It’s our final recap of the 1945 non-classic Universal serial Raiders of Ghost City, and if my lack of enthusiasm and your lack of clicks are any indication, we were so done with this about five chapters ago. But it’s the glorious final chapter, which picks up just as the last chapter ends. Steve enlists the help of miners to the good guys’ cause, while Alex and Trina gather their henchmen together to get the stolen gold out of town, thanks to the distraction of the nearby Modoc tribe raiding Oro Grande in anger over being tricked — or so they think — when they are unable to speak to President Lincoln as promised.

Actually, confession time: I have no idea if the Modoc are raiding Oro Grande or the abandoned Ghost City. I believe this is supposed to be Ghost City, though the shots are all stolen from another film so the buildings don’t match up. We even see homes which are clearly occupied, while Ghost City is a completely empty gold rush town. Also, during this final chapter we see Alex, Buck and a henchman behind the Golden Eagle, which is in Oro Grande of course, so I believe this is supposed to be Oro Grande. On the other hand, the Ghost City mines are clearly very close by, but it doesn’t make much sense to try to prevent the Modoc from burning down an abandoned town. Why waste the resources? Basically, it’s clear the serial has just conflated Oro Grande with Ghost City, hoping no one will notice. So… we’ll call it Ghost City and stop thinking too hard about this. Sound good? Sure, sounds swell.

As the chapter ends, Steve grabs Braddock’s bleeding corpse and jumps off a building with it into a wagon full of hay which a Modoc warrior immediately lights on fire, causing the horses to panic and ultimately crash the flaming wreckage into a restaurant. In other words, once they port in some footage from another film, things is fin’ly gettin’ good. If any of that had been going on in the previous 11 chapters, perhaps we wouldn’t be in this near comatose state we find ourselves in now.

***

Steve is thrown from the flaming wagon, where his butt briefly catches fire.

That is actually Dennis Moore, who looks none too pleased to be put in this kind of peril just because Universal was too damn cheap to hire a stuntman. But when did Dennis Moore ever look pleased?

Steve and Idaho plan to hunt for the gold raiders, and they leave Doc in charge of the miners who are still fighting off the Modoc. Sure, makes sense. Nothing says “leader” like an elderly, mescaline-addled mushmouth.

Who wouldn’t trust their lives in the hands of this man?

There’s a lot of pretty exciting stuff going on here courtesy the footage from another film. Buildings are burning while all the settlers, even women and children, fight off the rampaging Native Americans. Sure do wish I knew what movie that was from so I could watch it instead of Raiders. Meanwhile, Idaho and Steve sneak into the raiders’ lair and down into the mines, where a dying henchman gives up everything he knows about Morel before kicking it.

“These sacks… hold… a lot of (*cough cough*)… potatoes…” (*dies*)

Above ground, the U.S. Cavalry arrives and saves the day. Cathy had apparently been with the Cavalry and arrives just as the smoke starts to clear. That’s not surprising. What is surprising is Idaho was underground with Steve talking with the dying raider…

while at the same time above ground fighting to protect Ghost City. That’s him just to the left of Cathy. And now that I see Cathy’s cowboy hat, I’m starting to think the mystery white hat in last episode was her all along. Boy, the continuity guy really just phoned it in on this finale, didn’t he?

So Idaho, Cathy and Doc go into the mines where the raider has finally kicked it, and Steve decides to embark on one last corpse-robbin’ spree. You know, for old times.

The raider had been guarding these boxes of gold, which turn out to be (DUN Dun dun) fool’s gold. I know, right? Totally clever. I mean, sure, it doesn’t make any sense, because where would they have gotten five tons of flax pyrite (in space? at this hour?) and had the time to box it up all nice and neat? And why would they bother when anyone in California during the gold rush years would know pyrite the moment they saw it? Hell, even Idaho, the dumbest sidekick west of the Rockies, knew it was pyrite immediately. But totally clever, sure.

Back at Oro Grande (or wherever), Alex and Buck and one remaining henchman load one ton of gold onto a buckboard wagon themselves, because that makes as much sense as anything else in this serial. Also, it should be noted that a ton of gold is approximately $1 million in 1895 dollars, which is supposed to be enough for a down payment for Alaska, but since it was purchased for $7.2M, I don’t think so.

Steve, Cathy and Idaho arrive a moment too late — the baddies have already gone. Steve tells Cathy to go do some busywork, basically, and Cathy flashes the nastiest look I’ve seen her give through this whole serial.

As the guys rifle through the abandoned Golden Eagle, it turns out it’s not actually abandoned.

It looks like I caught Joe Sawyer blinking, but I swear he goes through this whole scene with his eyes closed. Nothing this character does makes sense. It’s infuriating.

So Buck, Alex and Trina shove the idiot good guys in the cellar next to a bomb, but not after Trina tells them their entire plan, because she’s auditioning for the role of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the next Bond flick.

They all get downstairs, and the following happens:

Idaho trips the evil telegraphy guy what telegraphs things to Prussia.

