Ace Drummond (serial)

1936 film
the film serial

Ace Drummond is a Universal Pictures 1936 film serial based on the comic strip "Ace Drummond" written by Captain Eddie Rickenbacker and drawn by Clayton Knight. The serial's cast features John King, Jean Rogers, Noah Beery Jr. and Jackie Morrow, with Lon Chaney Jr. in a supporting role.

A mysterious villain who calls himself the Dragon is attempting to prevent International Airways from beginning service in Mongolia, in order to protect the secret of the mountain of jade for himself. The serial features a dungeon in the nearby monastery, the kidnapping of an archeologist who stumbles onto the secret, his daughter's attempts to rescue him with Ace's help, a death ray the Dragon uses on the airline pilots, a radio system by which The Dragon communicates with his henchmen via the rotation of Buddhist prayer wheels (each transmission concluding "The Dragon commands! "), and a squadron of his own fighter planes.

Ace Drummond was based on a comic strip by Captain Eddie Rickenbacker. Ace Drummond gained good publicity following a set visit by Amelia Earhart. The famous aviator had driven out to the San Fernando Valley, after hearing that the serial was being shot there on location, where she watched the filming of the chapter two cliffhanger. In the traditional foreword at the beginning of each chapter, Ace Drummond used comic strips to summarise the story so far. This worked well, and Universal who had been trying to get away from using written text in its forewords, used "similar gimmicks" in their succeeding serials.

Ace also regularly performs his theme song, "Give Me a Ship and a Song".

In the words of Cline, Ace Drummond "exuded the futuristic aura of Flash Gordon combined with the eerie mystery of Baron Frankenstein's castle laboratory."