Republic Pictures Cutting Continuity Script Collection

Identity elements

Reference code

US TxAM-C C000269

Level of description

Collection

Title

Republic Pictures Cutting Continuity Script Collection

Date(s)

  • 1936-1950 (Creation)

Extent

1 box (2 folders)

Name of creator

(1935-1959)

Administrative history

Republic Pictures was a Southern California based film company that operated from 1935-1959, and which specialized in film serials, Westerns, and lower-budget B-movies. Although, it did occasionally produce more significant films, such as Orson Welles' 1948 Macbeth and the John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara movie The Quiet Man in 1952.

Film serials were among Republic's more prolific productions, these were episodic stories that would be shown in movie theaters before the main feature, as something of a precursor to broadcast television and derived from the serialized stories found in pulp fiction of the era. Episodes would always end on a cliffhanger (a term actually coined in reference to serials). Serials were created for a number of different genres, especially Westerns (the cheapest type to film), espionage, crime fiction, and comic book adventures, but they have become particularly associated with science fiction.

Though many studios produced serials from the 1910s-1950s, Republic was one of the more well-known studios, notable for its choregraphed fights and (for the time) advanced special effects. Its serial characters included Dick Tracy, the Lone Ranger, Captain America, Captain Marvel, and Spy Smasher.

Republic produced the serial Undersea Kingdomin 1936, in direct response to Universal's Flash Gordon. The serial was directed by B. Reeves Eason and Joseph Kane and starring Ray 'Crash' Corrigan. Corrigan played a US Navy Lieutenant and star athlete who lead an expedition via rocket submarine to the site of Atlantis and thwarting an undersea invasion by the evil, technologically advanced Atlanteans.

In 1950 Republic produced Flying Disc Man From Mars, which chronicled the story of Mota, an invader from Mars who is accidentally shot out of the sky by an experimental atomic ray gun and who resolves to conquer the Earth in order to protect Mars from Earth's new atomic technology. Mota enlists the aid of Dr. Bryant (the inventor of the ray gun), but is eventually defeated by Walter Reed (the pilot who caused Mota to be shot down in the first place). The film was directed by Fred C. Bannon.

Content and structure elements

Scope and content

This collection consists of "cutting continuity" scripts for two science fiction film serials produced by Republic Pictures, Undersea Kingdom (1936), and Flying Disc Man From Mars (1950). Both serials had 12 episodes, the scripts for all of which are in the collection.

"Cutting continuity" scripts were not so much as screenplays in the traditional sense of the primary documents that are used to construct a film, as transcriptions of the final filmed product that were sent to the Production Code Administration (the self-regulating Hollywood agency that from 1934-1968 examined and judged movies for their content), to state censors, or to exhibitors.

System of arrangement

This collection is arranged chronologically by the date of production.

Conditions of access and use elements

Conditions governing access

Physical access

Technical access

Conditions governing reproduction

Languages of the material

  • English

Scripts of the material

Language and script notes

Finding aids

Acquisition and appraisal elements

Custodial history

Immediate source of acquisition

Purchase via auction.

Accruals

Related materials elements

Existence and location of originals

Existence and location of copies

Related archival materials

Related descriptions

Notes element

Specialized notes

Alternative identifier(s)

Description control element

Rules or conventions

Sources used

Archivist's note

© Copyright 2019 Cushing Library. All rights reserved.

Access points

Subject access points

Place access points

Name access points

Genre access points

Accession area

Related people and organizations

Related genres

Related places