Then he punches Alex, who accidentally shoots and kills Buck, because the writers had to get rid of the last named henchman somehow. Idaho continues to rattle Alex around as Buck slowly falls to the ground, just like he was taught in the silents.

As the remaining living guys in the basement scuffle about, Trina lights the fuse and leaves everyone, including her pals Alex and the evil telegraphy guy, to die a quick, explodey death. The wagon driver peels outta there with the gold as Trina hides in the back, and because she is an icky gurl, Cathy comes riding after her, because it has to be girl vs. girl when it’s time for the showdown. Nearly a century of Hollywood has taught us that.

Back in the Basement of Almost Exploding, Steve uses the evil telegraphy guy’s hand to shoot Alex Morel!

Well done, Lionel. Very Nosferatu.

The two ostensible heroes of the show leave evil telegraphy guy unconscious in the basement, then run like hell before the bomb goes off, while Cathy chases after the gold wagon so hard the driver panics and goes off a shallow cliff, killing both of them instantly.

More excitement from another movie. Pretend like you don’t see a second man behind the wagon driver there. Suspend your disbelief. Go ahead. I dare you.

Folks, that’s it. That was the exciting conclusion of our 13-part story. Oh sure, there’s a congratulatory chinbeard moment, featuring President/Fesserman, who is now called Fessenden by both Doc and the auxiliary chinbeard. Anyway, the government cannot officially acknowledge their heroic deeds because of secrets and such, but the trio are heroes etc. etc.

And what the hell kind of get-up is Cathy in, anyway?

Is she a whorehouse madam? Was there a more interesting serial here that we were denied the opportunity to enjoy?

You might be interested to know that Cathy’s hat… used to be Trina’s. Looks like corpse robbing is alive and well and living in Oro Grande.

It’s the end of the serial and Dennis Morgan is pissed, Wanda McKay is mentally calculating the years she’d serve in jail for killing the wardrobe guy, and Joe Sawyer is having trouble keeping his eyes open again. So glad this serial ended at this exact moment. You know, to save it for posterity.

Alaska is saved from being purchased by the Prussians, allowing the U.S. to buy it for $7.2 million just under three years later, so… yay?

I mean, great ending for an educational computer game designed for Social Studies courses grades four through six, not so great for an exciting cinematic serial.

If it seems like I rushed through the last few chapters of this, that’s because I straight up did.  I’m not going to lie to you good people: I could not get through this fast enough. Though the first three or four episodes were promising, the whole thing ran out of steam quickly. It was neither crazy nor ridiculous enough to really get into, but not good, either.

Thank you all for putting up with Raiders of Ghost City! Big thanks (and possible revenge) to my BBFF Ivan, Scott C. for being consistently funnier than me in the comments, and Electric Dylan Lad at Iverson Movie Ranch for his great blog and even better info. Also a big shout out to James Vance for regularly commenting and keeping me from being lonely. So lonely.

Give me a couple weeks and I’ll start something new, though I haven’t decided what to do yet. No movie serials for a while — and when I do go back to a serial, there is going to be a damn robot in it, mark my words.  The world is mine, I can do what I want.

Last week on Raiders of Ghost City! Steve grabs some papers off the dead Rawhide and discovers Alex is the leader of the nogoodnik Prussians. Meanwhile President Lincoln has the poor taste to get himself assassinated, which leaves the U.S. Army in the lurch, as he was scheduled to speak with the Modoc tribe to try to keep the peace. Between Lincoln’s untimely death and a Prussian provocateur in the Modoc’s midst, tensions are high, which is why Idaho Jones, with neither the ability to speak Modoc nor any experience as a diplomat, rides right into their village to do… something. The provocateur, named Burke because of course his name starts with a “B,” has Idaho’s legs attached to some bendy branches which will ostensibly rend him in twain once they are released. But Cathy sees the peril he is in — it’s a lot of peril — and rides for help.

Body count so far: Jeff-Jim, Capt. Clay Randolf (noooo), Count Manfried von Rinkton, Rackerby, Bill, Hank, and Rawhide. And how many of them have had their stuff rifled through by Steve after their deaths? All of them, except Clay, but only because he just handed his shit over to Steve’s friends before he died to save them the trouble of digging through his pockets. Let’s see how many more people we lose in this episode, shall we?

Follow along here on YouTube, if you dare. But you probably won’t, because we’re almost done with this serial already, I mean really.

***

This chapter is titled “Calling All Buckboards,” and for those of you mired in the 21st century, a buckboard is a type of wagon. You can see one here in a screen grab from Chapter 1. It’s behind all the dust, so if that’s not a clear enough pic, try this terrific picture from the Kirchgraber family website.

Cathy meets Steve and the soldiers on their way to the Modoc village and tells them Idaho is in danger. They arrive just in time to save him, though it’s a bit of a cheat since we saw the lashes cut loose in the last chapter, while in this chapter, the Modoc were shot before they could cut through the ropes and unleash the fury of a wee little sapling.

Steve strains several facial muscles trying to look pleased.

