Misplaced Pages

#146853

154-533: Some serials end with the caveat, "To Be Continued" or "The End?" In serial films and television series , the following episode sometimes begins with a recap sequence . Cliffhangers were used as literary devices in several works of the Middle Ages with One Thousand and One Nights ending on a cliffhanger each night. Cliffhangers appeared as an element of the Victorian era serial novel that emerged in

308-407: A masked, secret, or unsuspected villain menacing an unspecific part of America. This episode traditionally has the most detailed credits at the beginning, often with pictures of the actors with their names and that of the character they play. Often there follows a montage of scenes lifted from the cliffhangers of previous serials to depict the ways in which the master criminal was a serial killer with

462-453: A series of stories to King Shahryār for 1,001 nights, with each night ending on a cliffhanger in order to save herself from execution. Some medieval Chinese ballads like the Liu chih-yuan chu-kung-tiao ended each chapter on a cliffhanger to keep the audience in suspense. The Scottish comic magazine The Glasgow Looking Glass , founded by English artist William Heath , pioneered the use of

616-406: A bit longer than most, for its tasks were to unmask the head villain (who usually was someone completely unsuspected), wrap up the loose ends, and end with the victorious principals relieved of their perils. In 1936, Republic standardized the "economy episode" (or "recap chapter") in which the characters summarize or reminisce about their adventures, so as to introduce showing those scenes again (in

770-509: A cliffhanger missing from the original. While Greene's book ended with the protagonists definitely choosing the adventurous and rather shady life of smugglers in Paraguay and closing off other options for their future, at the conclusion of the Cukor film a character is seen tossing a coin whose fall would determine their next move, and the film ends on a freeze frame shot as the characters await

924-415: A cliffhanger, with the villains' coach hanging precariously over a cliff. Cliffhangers were rare on American primetime television before 1980, as television networks preferred the flexibility of airing episodes in any order. The sitcom Soap was the first US primetime television programme to utilise the end-of-season cliffhanger, at the end of its first season in 1978. Cliffhangers then went on to become

1078-493: A cliffhanger. This serial was directed by Richard Donner and featured the first African American action hero in a chapter play. The violence present in most of the episodes, though much of it was deliberately comical and would not be considered shocking today, also raised concerns at a time when violence in children's TV was at issue. On February 27, 1979, NBC broadcast the first episode of an hour-long weekly television series Cliffhangers! , which had three segments, each with

1232-655: A coup by licensing the comic-strip character Flash Gordon for the screen; the serial was a smash hit, and was even booked into first-run theaters that usually did not bother with chapter plays. Universal followed it up with more pop-culture icons: The Green Hornet and Ace Drummond from radio, and Smilin' Jack and Buck Rogers from newspapers. Universal was more story-conscious than the other studios, and cast its serials with "name" actors recognizable from feature films: Lon Chaney Jr. , Béla Lugosi , Dick Foran , The Dead End Kids , Kent Taylor , Robert Armstrong , Irene Hervey , and Johnny Mack Brown , among many others. In

1386-552: A deliberate and permanent cliffhanger: readers are not to be ever told where the protagonist ended up in his wandering the "forest" of alternate history timelines and whether he ever got back to his home and his beloved, nor whether the war which takes a large part of the plot ended in victory for the Good Guys or the Bad Guys. George Cukor , when adapting in 1972 Graham Greene 's Travels with My Aunt deliberately introduced

1540-499: A different serial: a horror story ( The Curse of Dracula , starring Michael Nouri ), a science fiction/western ( The Secret Empire, (inspired by 1935's The Phantom Empire ) starring Geoffrey Scott as Marshal Jim Donner and Mark Lenard as Emperor Thorval) and a mystery ( Stop Susan Williams! , starring Susan Anton , Ray Walston as Bob Richards, and Albert Paulsen as the villain Anthony Korf). Though final episodes were shot,

1694-506: A dramatic cliffhanger in anticipation of a second season. However, the network chose not to renew the show and so a hastily filmed five-minute "conclusion" was filmed and added on to the end of existing final episode to provide closure. Some shows, however, became known for never being resolved. In addition to the aforementioned Blake's 7 , the supernatural series Angel , the original 1984 series V and its 2009 remake , all ended with unresolved cliffhangers. On occasion, TV series are given

SECTION 10

#1732779802147

1848-504: A flat rental basis. Further, the stock market crash of 1929 and the added expense of sound equipment made it impossible for many of the smaller companies that produced serials to upgrade to sound, and they went out of business. Mascot Pictures , which specialized in serials, made the transition from silent to sound and produced the first "talking" serial, King of the Kongo (1929). Universal Pictures also kept its serial unit alive through

2002-404: A large depositional plain near its mouth. This lack of significant deposits near the river mouth differs from most other American estuaries. Around New York Harbor, sediment also flows into the estuary from the ocean when the current is flowing north. The area around Hudson River was inhabited by indigenous peoples ages before Europeans arrived. The Lenape , Wappinger , and Mahican branches of

2156-554: A major and much publicized catastrophe, such as a character being shot in the final seconds of the year's closing episode. Cliffhangers are commonly used in Japanese manga and anime . In contrast to American superhero comics , Japanese manga are much more frequently written with cliffhangers, often with each volume or issue. This is particularly the case with shōnen manga , especially those published by Weekly Shōnen Jump , such as Dragon Ball , Shaman King , One Piece and

2310-415: A motive. In the first episode, various suspects or "candidates" who may, in secret, be this villain are presented, and the viewer often hears the voice but does not see the face of this mastermind commanding his lieutenant (or "lead villain"), whom the viewer sees in just about every episode. In the succeeding weeks (usually 11 to 14), an episode of two reels (approximately 20 minutes) was presented, in which

2464-477: A permanent position in Columbia's serial unit. Horne had been a comedy specialist in the 1930s, often working with Laurel and Hardy , and most of his Columbia serials after 1939 are played tongue-in-cheek, with exaggerated villainy and improbable heroics (the hero takes on six men in a fistfight and wins ). After Horne's death in 1942, the studio's serial output was somewhat more sober, but still aimed primarily at

2618-419: A point in the plot that created reader anticipation and thus reader demand." With each new instalment widely anticipated with its cliffhanger ending, Dickens' audience was enormous; his instalment format was also much more affordable and accessible to the masses, with the audience more evenly distributed across income levels than previous. The popularity of Dickens's serial publications saw the cliffhanger become

2772-674: A popular form of movie entertainment dating back to Edison's What Happened to Mary of 1912. There appear to be older serials, however, such as the 1910 Deutsche Vitaskop 5 episode Arsene Lupin Contra Sherlock Holmes , based upon the Maurice LeBlanc novel, and a possible but unconfirmed Raffles serial in 1911. Europe had its own serials: in France Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset launched his series of Nick Carter films in 1908, and

2926-513: A popular radio series); from the British novelist Edgar Wallace , the first archer-superhero, The Green Archer; and even from television: Captain Video . Columbia's early serials were very well received by audiences—exhibitors voted The Spider's Web (1938) the number-one serial of the year. Former silent-serial director James W. Horne co-directed The Spider's Web , and his work secured him

