Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe

Plot

Dangerous weather and climate changes are ravaging the Earth. Masked super-scientist Commando Cody is approached by the U.S. government to investigate. Among the tools at his disposal are a sonic-powered one-man flying suit with an aerodynamic helmet and a new Cody-designed and built rocketship.

With his colleagues Joan and Ted (later replaced by Dick), he ascertains the disasters are being caused by space-alien forces led by a mysterious "Ruler" of unknown planetary origins, with occasional help from hired, Earth-born criminals. Warding off various dangers, Cody and his associates are able to methodically close in on the culprits and reveal that The Ruler is from Venus. In the final episode he meets his end on Mercury with the help of the Mercurians.

Production

Commando Cody was originally filmed as a twelve-part television series, but union contract issues forced Republic to first exhibit it through regular movie theaters as a 12-part weekly serial. While the TV episodes build on each other in chronological order, the serial episodes lacked the traditional cliffhanger endings that characterized all previous serials.

The Sky Marshal serial is a prequel to Republic's Radar Men from the Moon theatrical serial. The first episode has characters Joan and Ted, Commando Cody's established sidekicks in Radar Men, applying for their jobs and meeting Cody for the first time.

There was a substantial break between filming the first three and last nine episodes of the TV series, during which time Republic set about filming a Cody serial sequel called Zombies of the Stratosphere, also starring Judd Holdren as Cody, Aline Towne as Joan and Wilson Wood as Ted. For reasons unknown, however, Republic Pictures revised these principal characters' names; thus "Commando Cody" became "Larry Martin" instead.

The third TV episode ends with the apparent death of The Ruler, suggesting that Republic may have reconsidered filming the remaining nine TV episodes and planned to cut the three it had finished into a regular science fiction feature film.

By the time work finally resumed on the Sky Marshal series, Republic had lost actor William Schallert as Cody's male colleague "Ted Richards" (played by William Bakewell in Radar Men). A replacement was found in Richard Crane, a year before his best-remembered role as the title character on the science fiction TV series Rocky Jones, Space Ranger. The Ruler also gained a female sidekick, played by Gloria Pall, though she had almost no screen dialog or action.

Flying jacket and helmet

Commando Cody reuses the Rocket Man flying jacket and helmet first seen in Republic's 1949 serial King of the Rocket Men. Stock footage was also used from their other serials, including The Purple Monster Strikes. The Sky Marshal series also recycles characters, sets, props, and concepts from the Radar Men serial. Two streamlined, bullet-shaped prop helmets were again used with the Rocket Man costume: The first was made of lighter weight materials and worn only during the various stunt action scenes; during filming, the single-hinged visors on both helmets frequently warped and would stick open or closed.

When not in his flying jacket and helmet, Cody wears a black military tunic with many insignia and a cap, instead of the regular business suit seen in the Radar Men serial. Cody also wears a black domino mask, to hide his real identity. Holdren always suspected this was due to producers not wanting to take a chance that he might walk out if any future demands for a higher salary were not met, as Clayton Moore had done on the popular The Lone Ranger television series. The mask presumably served to conceal any change of actor should the part ever need recasting, although disguising the change of lead with a domino mask had not worked well in the case of the Lone Ranger series.

Setting

As the story opens, it is the near future as seen from the perspective of the early 1950s. Earth is in radio contact with civilizations on planets in our solar system, as well as planets in other, distant solar systems, and Commando Cody has just built the world's first spaceship. The rest of the world appears unchanged by these galactic developments. (The exterior of Cody's headquarters building is actually a Republic Pictures office building.) A mysterious despot, known only as "The Ruler", his base planet even being unknown, is trying to take over the Earth with various disastrous devices. Cody is enlisted by the American government to put an end to the trouble, which takes him into the stratosphere, into outer space, and even to other worlds. The Ruler is finally brought down on Mercury, with the aid of the Mercurian Queen and her soldiers.

For the serial, a number of new outer space scenes were filmed that had not been seen before in the other Republic serials, including "space walks" for several exterior spaceship repairs; aerial raygun duels between "hero" and "enemy" spaceships; and black star fields (rather than daylight and cloud-spotted skies) for backgrounds when Cody's or the villain's spaceships were shown outside the Earth's atmosphere.

Cody and his associates use special badges that conceal radios to communicate with one another, prefiguring similar communication badges used more than 30 years later in Star Trek: The Next Generation. There were futuristic props and sets, as well as shots of the intricate model-rocket special effects work of Republic's Howard and Theodore Lydecker; the spaceships of Cody and The Ruler are the same basic shooting miniature with different attachments and markings added to make them appear different.

Release and chapters

The serial was first released theatrically in 1953 as a weekly serial of twelve approximately 30-minute chapters:

The serial was subsequently broadcast nationally on television in 1955 by Republic's TV arm, Hollywood Television Service, on NBC stations. The chapters were already filmed with a run-time of 25 minutes each, so required no editing or expansion to fit a half-hour TV slot.

Television series or movie serial?

The release of Commando Cody as a weekly theatrical serial, despite being originally filmed as a TV series, has led to controversy among serial purists: Should it be included in Republic's canon of serials, or should it be considered a separate, stand-alone, limited run science fiction action TV series? The filmed TV episodes were first titled and numbered as "Chapters" on all theatrical release prints and in Republic's advertising, while the later broadcast TV series, with changes made, lived on in syndication for years, long after the movie serial finished its 12-week run in theaters.

The twelve serial episodes are complete but with the same general plot line as the one running through the TV series: the Ruler is always trying to destroy the Earth. Although there are no traditional cliffhanger endings, each serial chapter has a partial resolution at its end: Each episode's primary henchman always escapes. The TV episodes continuity must be shown in their correct order, rather than being seen in the serial's interchangeable chapters.

Reference works on movie serials, however, generally exclude the serial version of Sky Marshal, or simply mention it in passing as a later Republic TV series.