On the small island of Sujan, whose people venerate the Horse “as sincerely as did the Assyrians the Bull; the Egyptians the Cat; or the Mayans the feathered Serpent,” a group of Americans haggle with the high priest Tanaga, wanting to buy one of the fine animals, but the horses are not for sale for any price. In order to prove his point, Tanaga shows the incredulous Americans the “god-horse,” a black Arabian who is the living incarnation of their god; the god-horse lives in a sort of preserve, protected by the mounted Royal Guards, except when he is paraded through the village to the temple for important ceremonies. Of course, this is the horse the Americans most want, and they hatch a scheme to steal him. They successfully kidnap the god-horse, leaving Wheeler, one of their own, behind to die. The horse is taken to America, where their buyer Crawford (Harry Woods), an “unscrupulous polo player,” is determined to break him to the saddle. When that inevitably fails and the horse escapes into the countryside, Crawford is determined to stop at nothing to get it back.

Enter Rinty, a stray dog “with near human intelligence.” Rinty is first shown scrounging for scraps in alleys and outsmarting a jewel thief who pretends to be blind to escape a police manhunt. Meanwhile, at the Bruce Riding Academy, we meet our (human) heroes, star polo player Frank Bradley (Kane Richmond) and Dorothy Bruce (Norma Taylor), daughter of the Academy’s owner and a rider in her own right. Crawford makes an appearance, just long enough to establish that he’s a “bad feller” who threatens to shoot Rinty if he gets in his way again.

Out in the country, Rinty gets stuck in a hunter’s trap, and when the god-horse finds him and helps him free his leg, the two animals become fast friends and inseparable companions. When the god-horse takes refuge from the men hunting him in an abandoned mine and gets tangled up in rope, Rinty runs to the Academy and gets Dorothy’s attention: “What’s the matter, boy? He’s trying to tell us something!” Crawford’s men attempt to smoke out the horse, not knowing that he’s tied up; Rinty attacks them; and Dorothy rides to the rescue before falling off her horse for no apparent reason at all other than increasing the suspense. Then the mine caves in. Thus ends Chapter One (“The God Horse of Sujan”) of The Adventures of Rex and Rinty!

Once the god-horse is (of course) recovered safely, Dorothy and Frank take him to the Academy, where Frank recognizes his quality and promises to restore him to his rightful owner, should such appear–but not before (gently) breaking him to a saddle and maybe taking him out for a round or two in the next big polo match! Crawford recognizes the black Arabian when they play together, and begins scheming to get it back, legally or otherwise. The pattern is established: the horse is stolen, or escapes, and goes back and forth between Frank and Crawford, with a few episodes where the horse is out on his own with Rinty. Crawford, at first merely a bad sport, goes full gangster, bellowing threats and sending his underlings out to do his dirty work–and it does get dirty, up to and including murder. There are lots of guns drawn and shots fired along the way, but anytime things get too dangerous for our heroes, one of the bad guys says something like, “Put that thing away! You could hit the horse!” It’s no good to Crawford dead or injured.

And since Rex (“King of the Wild Horses”) and Rinty (Rin-Tin-Tin Jr.) are the title characters, they get lots of opportunities to show what they can do, and their characters at least do display more intelligence than the people around them most of the time. (It’s worth noting that at some point Frank and Dorothy start calling them “Rex” and “Rinty,” but there’s never a scene where they come up with names or say “I will now call you . . .” There’s some of the same fluidity of names I’ve noticed in other Mascot serials, such as the conflation of the “Thunder Riders” with Queen Tika’s royal guard in The Phantom Empire from around the same time.)

There is also a subplot involving the Sujan islanders’ attempt to get their god back: Wheeler (Wheeler Oakman, a frequent presence in this series), left behind by his countrymen, is forced to bring Pasha (Pedro Regas), one of Tanaga’s men, with him to America to recover the horse. He reconnects with Crawford, only to double-cross him. Pasha uses his (non-lethal) blowgun to knock out Frank and others who stand in his way; he also psychically communicates with Tanaga (Mischa Auer) to update him and receive instructions, but only in the presence of the god-horse. Ultimately, Wheeler makes the mistake of putting his own life before the god-horse’s and Pasha realizes how untrustworthy he is. Recognizing that Frank Bradley sincerely wants to return Rex to his rightful owner, Pasha switches sides and communicates to Tanaga that Frank is an ally. This is crucially important once the action moves back to Sujan in the last couple of chapters.

There is in general a certain malleable treatment of time and place which makes the Mascot serials feel particularly dreamlike: although the characters travel back and forth (mostly between the Riding Academy and Crawford’s ranch), the amount of time it takes depends entirely on the amount of business that needs to take place between arrivals. Jensen, the comic-relief stable hand played by Smiley Burnette, is especially apt to turn up wherever he is most convenient to the plot: in one scene he is present when Rex is stolen from the Riding Academy’s barn; then, in practically no time at all, he is found lounging on a riverbank with a fishing pole (and not, say, looking for that goddam stolen horse). Most films play this sleight-of-hand game for the sake of pacing or using interesting locations, of course, but it is particularly noticeable here. Being one of the last serials Mascot made before reorganizing and becoming Republic, there are many elements here that would become part of producer Nat Levine’s winning formula–near-continuous music; a mixture of action, characterization, and comic relief; and even such touches as the art-deco title cards used in the recaps at the beginning of each chapter–but that looseness is one quality that I miss in the more “professional” Republic serials.