3080-424: A serial which helped popularize the term "cliffhanger". In them, the serial would often end suddenly leaving actress Pearl White 's Pauline character hanging from a cliff. Cliffhangers are often used in television series , especially soap operas and game shows . Several Australian soap operas , which went off air over summer, such as Number 96 , The Restless Years , and Prisoner , ended each year with

3234-447: A series ends with an unintended cliffhanger caused by a very abrupt ending without a satisfactory dénouement , but merely assuming that the viewer will assume that everything sorted itself out. Sometimes a film, book, or season of a television show will end with the defeat of the main villain before a second, evidently more powerful villain makes a brief appearance (becoming the villain of the next film). Occasionally an element other than

SECTION 20

#1732779802147

3388-512: A shock revelation to Luke Skywalker , and Han Solo 's life was left in jeopardy after he was frozen and taken away by a bounty hunter. These plotlines were left unresolved until the next film in the series, which was released three years later. The first two films in the Back to the Future series end in cliffhangers, with the first displaying the "to be continued" title card. The film adaptation of

3542-433: A single story, which has been edited into chapters after the fashion of serial fiction and the episodes cannot be shown out of order or as a single or a random collection of short subjects. Each chapter was screened at a movie theater for one week, and typically ended with a cliffhanger , in which characters found themselves in perilous situations with little apparent chance of escape. Viewers had to return each week to see

3696-433: A staple of American primetime soap operas; the phenomenal success of the 1980 " Who shot J.R.? " third season-ending cliffhanger of Dallas , and the " Who Done It " fourth-season episode that finally solved the mystery, contributed to the cliffhanger becoming a common storytelling device on American television. Another notable cliffhanger was the "Moldavian Massacre" on Dynasty in 1985, which fueled speculation throughout

3850-488: A staple part of the sensation serials by the 1860s. His influence can also be seen in television soap operas and film series, with The Guardian stating "the DNA of Dickens's busy, episodic storytelling, delivered in instalments and rife with cliffhangers and diversions, is traceable in everything." The term "cliffhanger" is considered to have originated with the serialised version of Thomas Hardy 's A Pair of Blue Eyes (which

4004-423: A subsidiary of Jerry Hyams's Hygo Television Films, bought the 1936-1946 Universal serials (including all titles, rights, and interests) for $ 1,500,000. Also in 1956, Columbia's TV subsidiary Screen Gems reprinted many of its serials for broadcast syndication. Only the films' endings were changed: Screen Gems replaced the "at this theater next week" title card with its standard Screen Gems logo. Screen Gems acquired

4158-405: A sudden shocking revelation. Cliffhangers are also used to leave open the possibility of a character being killed off due to the actor not continuing to play the role. Cliffhangers are also sometimes deliberately inserted by writers who are uncertain whether a new series or season will be commissioned, in the hope that viewers will demand to know how the situation is resolved. Such was the case with

4312-549: A third season) aired in 2017. The cliffhanger has become a genre staple (especially in comics, due to the multi-part storylines becoming the norm instead of self-contained stories) to such a degree, in fact, that series writers no longer feel they have to be immediately resolved, or even referenced, when the next episode is shown, variously because the writer didn't feel it was "a strong enough opener," or simply "couldn't be bothered." The heavily serialized television drama True Blood has become notorious for cliffhangers. Not only do

4466-487: A villain is also used to tease at a sequel. Peter Høeg 's novel Smilla's Sense of Snow ends with a deliberate cliffhanger, with the protagonist and main villain involved in a life-and-death chase on the arctic ice off Greenland – and in this case, the author has no intention of ever writing a sequel, the ambiguous ending being part and parcel of the basic ideas permeating the book's plot. Similarly, Michael Flynn 's science fiction novelette The Forest of Time ends with

4620-592: Is 315 miles (507 km) long, with depths of 30 feet (9.1 m) for the stretch south of the Federal Dam, dredged to maintain the river as a shipping route. Some sections there are around 160 feet deep, and the deepest part of the Hudson, known as "World's End" (between the US Military Academy and Constitution Island ) has a depth of 202 feet (62 m). The Hudson and its tributaries, notably

4774-531: Is believed that the first use of the name Hudson River in a map was in a map created by the cartographer John Carwitham in 1740. In 1939, the magazine Life described the river as "America's Rhine", comparing it to the 760-mile (1,220 km) Rhine in Central and Western Europe. The tidal Hudson is unusually straight for a river, and the earliest colonial Dutch charts of the Hudson River designated

Cliffhanger - Misplaced Pages Continue

4928-673: Is credited for the Old World 's discovery of continental North America, with his journey in 1497 along the continent's coast. In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano sailed north along the Atlantic seaboard and into New York Harbor, however he left the harbor shortly thereafter, without navigating into the Hudson River. In 1598, Dutch men employed by the Greenland Company wintered in New York Bay . In 1609

5082-577: Is estimated to have formed between 26,000 and 13,300 years ago. Along the river, the Palisades are of metamorphic basalt , or diabases , the Highlands are primarily granite and gneiss with intrusions , and from Beacon to Albany, shales and limestones , or mainly sedimentary rock . The Narrows were most likely formed about 6,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. Previously, Staten Island and Long Island were connected, preventing

5236-528: Is understandable that this practice was adopted in view of their success in theaters on a Saturday matinee exhibition policy. But cliffhangers simply cannot be treated on TV as they were in theaters and still maintain the suspense so vital to their entertainment content. This suspense factor is diluted by the vast amount of other TV entertainment beamed between weekly showings." TV stations began showing serials daily, generally on weekday afternoons, as children's programming. In July 1956 TV distributor Serials Inc.,

5390-746: The Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York at Henderson Lake in the town of Newcomb , and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between New York City and Jersey City , eventually draining into the Atlantic Ocean at Upper New York Bay . The river serves as a physical boundary between the states of New Jersey and New York at its southern end. Farther north, it marks local boundaries between several New York counties . The lower half of

5544-548: The Algonquians lived along the river, mostly in peace with the other groups. The Algonquians in the region mainly lived in small clans and villages throughout the area. One major settlement was called Navish, which was located at Croton Point , overlooking the Hudson River. Other settlements were located in various locations throughout the Hudson Highlands . Many villagers lived in various types of houses, which

5698-550: The Battle of Harlem Heights the following month. Later that year, the British and Continental Armies were involved in skirmishes and battles in rivertowns of the Hudson in Westchester County, culminating in the Battle of White Plains . Also in late 1776, New England militias fortified the river's choke point known as the Hudson Highlands , which included building Fort Clinton and Fort Montgomery on either side of

5852-840: The Bear Mountain Bridge , which connects Westchester and Rockland Counties. Afterward, leaving the Hudson Highlands, the river enters Haverstraw Bay , the widest point of the river at 3.5 miles (5.6 km) wide. Shortly thereafter, the river forms the Tappan Zee and flows under the Tappan Zee Bridge , which carries the New York State Thruway between Tarrytown and Nyack in Westchester and Rockland Counties respectively. At

6006-716: The Delaware River at Honesdale, Pennsylvania , and the Hudson River at Kingston, New York. This canal enabled the transportation of coal, and later other goods as well, between the Delaware and Hudson River watersheds. The combination of these canals made the Hudson River one of the most vital waterways for trade in the nation. During the Industrial Revolution , the Hudson River became a major location for production, especially around Albany and Troy. The river allowed for fast and easy transport of goods from