Early on we see two classic Iverson Movie Ranch rocks, which you may recognize from the scenes set in Apache Wells in Stagecoach (1939). They both go by numerous names, but are best known as Tower Rock on the left and The Sphinx on the right, in an area dubbed “Garden of the Gods.”

After everyone returns to the Wells Fargo, Steve hatches a plan to use miners, apparently guys who used to work the mines underneath Ghost City, to help them chase down the bad guys. It’s possible these miners were individual prospectors; it’s not made clear who they are or what interest they have in this situation. Whoever they are, this is not a half bad idea, since the mines have been taken over by the Prussians and the miners would be the best people to navigate the area. The thing is, they hash out their plan…

while Trina is right there, and at least two of them can clearly see her. But she’s not that smart, because after hearing their plan, she asks them if there will be a stage out of town any time soon, which makes them all suspicious.

I neglected to mention this in the last episode, but now that we’ve reached the Prussians’ end game, Trina has changed into this kicky little number. It’s not period appropriate in the least, but it’s a nice change from her plaid and her hoop skirts.

Hey, we get to see Ghost City again! It’s more of a ghost hamlet than a city, really, but the set is nice and I like to check in on it every once in a while. This is Trina, riding into the abandoned town to check on the mines, where Alex and some of the henchmen are faffing about. I wish I remembered what specifically Alex is doing down there, but I don’t, and I’m not entirely sure we were ever told. Trina warns them that the mining hoards are headed their way.

The miners, as represented by footage from another film, are heading out to the Ghost City mines. You can see several people in this footage looking behind them as though they were being chased, which I’m sure is what was happening in the original film this was taken from, and one man even wipes out on his buckboard in the rush. In real life, no one would put themselves in harm’s way on Steve’s say-so, but I am of course stating the obvious.

The editing of this footage is done well. We cut away from the larger group to a scene where one horseback rider and one wagon are just going off frame, giving the impression that they are part of the larger group, and our heroes are bringing up the rear. It means Universal only needed a few actors and stuntpersons for their own footage and could just let the pilfered scenes do all the heavy lifting, and unlike, oh, say, The Phantom Creeps, they aren’t pulling any bizarre flipped-footage shenanigans to try to make it work.

As the miners attack the henchmen in Ghost City, Burke the provocateur tries to convince Chief Tahuna to go into the ghost town and help the Prussians out, saying the miners had stolen gold that belonged to the Modoc. And the chief agrees, saying he attacks all enemies…

at which point he grabs Burke, throws him down on the ground and starts chopping the shit out of him with his tomahawk. Gross. Add one to the kill list, folks.

More stock footage is deployed, this time of a Native American tribe on the warpath at night, in an area near Devil’s Tower. They’re attacking a town with torches and guns as the White settlers hide behind barricades and try to defend their town. To integrate this into Ghost City footage, about 5-6 miner extras are seen barricaded in the street with Steve, Idaho and Doc in a separate barricade, plus several henchmen extras in the stables just above the mines. Every so often, 2-3 horsemen ride in front of the Rondavoo building and a few frames is inserted into the stock footage, plus the scenes from another film are used in a blue screen with the cast from Raiders in front. Again, it’s all done to make it look like the hundreds of extras in the borrowed footage are actually part of the Raiders cast. It works pretty well, though the editors reuse some footage out of desperation or sloppiness, or because they’re in a rush to get to the commissary and have a tuna melt with Regis Toomey.

Steve: “Let everybody know that we’re about to get it both ways!” Mmm hmm. And why is Doc there with you? The guy can’t even not look at the camera, you think he can shoot? Also note the white hat to the left. That’s supposed to be Idaho Jones, but he has a black hat. Who is that guy?

Budd Buster as one of the unnamed henchmen is sent out to do something-or-other on the roof of the stable the Prussians are holed up in, but the minute the door is opened, he’s shot in a way that’s not supposed to be hilarious but is. It definitely, definitely is. Even better, they toss him aside without a second thought and send Braddock right out the same way, but this time he makes it to the roof, where he takes his place right next to Steve and, without looking at each other, the two start chatting it up.

“So, have you seen any renegades with those Modocs?”

“No, and I’ve been looking for one, too… BRADDOCK!”

They proceed to get into a fistfight, which makes just all kinds of sense, since they are both armed and there are other men on the roof, also with guns. Speaking of guns, a Modoc down below shoots Braddock in the back.

♫ Fame! I’m gonna make it to heaven… ♪

Steve very sensibly grabs the certainly-dead Braddock and jumps off the roof with him into a large wagon full of hay…

which was probably not a good idea when hundreds of people who have torches and want to kill you are milling about. But it gets better!

The flaming hay wagon goes tearing through the street, then crashes into a restaurant! Ha!

Find out next week if the final chapter of this godforsaken serial is only five minutes long and consists entirely of footage of Steve’s funeral, his ashes gathered into a tiny little pile and placed gently on the pillow of a deluxe, satin-lined coffin. And it’ll be a nice funeral, too, or at least until a bereft Idaho sneezes into the casket.

Or maybe that won’t happen. Tune in next week to find out.