The fistfights, gunplay, and chases typical of serials blend surprisingly well with the more sentimental tone struck by extended scenes of the two animal stars exploring or interacting. I have already alluded to the frequently-used device of Rinty getting help from one of the humans and taking them to the scene where they are needed, so similar to the scrapes Lassie or Benji would be getting into decades later. The bulk of Chapter Five, “Babes in the Woods,” is taken up by an episode in which a little boy, lost in the country, is imprisoned by a hermit (a prospector? a moonshiner? the Unabomber?) in his shack. The boy is freed by Rinty and then rides away on Rex before the hermit even realizes he’s losing his prize. The lad turns out to be wealthy heir Junior Hammond, and the publicity surrounding the boy’s rescue leads Frank and Dorothy to head straight for Hammond’s home to claim Rex before Crawford can do the same. (Amusingly, while Frank demands ironclad proof of ownership before relinquishing Rex, Hammond Sr. accepts Frank’s word without question before disappearing from the story.) This is the kind of plot that could either be expanded to fill an entire serial or could be one of many episodes as Rex and Rinty wander the countryside helping people, but here it’s sort of an undeveloped side quest.

Several serials of the 1930s featured animal heroes. The original Rin-Tin-Tin, a German shepherd rescued from a World War I battlefield, was the star of numerous films until his death in 1932, including two earlier Mascot serials; Rex and Rinty was the third to star Rin-Tin-Tin, Jr. Rex had a career of a decade and a half, earning his nickname “King of the Wild Horses” by starring in a film by that name in 1924; Rex and Rinty was near the end of his career and his last serial appearance. (Although billed as Rex, the “King of the Wild Horses” who later appeared in Robinson Crusoe of Clipper Island, which I reviewed way back in the first “season” of Fates Worse Than Death, was apparently a different horse.)

Finally, the other element that appears unusual to a modern viewer is the focus on polo. There is even a brief training montage, a device I haven’t seen used much in the serials, in which Frank trains Rex to wear a saddle and play the game. Now stereotyped as a pastime of wealthy elites, polo was evidently widespread enough in the 1930s to be part of popular culture without making a specific comment on class (recall that Flash Gordon was originally a polo player, not a football star). Surely the widespread use of horses in comparison to today was part of this, although even in the mid-’30s the writing was on the wall. In general I haven’t seen very many serials focused on sports of any kind (give or take an automobile or aeroplane race, which is cinematically close enough to a chase to satisfy the need for action), although I know some were made. In Rex and Rinty, scenes from polo matches are part of the action in a few chapters, and the atmosphere and variety of people–wealthy owners, competitive athletes, the unsavory hangers-on and spectators of all classes–are very similar to the way horse racing is portrayed on screen today (in fact, Chapter Two, which prominently features a match, is titled “Sport of Kings”). As a setting, the Bruce Riding Academy and its field are not as ritzy as a country club, and the atmosphere is similar to the small, private airfields that similarly populate the serials of the time period: a hub of activity where different kinds of people and their stories intersect.

I haven’t seen any other serial that’s quite like this one. The combination of animal heroism, sport, horseback intrigue similar to the modern Western, and Eastern mysticism (however fanciful) more typical of the adventure-exploration genre, makes for an unusual blend of story elements.

 

What I Watched: The Adventures of Rex and Rinty (Mascot, 1935)

Where I Watched It: It’s on YouTube. I had to hunt around a bit to see all the chapters in order, but they’re all there.

No. of Chapters: 12

Best Chapter Title: “New Gods for Old” (Chapter Eleven)

Best Cliffhanger: Taking place largely on horseback, several cliffhangers involve people falling off their mounts, whether it be while chasing someone, playing polo, or simply crossing an open field. Being a Mascot serial, there are also a few examples of people appearing to be shot and dropping to the ground, only for the resolution to change the context so that they fell down for some other reason or were just faking it. There are a couple of car crashes, too, and I think my favorite is the end of Chapter Seven (“End of the Road”), in which Dorothy and Jensen drive through a road construction barrier to get away from Crawford’s men, only to abruptly drive over an unfinished bridge. This one isn’t technically a cheat, since it cuts off quickly once the precipice comes into view; at the beginning of the next chapter, their car is stuck hanging, the front wheels having gone over the edge before the car stopped.

Sample Dialogue:

Wheeler, drawing his gun: Want me to take care of that dog?

Pasha: No! He is a friend of the god-horse.

–Chapter Four, “Homeward Bound”

What Others Have Said: “These horses are all furnished, like most movie horses, by a livestock supplier, to the order of the production people. . . . Most of these aren’t trick or fancy animals, just run-of-the-mill stock. But they are experienced actors. They can walk over snaky electric cables, have lights flashed in their eyes, walk right up to a whirring camera, or have a gun fired off in their ear, all without it bothering them. . . . Some animals possess special talents. How many times, in various movies, have you seen a big black stallion rear high on his hind legs and strike with his front feet? That was probably all the same horse, the star of the old ‘Fury’ series. He was so good at his job that he was used in dozens of pictures, where a rearing stallion was needed. In some cases, even the script was changed to make the black horse fit. Remember Will James’ book, Smoky? Smoky was a blue dun in the book, but a black on the screen!”

–Don Coldsmith, “Animal Actors” in Horsin’ Around (Note that Coldsmith’s examples are from a good deal later than Rex and Rinty–I don’t wish to imply that he’s writing specifically about Rex!)

What’s Next: I’m taking a detour to France with a look at Louis Feuillade’s silent serial, Les Vampires (actually, it ended up being Fantomas)!