6160-579: The Dutch East India Company financed English navigator Henry Hudson in his search for the Northeast Passage , but thwarted by sea ice in that direction, he sailed westward across the Atlantic in pursuit of a Northwest Passage . During the search, Hudson sailed up the river that would later be named after him. He then sailed upriver to a point near Stuyvesant (Old Kinderhook), and the ship’s boat with five members ventured to

6314-521: The Federal Dam in Troy . There are about two high tides and two low tides per day. As the tide rises, the tidal current moves northward, taking enough time that part of the river can be at high tide while another part can be at the bottom of its low tide. Strong tides make parts of New York Harbor difficult and dangerous to navigate. During the winter, ice floes may drift south or north, depending upon

Cliffhanger - Misplaced Pages Continue

6468-758: The Harlem River Ship Canal connecting to the Harlem River ), the east bank of the river becomes Manhattan . The river is sometimes still called the North River from this point south. The George Washington Bridge crosses the river between Fort Lee and the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. The Lincoln Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel also cross under the river between Manhattan and New Jersey. South of

6622-471: The Hudson Valley , flowing along the west bank of Albany and the east bank of Rensselaer . Interstate 90 crosses the Hudson into Albany at this point in the river. The Hudson then leaves the Capital District, forming the boundary between Greene and Columbia Counties. It then meets its confluence with Schodack Creek, widening considerably at this point. After flowing by Hudson , the river forms

6776-553: The Mohawk River , the largest tributary of the Hudson River, in Waterford . The river then reaches the Federal Dam in Troy , marking an impoundment of the river. At an elevation of 2 feet (0.61 m), the bottom of the dam marks the beginning of the tidal influence in the Hudson as well as the beginning of the lower Hudson River. South of the Federal Dam, the Hudson River begins to widen considerably. The river enters

6930-669: The Saint Lawrence Seaway . Further south the Hudson takes in water from the Batten Kill River and Fish Creek near Schuylerville . The river then forms the boundary between Saratoga and Rensselaer counties. The river then enters the heart of the Capital District . It takes in water from the Hoosic River , which extends into Massachusetts . Shortly thereafter the river has its confluence with

7084-636: The St. Lawrence Seaway , and then British cities such as Montreal to the Hudson River and New York City. Another major canal was the Oswego Canal , which connected the Erie Canal to Oswego and Lake Ontario , and could be used to bypass Niagara Falls. The Cayuga-Seneca Canal connected the Erie Canal to Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake . Farther south, the Delaware and Hudson Canal was built between

7238-633: The United States Geological Survey (USGS). USGS maps show the longest source of the Hudson as the Opalescent on the western slopes of Little Marcy Mountain, originating two miles north of Lake Tear of the Clouds. Using river names as seen on maps, Indian Pass Brook flows into Henderson Lake . The outlet of Henderson Lake is most commonly referred to as the official start of the Hudson River, as it flows east and meets

7392-730: The 1800s. One of the most significant canals of this era was the Erie Canal . The canal was built to link the Midwest to the Port of New York , a significant seaport during that time, by way of the Great Lakes , the canal, the Mohawk River , and the Hudson River. The completion of the canal enhanced the development of the American West, allowing settlers to travel west, send goods to markets in frontier cities, and export goods via

7546-427: The 1840s, with many associating the form with Charles Dickens , a pioneer of the serial publication of narrative fiction. Following the enormous success of Dickens, by the 1860s cliffhanger endings had become a staple part of the sensation serials. Cliffhangers were used as literary devices in several works of the Middle Ages . The Arabic literary work One Thousand and One Nights involves Scheherazade narrating

7700-456: The 1940s Universal's serials employed urban and/or wartime themes, incorporating newsreel footage of actual disasters. The 1942 serial Gang Busters is perhaps the best of Universal's urban serials; Universal often cannibalized it for future cliffhangers. Don Winslow of the Navy may exemplify Universal's best war-themed chapterplay. The studio's reliance on stock footage for the big action scenes

7854-642: The 1940s and completed in 1966. The plot involved a masked villain named The Master Duper, one of three members of a Film Commission who attempts to steal the only known prints of priceless antique films, and the heroic Captain Celluloid, who wears a costume reminiscent of that of the Black Commando in the Columbia serial The Secret Code and is determined to uncover him. Roles in the serial are played by, among others, film historians and serial fans Alan G. Barbour , Al Kilgore , and William K. Everson . In

SECTION 50

#1732779802147

8008-544: The 1980s, serial fan Blackie Seymour shot a complete 15-chapter serial called The Return of the Copperhead. Seymour's only daughter, who operated the camera at the age of 8, attests that as of 2008 the serial was indeed filmed but the raw footage remains in cans, unedited. In 2001, King of the Park Rangers, a one-chapter sound serial was released by Cliffhanger Productions on VHS video tape in sepia. It concerned

8162-609: The Algonquians called wigwams , though large families often lived in longhouses that could be a hundred feet long. At the associated villages, they grew corn, beans, and squash. They also gathered other types of plant foods, such as hickory nuts and many other wild fruits and tubers. In addition to agriculture, the Algonquians also fished in the Hudson River, focusing on various species of freshwater fish, as well as various variations of striped bass , American eels , sturgeon , herring , and shad . Oyster beds were also common on

8316-699: The Battery , the river proper ends, meeting the East River to form Upper New York Bay, also known as New York Harbor . Its outflow continues through the Narrows between Brooklyn and Staten Island , under the Verrazzano Bridge , and into Lower New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean through the Hudson Canyon . The lower Hudson is a tidal estuary, with tidal influence extending as far as

8470-467: The Black Dragon , and Panther Girl of the Kongo . With the rise in popularity of Super 8 sound-film equipment in the late 1970s, Columbia issued home-movie prints of entire 15-chapter serials, including Batman and Robin , Congo Bill , and Hop Harrigan . These were in print only briefly, until the studios turned away from home-movie films in favor of home video. Film serials released to

8624-606: The British, who had invaded the largely-defenseless New Amsterdam. New Amsterdam and the colony of New Netherland were renamed New York, after the Duke of York . Under British colonial rule, the Hudson Valley became an agricultural hub. Manors were developed on the east side of the river, and the west side contained many smaller and independent farms. In 1754, the Albany Plan of Union was created at Albany City Hall on

8778-620: The Doctor ", the BBC character introduced in 1963. Doctor Who serials would run anywhere from one to twelve episodes and were shown in weekly segments, as had been the original theatrical cliffhangers. Doctor Who was syndicated in the US as early as 1974, but did not gain a following in America until the mid-1980s when episodes featuring Tom Baker reached its shores. Although the series ended in 1989, it

8932-619: The English and the Dutch over control of the river and colony. During the 18th century, the river valley and its inhabitants were the subject and inspiration of Washington Irving , the first internationally acclaimed American author. In the nineteenth century, the area inspired the Hudson River School of landscape painting , an American pastoral style, as well as the concepts of environmentalism and wilderness . The Hudson River

9086-533: The Highland Rogue ; and The Fighting Prince of Donegal ) edited into segments for television presentation often had a cliffhanger-serial-like feel. In England, in the 1950s and 60s, low-budget six-chapter serials such as Dusty Bates and Masters of Venus were released theatrically, but these were not particularly well-regarded or remembered. The greatest number of serialized television programs to feature any single character were those made featuring "

