCR's. Other copies would doubtless play better; finding one dubbed at SP might help with the tracking, and maybe a little with the image quality, though I wouldn't expect miracles. Still, it is otherwise as "watchable" as most non-studio serial movie video releases from 'way back in the late 1900's.(historical information ends)This is a fairly good serial for 1946, and VCI's new Blu-ray edition makes it seem better than it did in the old VHS transfer. It is still filled with a lot of redundant plot "recap" dialogue, so is best watched with a day or more between chapters, but the new transfer is highly recommended.

this film deserves to be on dvd it is very entertaining and timely. in fact it was ahead of its time. It is one of the first serials to include the deat h of a number of it characters by narcotics. Emund MacDonald was a very convincing villain and Dennis Moore was a very good government agent. it was well acted when it coms out in dvd I will obtain my copy

One of the last of the golden age Saturday morning serials. Very good, nice cliffhanger.

This piece was purchased to round out my collection of period movie and tv serials.

Watched these great shorts before those little brats came to society in the mid to late 50s. Great short films to watch if you are sick and tired of this post counterculture internet overpopulated earth era.Great shorts before those baby boomers born between 1945 to 1960. Good thing these shorts were created fast from the early 40s to the end of the 40s before the terrible ugly fashion of the 50s and paramount supreme court case came in 1948, destroying theatre and before television was popular in the 1950s.Cannot wait to rewatch these when I'm in my 30s to death.