This is a very intriguing serial - gets quite interesting. Fun - most definitely fun. All the characters, including the supporting ones, are good. Of course the best are our leading and rival men, Ralph Byrd as Lt. Terry Kent and Bela Lugosi as Boroff.As you can easily guess this is mainly a sea adventure - one that takes a few surprise twists and turns - good cliff hangers - and a fun but far fetched story of disintegrating gas and mass destruction. Lt. Kent stays hot on the trail of Boroff so there is never a dull moment.This one is good for a few giggles but is a refreshing change to see Lugosi outside of the horror genre that he is well known for. Recommended for Lugosi fans - he gets lots of screen time.8/10

*Spoiler/plot- SOS Coast Guard, 1937, Follow a tenacious Terry Kent, US coastguard officer & secret agent as he attempts to capture the international criminal scientist, Doctor Boroff, before he can auction of a dangerous gas weapon capable of killing whole cities inhabitants. A nail-biting race to beat the clock in it's final conclusion.*Special Stars- Ralph Byrd, Bela Lugosi. Maxine Doyle *Theme- American honesty and patriotism conquers evil and foreign designs for terror.*Trivia/location/goofs- Republic theatrical Serial, black & White, Locations filmed at the west San Fernando Valley movie ranch's, Iverson Film Ranch Chatsworth California.*Emotion- I heard good things of this serial. I was NOT misinformed. A very enjoyable film for it's on-screen production values, plot and acting. Much more enjoyable with Bela Lugosi as the 'baddie' and he does add to things here. Even today, very watchable and enjoyable. Fun to see Ralph 'Dick Tracy' Byrd in his prime.

SOS COAST GUARD (1937) never flags throughout its entire run of twelve chapters. Nearly every episode offers something new and different, be it a chase involving two cars and a motorcycle in one episode or one involving speedboats and tommy guns in the next. Most of it is filmed on location in all sorts of picturesque Southern California coastal sites. As the hero, Ralph Byrd (Republic's own Dick Tracy) seems to do a lot of his own stunts-on land and at sea. He clambers around rocks, flies a plane, goes out in boats, rides a motorcycle, runs around rooftops, jumps off of them and when he has to fight, he plunges right in, getting into furious scraps with a host of different henchmen. And it's never the typical movie fight in which opponents trade telegraphed punches. It's pummeling, tussling, shoving, grabbing, rolling, kicking-messy, like a real fight.The hero and villain (Bela Lugosi) are well matched. They're both smart and proactive. The villain's always one step ahead-as it's gotta be for a serial to last 12 chapters-but Byrd is no dope and he catches up pretty quickly. The villain uses lots of henchmen, divided into different teams for different tasks, so Byrd's not fighting the same bad guys in every episode. Also, unlike most serial heroes, Byrd's not afraid to call in police or Coast Guard backup. One great scene has the henchmen staking out a lab where a scientist is trying to analyze the villain's disintegrating gas so he can find a method to counteract it. Byrd's got several policemen protecting the lab. The lead henchman comes up with a clever plan to get Byrd out of the way, find a ruse to get past the police, get into the lab, kidnap the scientist and get him out without arousing the cops' suspicions. Usually, scenes like this rely on wild coincidences or highly improbable circumstances, but the plan used here actually makes sense and one has to give the bad guys credit for using their heads. It makes the whole thing so much more dramatically interesting when the hero faces genuine challenges.Bela Lugosi plays the villain, Boroff, a criminal mastermind trying to develop disintegrating gas to sell to foreign powers for use in the coming war. Lugosi plays it straight, without any of his usual over-the-top mannerisms, and he's very effective. He's well supported by the actors playing his men, who look and move like actual thugs and not pretty boys from Central Casting.If I have any complaint it's that the idiot comic relief, inept photographer "Snapper" McGee, gets way too much screen time and is the only element that actually slows the serial down. Also, some of the cliffhanger endings are a little on the cheating side. In one ending, Byrd ducks into the cockpit of his plane as a water tower falls on top of him. At the beginning of the next episode, it shows that he escaped injury---by ducking into the cockpit of his plane! Not exactly worth waiting a week for. This actually doesn't bother me because the rest of the story is so filled with action and thrills that the cliffhanger endings really don't matter much.

Typically exciting Republic serial, with Ralph Byrd, who went on to a career as Dick Tracy, in stalwart form with an unlimited supply of dress uniforms: in every chapter he's either dirtied, soaked, or blown up, but he always comes back conforming to regulations. Lugosi is evil scientist with a gas that disintegrates almost everything. Some great (and some laughable) special effects from the Lydecker brothers, gaining experience that would make them tops in the field in coming years.