9240-564: The Hudson River and New York City. The completion of the canal made New York City one of the most vital ports in the nation, surpassing the Port of Philadelphia and ports in Massachusetts . After the completion of the Erie Canal, smaller canals were built to connect it with the new system. The Champlain Canal was built to connect the Hudson River near Troy to the southern end of Lake Champlain. This canal allowed boaters to travel from

9394-451: The Hudson River from terminating via the Narrows. At that time, the Hudson River emptied into the Atlantic Ocean through a more westerly course through parts of present-day northern New Jersey, along the eastern side of the Watchung Mountains to Bound Brook, New Jersey and then on into the Atlantic Ocean via Raritan Bay . A buildup of water in the Upper New York Bay eventually allowed the Hudson River to break through previous land mass that

SECTION 60

#1732779802147

9548-427: The Hudson River, and would later become Kingston. Fort Orange was founded on the river north of Wiltwyck, and later became known as Albany. The Dutch West India Company operated a monopoly on the region for roughly twenty years before other businessmen were allowed to set up their own ventures in the colony. In 1647, Director-General Peter Stuyvesant took over management of the colony, and surrendered it in 1664 to

9702-405: The Hudson and a metal chain between the two. In 1777, Washington expected the British would attempt to control the Hudson River, however they instead conquered Philadelphia, and left a smaller force in New York City, with permission to strike the Hudson Valley at any time. The British attacked on October 5, 1777, in the Battle of Forts Clinton and Montgomery by sailing up the Hudson River, looting

9856-416: The Hudson. The plan allowed the colonies to treaty with the Iroquois and provided a framework for the Continental Congress . During the American Revolutionary War , the British realized that the river's proximity to Lake George and Lake Champlain would allow their navy to control the water route from Montreal to New York City. British general John Burgoyne planned the Saratoga campaign , to control

10010-487: The Hygo company in December 1956, and packaged both Columbia and Universal serials for broadcast. Republic's TV division, Hollywood Television Service, issued serials for television in their unedited theatrical form, as well as in specially edited six-chapter, half-hour editions ready made for TV time slots. In the late 1970s and 1980s, serials were often revived on BBC television in the United Kingdom. Both Republic and Columbia issued "highlights" versions of serials for

10164-427: The Langerack by the Dutch. An embellished (and partly erroneous) list of "The Old Reaches" was published in a tourist guidebook for steamboat passengers in the nineteenth century. The source of the Hudson River is Henderson Lake , located in the Adirondack Mountains at an elevation of 4,322 ft (1,317 m). However, the photogenic Lake Tear of the Clouds is more conventionally cited in popular culture as

10318-454: The Mohawk River, drain an area of 13,000 square miles (34,000 km ), the Hudson River Watershed. It covers much of New York, as well as parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Vermont. Parts of the Hudson River form coves , such as Weehawken Cove in the towns of Hoboken and Weehawken in New Jersey. The City of Poughkeepsie and several adjacent communities in the mid-Hudson valley, totalling about 100,000 people, rely on

10472-480: The Pirates , Mandrake the Magician , The Phantom , and Brenda Starr, Reporter ; from the comic books, Blackhawk , Congo Bill , time traveler Brick Bradford , and Batman and Superman (although this last owed more to its radio incarnation , which the credits acknowledged); from radio, Jack Armstrong and Hop Harrigan ; from the hero pulp characters like The Spider (two serials: The Spider's Web and The Spider Returns ) and The Shadow (despite also being

10626-509: The Universe (Hearst), Adventures of Captain Marvel (Republic Pictures), Batman and Batman and Robin (Sony), Superman and Atom Man vs. Superman (Warner). The Universal serials had been controlled by Serials Inc. until it closed in 1970. The company now known as VCI Entertainment obtained the rights. VCI is offering new Blu-Ray and DVD restorations of many Universal serials, including Gang Busters , Jungle Queen , Pirate Treasure , and three Buck Jones adventures. All of

10780-422: The Weisses essentially disappeared from the serial scene. Mascot Pictures was absorbed by Republic Pictures , so that by 1937, serial production was now in the hands of three companies – Universal, Columbia, and Republic, with Republic quickly becoming the acknowledged leader in quality serial product. Each company turned out four to five serials per year, of 12 to 15 episodes each, a pace they all kept up until

10934-500: The Western Sea", "The Secret of Mystery Lake", "The Hardy Boys: The Mystery of Ghost Farm", and The Adventures of Clint and Mac . Other Disney programs shown on Walt Disney Presents in segments (such as The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh , The Swamp Fox , The Secret of Boyne Castle , The Mooncussers , and The Prince and the Pauper ) and Disney feature films (including Treasure Island ; The Three Lives of Thomasina ; The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men ; Rob Roy,

11088-414: The action, and staging more elaborate stunts. Republic was one of Hollywood's smaller studios, but its serials have been hailed as some of the best, especially those directed by John English and William Witney . In addition to solid screenwriting that many critics thought was quite accomplished, the firm also introduced choreographed fistfights, which often included the stuntmen (usually the ones portraying

11242-515: The adventures of a Park Ranger named Patricia King and an FBI Agent who track down a trio of killers out to find buried treasure in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. A second ten-chapter serial, The Dangers of Deborah, in which a female reporter and a criminologist fight to uncover the identity of a mysterious villain named The Terror, was released by Cliffhanger Productions in 2008. In 2006, Lamb4 Productions created its own homage to

11396-414: The aforementioned Soap , the long-running sitcom Cheers would often incorporate cliffhanger season endings, largely (in its earlier years) to increase interest in the on-and-off relationship between its two lead characters, Sam Malone and Diane Chambers . These cliffhangers did not place the characters in peril of any kind, but rather left their relationship (which was at the core of the show) hanging in

11550-538: The balance. Cliffhanger endings in films date back to the early 20th century, and were prominently used in the serial films of the 1930s (such as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers ), though these tended to be resolved with the next installment the following week. A longer term cliffhanger was employed in the Star Wars film series, in The Empire Strikes Back (1980) in which Darth Vader made

11704-738: The boundary between Orange and Dutchess Counties. It flows between Newburgh and Beacon and under the Newburgh Beacon Bridge , taking in the Fishkill Creek . In this area, between Gee's Point at the US Military Academy and Constitution Island , an area known as "World's End" marks the deepest part of the Hudson, at 202 feet (62 m). Shortly thereafter, the river enters the Hudson Highlands between Putnam and Orange Counties, flowing between mountains such as Storm King Mountain , Breakneck Ridge , and Bear Mountain . The river narrows considerably here before flowing under

11858-670: The boundary between Ulster and Columbia Counties and Ulster and Dutchess Counties, passing Germantown and Kingston . The Delaware and Hudson Canal meets the river at this point. The river then flows by Hyde Park , former residence of Franklin D. Roosevelt , and alongside the city of Poughkeepsie , flowing under the Walkway over the Hudson and the Mid-Hudson Bridge . Afterwards, the Hudson passes Wappingers Falls and takes in Wappinger Creek . The river then forms

