In the 1930's Scifi was in it's first awkward steps but one set of serialized films combined exciting stories, dramatic acting and, for it's time, impressive special effects. That was of course, Flash Gordon. Unfortunately, we have here a lame ripoff of Flash Gordon, The Lost City. Sort of an "Oliver and Hardy" meets "Lost Horizon" meets "Commando Cody". Make sure to look out for the extra good-natured racism that was only slightly offensive for it's time <cough>American nazis<cough>.
This is Part One in a serial. Look for part two next week from Riff Chick!
Interesting story here with the actor playing the supervillain Zolock. He's played by William "Stage" Boyd, who had to put in the "stage" to keep people from confusing him with William Boyd, the actor who portrayed Hopalong Cassidy. Hollywood having changed little in eighty years, "Stage" began a downward spiral of booze and drugs that remains documented today despite the lack of TMZ and Inside Edition. Despite the clear distinction between himself and the real William Boyd, both of their careers were ruined in the ensuing scandal. Despite the better of the two Boyd's protestations to his employer that it was the OTHER Boyd, they fired him from his popular role.
Runtime 28:30
Comments
An enjoyable start to the Lost City Riffer Group Project! My only issue would be with the sound and video quality; I had a very hard time hearing the original audio, and the video seemed very compressed.
Hmmm.... okay let me see how I can improve it in the future. It took so long to upload I considered going back and rerecording it. Unfortunately the editing program I have doesn't do the best job of giving a good representation of the finished product while I am working on it, especially the video audio/ voiceover audio levels.
Thanks for the feedback!
edit: I think I have figured out a way to filter out some of the background hiss I get when I record so hopefully it wont's be as much of a problem in the future!
i could hear the original audio just fine, but every now and then Mandrake's voice would kind of go into ... a machine-induced mumble, if that makes sense. It would kind of fuzz into "mmmmm." HOWEVER, having said that, that was like on a half-dozen words out of a 30-minute piece, so it was barely noticeable. Overall, solid, fun riff.
Michael T Bradley
Ice on Mars
Mandrake has a very matter-of-fact, almost Joel Hodgson-like delivery which takes some getting used to. But once you do, you'll find it actually complements a very funny script. The technical problems mentioned in other comments are an issue, but if you can live with pixelated video and relatively quiet source audio, you'll get several good, loud laughs out of this episode.
I am glad to say that with the advice from other riffers I got a better audio editing program to help with my audio track and reduce the noise without reducing the volume of my speech so from here on out this should be much much better. I may rerecord this one since it is part of a crossover and I would like the whole package to be nice for people buying all chapters.
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UPDATE: NEW FILE IN PLACE. IF YOU ALREADY DOWNLOADED THIS ONE GO INTO YOUR PURCHASED iRIFF FILES AND RE-DOWNLOAD AND YOU WILL GET THE NEW AND IMPROVED VERSION!
I'm glad you fixed the audio issues. I downloaded the original file and it was pretty hard to hear. I understand what Steve-o was saying about your riffing style but it's a welcome change. It really does feel like an older episode of MST3k, probably largely do to the quality of the short itself. Definately some very good jokes in this one.
Thanks Raven. Yeah it's an ongoing battle to improve sound and video but I keep improving with each one. I have some more upcoming from Atomic Treatment that should be very funny. I can't wait to get one loaded that I have scheduled for this fall! I expect it to sell very well!! (hops up and down impatiently).
Also I think I am losing some video and audio quality somewhere that I haven't figured out yet. Maybe in the upload or maybe in my editor process. Still figuring it all out.