Terry and the Pirates, Vol. 3 (2006)

Four action-filled episodes featuring comic strip hero Terry Lee, a he-man adventurer and his pal Hot-Shot Charlie. Product Description

Terry Lee-- The Steve Canyon of his generation

The comic strip TERRY AND THE PIRATES was brought to life in 1934 by Milt Caniff, who stayed with the syndicated franchise twelve years. "Terry..." continued until 1973 without Caniff (who'd gone on to create STEVE CANYON). "Terry and the Pirates" became a radio show in 1937, running eleven seasons. The TV program aired 18 episodes from June 26, 1953 to November 21, 1953.

BASIC PLOT:
USAAF Col. Terry Lee goes to the Far East in search of an inherited goldmine. While there, Lee hires on as a pilot for Air Cathay, a cargo and passenger transport run by the somewhat dishonest Chopstick Joe. Terry's co-pilot is Hotshot Charlie, and Burma is his blonde girlfriend. Lee's nemesis is the beautiful and mysterious Dragon Lady.

REGULAR CAST MEMBERS:
John Baer - Terry Lee
William Tracy - Hotshot Charlie
Gloria Saunders - Dragon Lady
Jack Reitzen - Chopstick Joe
Sandra Spence - Burma


Episode numbers, titles and guest stars (where available) are listed below:

(#12) Compound C3 Theft - (?)

(_#3) Diplomatic Passport - Philip Van Zandt/Peter Marnikos/Karin Vengay

(_#8) Little Mandarin - Weaver Levy/Maurice Marsac/Stephen Wong/Victor Sen Yung

(#16) The Randall Affair - (?)


TERRY AND THE PIRATES, Vol. 4 is the final offering in this DVD series. February 26, 2008

Terry and the Pirates on DVD

Ostensibly, in offering a review for Volume 3 of Terry and the Pirates, I am admitting that it is really for all three volumes that have been released to date. Rather than comment extensively and critically about how well or poorly these very old programs have been transferred to DVD I prefer to talk about the significance of their being presented to the public at all. As a matter of fact, the film quality is not the best, but they are ok and certainly visually acceptable, and audible.

It should be noted that this is one of the earliest adventure series in the history of television. It has largely been unavailable for viewing for decades. I recall watching this program as a child during its first run and looked forward to it each week as I did other programs of the era such as The Adventures of Superman and Ramar of the Jungle. Like those programs, Terry was filmed for an audience of the 1950s. It was a time when the Korean War and other international dangers were paramount in the public consciousness. For this particular reason, the program is an interesting window to pop American cultural attitudes of the period.

With that said, one is free to criticize the program for racial sterotypes, and scripts that might have been polished better. However, it should be noted that this program did at least attempt to cast Asian American actors often, and such talented individuals as Keye Luke, Weaver Levy, and others are well utilized in episodes. Arguably, the casting of caucasian actors Jack Reizen and Gloria Saunders in the respective key roles of Chopstick Joe and Dragon Lady will probably annoy many, but remember again that these shows were filmed about 55 years ago. Personally, I wish talented Asian American actors had played these parts, but I do not want to be unfair to Reizen or Saunders. Reizen was there to play a comical rogue, and he did his job. Better yet, there was Saunders as the Dragon Lady, a delightfully sexy, sinister, and intriguing woman who appears ready to make love to Terry Lee one minute, and kill him the next.

This brings me to the performances of the two stars, John Baer as Terry Lee, and William Tracy as Hotshot Charlie. Considering the limited budget and weakness of some of the scripts, these fellows did a fairly good job in trying to make the comic strip characters come alive. Their zest for the roles is evident, and their likability is obvious.

I am not an expert on the show, but from what I have learned from the Internet Movie Data Base, there were only 17 episodes filmed. So far, only twelve have been released to DVD (four each on three volumes). Missing still are episodes #2 The Maitland Affair, #6 Chinese Coffin, #13
Extra Cargo, #14 Deadly Species, and #17 Overseer. Hopefully, these can be released soon in a final volume or two.

In summation, I recommend this series to anyone who wants to see and appreciate the kind of TV adventure entertainment available in the early 1950s. I have enjoyed watching these episodes in the reasonably priced volumes offered by Amazon.com and am delighted the episodes have been preserved. January 11, 2007

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