12012-540: The cliffhangers resolved and to follow the continuing story. Movie serials were especially popular with children, and for many youths in the first half of the 20th century a typical Saturday matinee at the movies included at least one chapter of a serial, along with animated cartoons , newsreels , and two feature films. There were films covering many genres, including crime fiction , espionage , comic book or comic strip characters, science fiction , and jungle adventures . Many serials were Westerns , since those were

12166-485: The cultural niche later primarily occupied by television . The first film serial designed around the cliffhanger device was 1913's The Adventures of Kathlyn from Selig Polyscope . During the 1910s, when Fort Lee, New Jersey was a center of film production, the cliffs facing New York and the Hudson River were frequently used as film locations. The most notable of these films was The Perils of Pauline ,

12320-621: The dock of New York Harbor, as they waited for a British ship carrying the next installment, screaming, "Is little Nell dead?" On Dickens' instalment format and cliffhangers—first seen with The Pickwick Papers in 1836—Leslie Howsam in The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book (2015) writes, "It inspired a narrative that Dickens would explore and develop throughout his career. The instalments would typically culminate at

12474-427: The early days of television. Veteran producers Louis Weiss and Nat Levine were among the first to offer their serials for broadcast. The traditional week-to-week format of viewing serials was soon abandoned. As Republic executive David Bloom explained, "Attempts to program serials with full week intervals between chapters during the earlier days of television just about killed them off as effective sales product. It

12628-491: The end of World War II when, in 1946, Universal dropped its serial unit along with its B-picture unit and renamed its production department Universal-International Pictures. Republic and Columbia continued unchallenged, with three serials per year each. Republic's serials ran for 12, 13, 14, or 15 chapters; Columbia's ran a standard 15 episodes (with the single exception of Mandrake the Magician , which ran 12 episodes). By

12782-463: The fall of the coin. Serial film A serial film, film serial (or just serial ), movie serial , or chapter play , is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, generally advancing weekly, until the series is completed. Usually, each serial involves a single set of characters, protagonistic and antagonistic, involved in

12936-509: The film serials of the 1940s with its own serial titled "Wildcat." The story revolves around a super hero named Wildcat and his attempts to save the fictional Rite City from a masked villain known as the Roach. This eight-chapter serial was based heavily on popular super hero serials such as "Batman and Robin," "Captain America," and "The Adventures of Captain Marvel." After its premiere, "Wildcat"

13090-693: The first European known to have entered the Upper New York Bay , but he considered the river to be an estuary. The Dutch called the river the North River , and they called the present-day Delaware River the South River , which formed the spine of the Dutch colony of New Netherland . Settlements of the colony clustered around the Hudson, and its strategic importance as the gateway to the American interior led to years of competition between

13244-484: The first serial to be released on Blu-ray. An early attempt at a low-budget Western serial, filmed in color, was entitled The Silver Avenger. One or two chapters exist of this effort on 16mm film but it is not known whether the serial was ever completed. The best-known fan-made chapter play is the four-chapter, silent 16mm Captain Celluloid vs. the Film Pirates, made to resemble Republic and Columbia serials of

13398-574: The four seasons the series was on air, most notably for its final episode in 1981 in which the whole of the main cast are seemingly killed. The final cliffhanger was never resolved. From 1966 to 1968 and in broadcast syndication , "Same bat-time, same bat-channel" encouraged viewers to tune in the next night for 120 episodes of Batman . The next episode quickly resolved the heroes from each supervillain's trap. A few triple episodes had double cliffhangers. The 1969 British film The Italian Job , starring Michael Caine and Noël Coward , ended literally in

13552-685: The hamlet of North River , and takes in the Schroon River at Warrensburg . Further south, the river forms the boundary between Warren and Saratoga Counties. The river then takes in the Sacandaga River from the Great Sacandaga Lake . Shortly thereafter, the river leaves the Adirondack Park, flows under Interstate 87 , and through Glens Falls , just south of Lake George although receiving no streamflow from

13706-426: The hat would stay on during fight scenes. Exposition of what led up to the previous episode's cliffhanger was usually displayed on placards with a photograph of one of the characters on it. In 1938, Universal brought the first "scrolling text" exposition to the serial, which George Lucas first used in Star Wars in 1977 and then in all of the following Star Wars films. As this would have required subcontracting

13860-399: The heroine would be placed into a deathtrap and the hero would come to her rescue. The hero and heroine would face one trap after another, battling countless thugs and lackeys, before finally defeating the villain. Notable American serials of the silent era include The Perils of Pauline and The Exploits of Elaine made by Pathé Frères and starring Pearl White . Another popular serial

14014-474: The home video market from original masters include most Republic titles (with a few exceptions, such as Ghost of Zorro )—which were released by Republic Pictures Home Video on VHS and sometimes laserdisc (sometimes under their re-release titles) mostly from transfers made from the original negatives, The Shadow , and Blackhawk , both released by Sony only on VHS, and DVD versions of Flash Gordon , Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars , and Flash Gordon Conquers

14168-514: The home-movie market. These were printed on 8mm silent film (and later Super 8 film) and sold directly to owners of home-movie projectors. Columbia was first to market, with three abbreviated chapters from its 1938 serial The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok . When Batman became a national craze in 1965, Columbia issued a six-chapter silent version of its 1943 Batman . Republic followed suit with condensed silent versions of its own serials, including Adventures of Captain Marvel , G-Men vs.

14322-662: The idea of the episodic crime adventure was developed particularly by Louis Feuillade in Fantômas (1913–14), Les Vampires (1915), and Judex (1916); in Germany, Homunculus (1916), directed by Otto Rippert , was a six-part horror serial about an artificial creature. Years after their first release, serials gained new life at "Saturday Matinees", theatrical showings on Saturday mornings aimed directly at children. The arrival of sound technology made it costlier to produce serials, so that they were no longer as profitable on

14476-596: The interior of the Northeast to the coast. Hundreds of factories were built around the Hudson, in towns including Poughkeepise, Newburgh, Kingston, and Hudson. The North Tarrytown Assembly (later owned by General Motors ), on the river in Sleepy Hollow, was a large and notable example. The River links to the Erie Canal and Great Lakes, allowing manufacturing in the Midwest, including automobiles in Detroit, to use

14630-630: The juvenile audience. Batman (1943) was quite popular, and Superman (1948) was phenomenally successful despite using cartoon animation for the flying sequences instead of more expensive special effects. Spencer Gordon Bennet , veteran director of silent serials, left Republic for Columbia in 1947. He directed or co-directed the studio's later serials. In 1954 producer Sam Katzman, whose budgets were already low, slashed them even further on serials. The last four Columbia serials were very-low-budget affairs, consisting mostly of action scenes and cliffhanger endings from older productions, and even employing

14784-552: The lake. It next goes through Hudson Falls . At this point the river forms the boundary between Washington and Saratoga Counties. Here the river has an elevation of 200 feet (61 m). Just south in Fort Edward , the river reaches its confluence with the Champlain Canal , which historically provided boat traffic between New York City and Montreal and the rest of Eastern Canada via the Hudson, Lake Champlain and

