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THE PERILS OF NYOKA: WATCHING FROM ISOLATION ROW
NOTE: There are a couple of small spoilers included here, but frankly, it doesn’t matter.
There must be something about the lockdown; it’s not as if my life, which is primarily working from home, has changed immensely — yes, shopping takes longer and there’s nowhere to go except for walking the dog — but sometimes I think I have bugged out to a fantasy world set in my parents’ youth. I’ve always loved the Thirties and Forties, so it isn’t that strange — but it may seem weird that for each of the last 15 days I have set aside 15 minutes or so to watch one chapter each day of The Perils Of Nyoka, a Republic Pictures serial from 1942. Serials were run for kids on Saturday afternoons in cinemas all over America; I suppose lockdown evenings are the next best thing, and I don’t have to wait a week for the next episode. So go ahead, binge watch your box sets. I’m resisting immediate gratification, and allowing a day for the perils of a cliffhanger to keep me on the edge.
I know how I got to Nyoka. I had been watching a lot of series B pictures in the vein of The Saint. So I spotted Lorna Gray playing a bit part in The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt (1939), distracting Warren William away from persistent girlfriend Ida Lupino and femme fatale Rita Hayworth (trust me, she could do it), then a week later caught a similar eye-catching cameo from Kay Aldridge…
