King of the Rocket Men is an entertaining serial featuring the iconic flying suit with the minimalist controls (off/on, up/down, fast/slow) worn (usually) by the heroic Jeff King. For 12 chapters King, his less competent colleagues, and the inevitable plucky female reporter battle the intrigues of "Dr. Vulcan", a typical megalomaniac super-villain who seems to like the sound of his own voice. The cliff hangers are a bit predictable (jump out of the runaway car at the last minute, turn on the jet back while falling at the last minute, etc) but the flying scenes are great (for the time and budget). The climax is the destruction of New York City (courtesy of the 1933 proto-disaster film "Deluge") as Vulcan uses his decimator ray to generate an undersea earthquake. The final scenes seem a bit upbeat under the circumstances as the mayor of New York steals the credit for stopping Vulcan (he seems in a pretty good mood considering millions must be dead or homeless, and billions of dollars' worth of real-estate destroyed). Despite the premise of a flying suit and the vivid destruction of the nation's most populous city, the most amazing part of the movie is the ability of men to keep their hats on while fighting. A great time-passer if not taken too critically. The suit and the flying scenes were recycled in a series of subsequent serials that are generally seen as inferior to this, the original.

I wont give a summary of this serial as that has been done very well by some other reviewers. Just want to make a few observations. In this serial,"King of the Rocket Men," we see a gray car with a white top going over a cliff when it turns into an all white car. This same gray car with a white top becoming an all white car when it goes over a cliff can be seen in other serials. The use of stock footage was a staple in making serials as it reduced production costs. Another observation is that "henchmen" played more than one role. Here we wee David Sharpe killed off in one episode only to appear later as another henchman. Seeing this as a kid watching from week to week we didn't notice this as one henchman looked pretty much like another and we didn't know anything about stunt men. Another observation we can make as adults and didn't question as kids. We see this in several serials. The villain has a TV camera that can see anywhere he wants. There is a scene where the Vulcan can see our heroes in an apartment and hear every word they say. Why didn't he have his camera on them all the time and know all of their plans? All in all this is a pretty good serial,but not my favorite.

Despite the title, this serial has nothing to do with either Leonardo DiCaprio or Elton John. Nonetheless, 'King of the Rocketmen' is a good piece of fun, with good special effects and stunt shots used to create a realistic illusion of actual flight. It moves fast, there are plenty of good fight scenes, and the acting is good. The casting of Tristam Coffin as the hero, Rocketman, is a little strange, since Coffin appeared to be clearly over 45, thin, with a small jaw and a pencil thin mustache: not the classic vision of a matinée hero, he usually played villains. But Coffin was a decent actor and pulled it off. The script is pretty straightforward, moving quick enough that the audience doesn't have too much extra time to think about how ludicrous the whole thing is.This serial was released on June 8, 1949, three weeks prior to the premiere of Captain Video on TV. It is known that the creators of Captain Video looked to movie serials for inspiration, and Rocket Man was the first serial hero whose very name indicated both science fiction and heroics. Beginning with Captain Video, who became one of the first superstars of early TV, and continuing with Tom Corbett (Space Cadet), Commander Cory of Space Patrol, and Rocky Jones (Space Ranger)there was a bona fide craze from 1949 to 1955 for science fiction heroes with super-heroic or militaristic names. Rocket Man was the 1st of these, yet is seldom given credit for starting the trend.The villain of this serial, Dr. Vulcan, is an international thug and dealer in stolen weapons and technology. There is a sequence where Rocketman has to stop a stolen ballistic missile (called an 'air torpedo') from hitting and blowing up LA. We know from recent history, however, that when a flying menace is approaching a city, that the correct thing to do is stand down and let 3,000 people be killed so that Your Party will be able to seize total control of the government and be able to implement a quasi-fascist state. Why Rocketman didn't understand this is a mystery. The other unrealistic thing about this serial is that Rocketman pursues the actual terrorists, as opposed to doing the logical thing: use the terrorists as an excuse to invade an oil-rich nation. But then, serials were never supposed to be very logical. A year after this serial was completed, a Superman serial featured a run away atomic missile. Serials, although ostensibly the province of youngsters, were reflecting some of the collective anxieties of society. This was the era when WMD's (though the word wasn't yet coined) entered mass consciousness. Presciently, a major plot point is Dr. Vulcan's plan for a large scale terror attack on NYC. I don't want to spoil anything for you, so I won't describe how that resolves. Flaws aside, this is one of the last serials where any attempt was made at an illusion of verisimilitude. You can have fun and smile to yourself at how absurd it gets, but it isn't laugh out loud ludicrous or painfully bad like an Ed Wood movie. You can see in later Republic serials, such as 'Commando Cody' and 'Flying Disc Man from Mars', that things went downhill pretty fast after this. If you are a fan of serials or a fan of fast-moving old school cheeze, you should enjoy King of the Rocketmen. Obviously, I did.

1949's "King of the Rocket Men" was the first of three serials from Republic Pictures featuring a man wearing essentially the same rocket suit and helmet. The other two, both released in 1952, were "Radar Men From the Moon" and "Zombies of the Stratosphere." All three have things going for them though, each time, Republic tried to reinvent the character ... Jeff King in "King," Commando Cody in "Radar," and Larry Martin in "Zombies." The first and second serials were later revised for different purposes. "King of the Rocket Men" was edited to remove the cliffhanger sequences and the "remember when" episode (the one which is primarily flashbacks of prior chapters) and re-released it as a feature film titled "Lost Planet Airmen" in 1951. And "Radar Men From the Moon" was released as a 12-episode TV series under the new title, "Commando Cody: Sky Marshall of the Universe" in 1953. The third serial, "Zombies," while not remade, is probably the best remembered since it marked the science-fiction feature film acting debut of Leonard Nimoy (later, Mr. Spock of Star Trek fame) playing Narab, a Martian zombie.But, "King of the Rocket Men" was the best of the three. Especially during 1949 and subsequent years, it was far more believable to envision a potential traitor, blackmailing government entities and possibly selling secrets to a foreign power than to believe in invaders from the Moon or Mars (in "Radar" and "Zombies," respectively). Also, and this is just my opinion, the two later serials seemed a bit contrived ... like they were merely attempting to cash in on the success of "King" ... a very well-acted serial for the time with an iron-clad plot line.So, why the 8 of 10 rating? Back in 1949, money was tight in the studios. And sometimes, it was cheaper to "buy" special effects than it was to make them. That's exactly what Republic Pictures did. Since they wanted cataclysmic special effects in the last chapter but didn't want to spend the money, they simply bought rights to the 1933 film, "Deluge," for the sole purpose of borrowing the special effects footage for use in "King." And while there's nothing inherently wrong in such a practice (it has been done many times by Hollywood), it almost forced "Deluge" into obscurity. There were very few copies of "Deluge" available and, after Republic borrowed the scenes, they trashed the rest of the footage. Fortunately, one copy (not the Italian one with English subtitles) was discovered in France and it has since been preserved (though not openly released by any studio). In English? Don't know.