14938-407: The late 1940s. Although Republic discontinued new serial production in 1955, the studio continued making older ones available to theaters through 1959. Columbia, which canceled new serials in 1956, kept older ones in circulation until 1966. Columbia still offers a handful of serials to today's theaters. Serials, with their short running times and episodic format, were very attractive to programmers in

15092-531: The latter 20th century have begun to improve water quality, and restoration work has continued in the 21st century. The river was called Ka’nón:no or Ca-ho-ha-ta-te-a ("the river") by the Haudenosaunee , and it was known as Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk ("river that flows two ways" or "waters that are never still" ) or Mahicannittuk by the Mohican nation who formerly inhabited both banks of

15246-432: The least expensive to film. Although most serials were filmed economically, some were made at significant expense. The Flash Gordon serial and its sequels, for instance, were major productions in their times. Serials were action-packed stories that usually involved a hero (or heroes) battling an evil villain and rescuing a damsel in distress . The villain would continually place the hero into inescapable deathtraps, or

15400-561: The lower portion of the river. The meaning of the Mohican name comes from the river's long tidal range. The Delaware Tribe of Indians (Bartlesville, Oklahoma) considers the closely related Mohicans to be a part of the Lenape people, and so the Lenape also claim the Hudson as part of their ancestral territory, also calling it Muhheakantuck . The first known European name for the river

15554-412: The manner of a clip show in modern television). Serials had been including older scenes for years, as flashbacks during later parts of the narrative, but the wholesale insertion of entire sequences was introduced in the 1936 outdoor serial Robinson Crusoe of Clipper Island . It was scheduled as a standard 12-chapter adventure, but when bad weather on location delayed the filming, writer Barry Shipman

15708-442: The mid-1950s, however, episodic television series and the sale of older serials to TV syndicators by all the current and past major sound serial producers, together with the loss of audience attendance at Saturday matinees in general, made serial-making a losing proposition. The classic sound serial, particularly in its Republic format, has a first episode of three reels (approximately 30 minutes in length) and begins with reports of

15862-468: The moon. The end credits promised a second serial, Commie Commandos From Mars. Dark Horse attempted to promote the release as a just-found, never-before-released serial made in 1946, but suppressed by the US Government. Hudson River The Hudson River is a 315-mile (507 km) river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York , United States. It originates in

16016-418: The most successful painters of the school. At the beginning of the 19th century, transportation from the US east coast into the mainland was difficult. Ships were the fastest vehicles at the time, as trains were still being developed and automobiles were roughly a century away. In order to facilitate shipping throughout the country's interior, numerous canals were constructed between internal bodies of water in

16170-539: The mouth of the river. The deeply eroded old riverbed beyond the current shoreline, Hudson Canyon , is a rich fishing area. The former riverbed is clearly delineated beneath the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, extending to the edge of the continental shelf . As a result of the glaciation and the rising sea levels , the lower half of the river is now a tidal estuary that occupies the Hudson Fjord. The fjord

16324-401: The musical Wicked is split into two parts, with the first film ending on a cliffhanger with the first act closer " Defying Gravity ," making the second film Wicked Part Two begin at the top of the musical's second act. The two main ways for cliffhangers to keep readers/viewers coming back is to either involve characters in a suspenseful, possibly life-threatening situation, or to feature

16478-490: The narrow, meandering stretches as racks , or reaches. These names included the four "lower reaches" through the Hudson Highlands (Seylmakers rack, Cocks rack, Hoogh rack, and Vosserack) plus the four "upper reaches" from Inbocht Bay to Kinderhook (Backers rack, Jan Pleysiers rack, Klevers rack, and Harts rack). A ninth reach was described as "the long reach" by the Englishman Robert Juet and designated as

16632-797: The new VCI releases derive from Universal's 35mm vault elements. Notable restorations of partially lost or forgotten serials such as The Adventures of Tarzan , Beatrice Fairfax , The Lone Ranger Rides Again , Daredevils of the West and King of the Mounties have been developed and made available to fans by The Serial Squadron. A gray market for DVDs also exists consisting of DVD companies releasing titles from privately owned 16mm prints or even copies of previously released VHS or laserdisc editions, and various websites and internet auctions. These DVDs vary between good and poor quality, depending on their source. In 2017, Adventures of Captain Marvel became

16786-642: The new serials. Most of the studio's serials of the 1950s were written by only one man, Ronald Davidson —Davidson had co-written and produced many Republic serials, and was familiar enough with the film library to write new scenes based on the older action footage. Republic's last serial was King of the Carnival (1955), a reworking of 1939's Daredevils of the Red Circle using some of its footage. Columbia made several serials using its own staff and facilities (1938–1939 and 1943–1945), and these are among

16940-596: The noble but clueless Dudley. The Hanna–Barbera Perils of Penelope Pitstop was a takeoff on the silent serials The Perils of Pauline and The Iron Claw, which featured Paul Lynde as the voice of the villain Sylvester Sneakley, alias "The Hooded Claw". Danger Island , a multi-part story in under-10-minute episodes, was shown on the Saturday morning Banana Splits program in the late 1960s. Episodes were short, full of wild action and usually ended on

17094-458: The opportunity to resolve their end-of-series cliffhangers at a later date; examples include the 1999–2003 series, Farscape , which was cancelled after a cliffhanger ending, but which was able to resolve it in a later follow-up miniseries, Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars and the aforementioned Twin Peaks 1991 cliffhanger, which was resolved 26 years later when a sequel to the series (considered

17248-553: The optical effects, Republic saved money by not using it. Columbia used printed recaps until 1941, replaced by spoken recaps by offscreen announcer Knox Manning . Universal had been making serials since the 1910s, and continued to service its loyal neighborhood-theater customers with four serials annually. The studio made news in 1929 by hiring Tim McCoy to star in its first all-talking serial, The Indians Are Coming! Epic footage from this western serial turned up again and again in later serials and features. In 1936 Universal scored

17402-535: The origin show of the To be continued Internet meme , JoJo's Bizarre Adventure . During its original run, Doctor Who was written in a serialised format that usually ended each episode within a serial on a cliffhanger. In the first few years of the show, the final episodes of each serial would have a cliffhanger that would lead into the next serial. The programme's cliffhangers sometimes caused controversy, most notably Part Three of The Deadly Assassin (1976), which

17556-509: The phrase 'To Be Continued' in its serials in 1825. Cliffhangers became prominent with the serial publication of narrative fiction, pioneered by Charles Dickens . Printed episodically in magazines, Dickens's cliffhangers triggered desperation in his readers. Writing in the New Yorker , Emily Nussbaum captured the anticipation of those waiting for the next installment of Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop ; In 1841, Dickens fanboys rioted on

17710-406: The remaining wilderness, which was fast disappearing from the Hudson Valley just as it was coming to be appreciated for its qualities of ruggedness and sublimity . The school characterizes the artistic body, its New York location, its landscape subject matter, and often its subject, the Hudson River. In general, Hudson River School artists believed that nature in the form of the American landscape

17864-403: The reprised scene would add an element not seen in the previous episode, but unless it contradicted something shown previously, audiences accepted the explanation. On rare occasions the filmmakers would depend on the audience not remembering details of the previous week's chapter, using alternate outcomes that did not exactly match the previous episode's cliffhanger. The last episode was sometimes

18018-576: The rights to the newspaper comic character Dick Tracy , the radio character The Lone Ranger , and the comic book characters Captain America , Captain Marvel , and Spy Smasher . Republic's serial scripts were written by teams, usually from three to seven writers. From 1950 Republic economized on serial production. The studio was no longer licensing expensive radio and comic-strip characters, and no longer staging spectacular action sequences. To save money, Republic turned instead to its impressive backlog of action highlights, which were cleverly re-edited into

18172-507: The river and therefore cut off the patriot hub of New England (to the river's east) from the South and Mid-Atlantic regions to the river's west. The action would allow the British to focus on rallying the support of loyalists in the southerly states. As a result, numerous battles were fought along the river and in nearby waterways. These include the Battle of Long Island , in August 1776 and

18326-634: The river floor, which provided an extra source of nutrition. Land hunting consisted of turkey, deer, bear, and other animals. The lower Hudson River was inhabited by the Lenape, while further north, the Wappingers lived from Manhattan Island up to Poughkeepsie . They traded with both the Lenape to the south and the Mahicans to the north. The Mahicans lived in the northern part of the valley from present-day Kingston to Lake Champlain , with their capital located near present-day Albany . John Cabot

18480-501: The river for their drinking water. New York Harbor, between the Narrows and the George Washington Bridge, has a mix of fresh and ocean water, mixed by wind and tides to create an increasing gradient of salinity from the river's top to its bottom. This varies with season, weather, variation of water circulation, and other factors; snowmelt at winter's end increases the freshwater flow downstream. The salt line of

18634-585: The river is a tidal estuary , deeper than the body of water into which it flows, occupying the Hudson Fjord , an inlet that formed during the most recent period of North American glaciation , estimated at 26,000 to 13,300 years ago. Even as far north as the city of Troy , the flow of the river changes direction with the tides. The Hudson River runs through the Munsee , Lenape , Mohican , Mohawk , and Haudenosaunee homelands. Prior to European exploration,

18788-591: The river varies from the north in Poughkeepsie to the south at Battery Park in New York City, though it usually lies near Newburgh. The Hudson is sometimes called, in geological terms, a drowned river . The rising sea levels after the retreat of the Wisconsin glaciation , the most recent ice age , have resulted in a marine incursion that drowned the coastal plain and brought salt water well above

18942-676: The river was known as the Mahicannittuk by the Mohicans, Ka'nón:no by the Mohawks, and Muhheakantuck by the Lenape. The river was subsequently named after Henry Hudson , an Englishman sailing for the Dutch East India Company who explored it in 1609, and after whom Hudson Bay in Canada is also named. It had previously been observed by Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano sailing for King Francis I of France in 1524, as he became

19096-655: The same actors for new scenes tying the old footage together. The new footage was so threadbare that it would often show the new hero watching the action from a distance, rather than actually participating in it. Columbia outlasted the other serial producers, its last being Blazing the Overland Trail (1956). There was always a market for action subjects in theaters, so as far back as 1935 independent film companies reissued older serials for new audiences. Universal brought back its Flash Gordon serials, and both Republic and Columbia began re-releasing its older serials in

19250-528: The same cliffhangers, stunt and special-effects sequences over the years. Mines or tunnels flooded often, even in Flash Gordon (reusing spectacular flood footage from Universal's 1927 silent drama Perch of the Devil ) and the same model cars and trains went off the same cliffs and bridges. Republic had a Packard limousine and a Ford Woodie station wagon used in serial after serial so they could match

19404-428: The seasons conclude with cliffhangers, but almost every episode finishes at a cliffhanger directly after or during a highly dramatic moment, much like the primetime soap operas of the 1980s and 90s. Commercial breaks can be a nuisance to script writers because some sort of incompleteness or minor cliffhanger should be provided before each to stop the viewer from changing channels during the commercial break. Sometimes

19558-510: The second season of Twin Peaks , which ended in a cliffhanger similar to the first season with a high degree of uncertainty about the fate of the protagonist, but the cliffhanger could not save the show from being canceled, resulting in the unresolved ending. The final episodes of soaps Dallas and Dynasty also ended in similar fashion, though all three shows would return years later in some form or other to resolve these storylines. The Australian soap opera Return To Eden ended in 1986 with

19712-426: The serial, often given different signage, or none at all, just being referred to differently. There would often be a female love interest of the male hero, or a female hero herself, but as the audience was mainly children, there was no romance. The beginning of each chapter would bring the story up to date by repeating the last few minutes of the previous chapter, and then revealing how the main character escaped. Often

19866-536: The series was canceled and the last program aired on May 1, 1979 before all of the serials could conclude; only The Curse of Dracula was resolved. In 2006, Dark Horse Indie films, through Image Entertainment, released a 6-chapter serial parody called Monarch of the Moon, detailing the adventures of a hero named the Yellow Jacket, who could control Yellow Jackets with his voice, battled "Japbots", and traveled to

20020-465: The shots with the stock footage from the model or previous stunt driving. Three different serials had them chasing the Art Deco sound truck, required for location shooting, for various reasons. Male fistfighters usually wore hats so that the change from actor to stunt double would not be caught so easily. A rubber liner on the hatband of the stuntman's fedora would fit snugly on the stuntman's head, so

20174-474: The source of the Hudson. The river is named Feldspar Brook from where it emerges from Lake Tear of the Clouds until its confluence with the Opalescent River , after which it becomes the Opalescent until it reaches Calamity Brook flowing southward into the eastern outlet of Henderson Lake. After this point, the stream is known as the Hudson River according to the cartographical definition used by

20328-676: The southwest flowing Calamity Brook. The confluence of the two rivers however is where most maps begin to use the Hudson River name on a cartographical basis. South of the outlet of Sanford Lake, the Opalescent River flows into the Hudson. The Hudson then flows south, taking in Beaver Brook and the outlet of Lake Harris. After its confluence with the Indian River, the Hudson forms the boundary between Essex and Hamilton counties. The Hudson flows entirely into Warren County in

20482-605: The state line with New Jersey the west bank of the Hudson enters Bergen County . The Palisades are large, rocky cliffs along the west bank of the river; also known as Bergen Hill at their lower end in Hudson County . Further south the east bank of the river becomes Yonkers and then the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City. South of the confluence of the Hudson and Spuyten Duyvil Creek (subsumed by

20636-602: The studio's best efforts: The Spider's Web , The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok , Batman , The Secret Code , and The Phantom maintained Columbia's own high standard. However, Columbia's serials often have a reputation for cheapness, because the studio usually subcontracted its serial production to outside producers: the Weiss Brothers (1937–1938), Larry Darmour (1939–1942), and finally Sam Katzman (1945–1956). Columbia built many serials around name-brand heroes. From newspaper comics, they got Terry and

20790-420: The summer months regarding who lived or died when almost all the characters attended a wedding in the country of Moldavia, only to have revolutionaries topple the government and machine-gun the entire wedding party. Other primetime soap operas, such as Falcon Crest and Knots Landing , also employed dramatic end-of-season cliffhangers on an annual basis. Sitcoms also utilised the cliffhanger device. As well as

20944-500: The tides. The Mahican name of the river represents its partially estuarine nature: muh-he-kun-ne-tuk means "the river that flows both ways." Due to tidal influence from the ocean extending to Troy, NY, freshwater discharge is only about 17,400 cubic feet (490 m ) per second on average. The mean fresh water discharge at the river's mouth in New York is approximately 21,900 cubic feet (620 m ) per second. The Hudson River

21098-608: The time, Philip Hinchcliffe , cited the 1950s radio serial Journey into Space as an influence for its use of cliffhangers. A later serial, Dragonfire (1987), is notable for having a cliffhanger that involved the Seventh Doctor literally hanging from a cliff, seemingly by choice, which has been described as "the most ludicrous ever presented in Doctor Who ". Another British science fiction series, Blake's 7 (1978–1981), employed end-of-season cliffhangers for each of

21252-566: The transition. In the early 1930s a handful of independent companies tried their hand at making serials. The Weiss Brothers had been making serials in 1935 and 1936. In 1937 Columbia Pictures , inspired by the previous year's serial blockbuster success at Universal, Flash Gordon , decided to enter the serial field and contracted with the Weiss Brothers (as Adventure Serials Inc.) to make three chapterplays. They were successful enough that Columbia then established its own serial unit and

21406-413: The vicinity of present-day Albany, reaching an end to navigation. The Dutch subsequently began to colonize the region, establishing the colony of New Netherland , including three major fur-trading outposts: New Amsterdam , Wiltwyck , and Fort Orange . New Amsterdam was founded at the mouth of the Hudson River, and would later become known as New York City . Wiltwyck was founded roughly halfway up

21560-591: The village of Peekskill and capturing the two forts. In 1778, the Continentals constructed the Great West Point Chain in order to prevent another British fleet from sailing up the Hudson. Hudson River School paintings reflect the themes of discovery, exploration, and settlement in America in the mid-19th century. The detailed and idealized paintings also typically depict a pastoral setting. The works often juxtapose peaceful agriculture and

21714-427: The villain and his henchmen commit crimes in various places, fight the hero, and trap someone to make the ending a cliffhanger. Many of the episodes have clues, dialogue, and events leading the viewer to think that any of the candidates were the mastermind. As serials were made by writing the whole script first and then slicing it into portions filmed at various sites, often the same location would be used several times in

21868-402: The villains, never the heroes) throwing things in desperation at one another in every fight to heighten the action. Republic serials are noted for outstanding special effects, such as large-scale explosions and demolitions, and the more fantastic visuals like Captain Marvel and Rocketman flying. Most of the trick scenes were engineered by Howard and Theodore Lydecker . Republic was able to get

22022-456: Was also the eastern outlet for the Erie Canal , which, when completed in 1825, became an important transportation artery for the early 19th century United States. Pollution in the Hudson River increased in the 20th century, more acutely by mid-century, particularly with industrial contamination from polychlorinated biphenyls , also known by their acronym PCBs. Pollution control regulations, enforcement actions and restoration projects initiated in

22176-505: Was altered for future broadcasts following a complaint from campaigner Mary Whitehouse . Whitehouse objected to the violence of the scene (the Doctor's head is held underwater in an attempt to drown him). She often cited it in interviews as one of the most frightening scenes in Doctor Who , her reasoning being that children would not know if the Doctor survived until the following week and that they would "have this strong image in their minds" during all that time. The producer of Doctor Who at

22330-516: Was an ineffable manifestation of God, though the artists varied in the depth of their religious conviction. Their reverence for America's natural beauty was shared with contemporary American writers such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson . The artist Thomas Cole is generally acknowledged as the founder of the Hudson River School , his work first being reviewed in 1825, while painters Frederic Edwin Church and Albert Bierstadt were

22484-469: Was certainly economical, but it often hurt the overall quality of the films. When the studio reorganized as Universal-International, it shut down most of the production units, including the serial crew. Universal's last serial was The Mysterious Mr. M (1946). Republic was the successor to Mascot Pictures , a serial specialist. Writers and directors were already geared to staging exciting films, and Republic improved on Mascot, adding music to underscore

22638-435: Was connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn to form the Narrows as it exists today. This allowed the Hudson River to find a shorter route to the Atlantic Ocean via its present course between New Jersey and New York City. Suspended sediments, mainly consisting of clays eroded from glacial deposits and organic particles, can be found in abundance in the river. The Hudson has a relatively short history of erosion, so it does not have

22792-788: Was forced to come up with two extra chapters to justify the added expense. This was an emergency measure at the time, but Republic recognized that it did save money, so the recap chapter became standard practice in almost all of its ensuing serials. Recap chapters had lower budgets, so rather than staging an elaborate cliffhanger (a runaway vehicle, a stampede, a flooding chamber, etc.), a cheaper, simpler cliffhanger would be employed (an explosion, someone knocked unconscious, etc.). The major studios had their own retinues of actors and writers, their own prop departments, existing sets, stock footage, and music libraries. The early independent studios had none of these, but could rent sets from independent producers of western features. The firms saved money by reusing

22946-486: Was posted on the official Lamb4 Productions YouTube channel for public viewing. The serial format was used with stories on the original run of The Mickey Mouse Club (1955–58), with each chapter running about six to ten minutes. The longer-running dramatic serials included "Corky and White Shadow", "The Adventures of Spin and Marty ", " The Hardy Boys : The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure", "The Boys of

23100-549: Was published in Tinsley's Magazine between September 1872 and July 1873) in which Henry Knight, one of the protagonists, is left hanging off a cliff . According to the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang , the term's first use in print was in 1937. Cliffhangers were especially popular from the 1910s through to the 1930s serials when nickelodeons and movie theaters filled

23254-570: Was revived in 2005, now following a more standard episode format. The 1960s cartoon show Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle included two serial-style episodes per program. These spoofed the cliffhanger serial form. Within the Rocky and Bullwinke show, the recurring but non-serialized Dudley Do-Right , specifically parodied the damsel in distress (Nell Fenwick) being tied to railroad tracks by arch villain Snidely Whiplash and rescued by

23408-600: Was the 119-episode The Hazards of Helen made by Kalem Studios and starring Helen Holmes for the first forty-eight episodes then Helen Gibson for the remainder. Ruth Roland , Marin Sais , and Ann Little were also early leading serial queens. Other major studios of the silent era, such as Vitagraph and Essanay Studios , produced serials, as did Warner Bros. , Fox , and Universal . Several independent companies (for example, Mascot Pictures ) made Western serials. Four silent Tarzan serials were also made. Serials were

23562-1040: Was the Rio San Antonio as named by the Portuguese explorer in Spain's employ, Estêvão Gomes , who explored the Mid-Atlantic coast in 1525. Another early name for the Hudson used by the Dutch was Rio de Montaigne . Later, they generally termed it the Noortrivier , or " North River ", the Delaware River being known as the Zuidrivier , or "South River". Other occasional names for the Hudson included Manhattes rieviere "Manhattan River", Groote Rivier "Great River", and de grootte Mouritse reviere , or "the Great Maurits River" (after Maurice, Prince of Orange ). The translated name North River

23716-583: Was used in the New York metropolitan area up until the early 1900s, with limited use continuing into the present day. The term persists in radio communication among commercial shipping traffic, especially below the Tappan Zee . The term also continues to be used in names of facilities in the river's southern portion, such as the North River piers , North River Tunnels , and the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant . It

#146853