Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

How can it be a spoiler if it is the first thing that occurs in the first chapter? At the start, Spy Smasher is in Gestapo headquarters. He goes around a desk, letting his cape lie on the edge. He sets his flashlight on the desk, inadvertently setting it on the cape. Hearing footsteps on the stairs, he jerks backwards and the cape pulls the flashlight off the desk sending it skittering across the floor. Hearing the noise the Germans burst into the room starting what will turn out to be innumerable fist fights through out the 12 chapters.How did he get in Gestapo headquarters in the first place? What's he doing wearing that stupid cape? This is a "great" serial?Give me a break!!!

The Movie Serial, at least since the advent of sound, has always been considered a sort of poor relative of the feature, if not an out and out bastard cousin. They were always sort of viewed with the cartoons as being strictly made for the Matinée, the juvenile trade. As a result, there really is no "CITIZEN KANE" of Serials. SPY SMASHER comes close.To be sure,it is a product of Republic Pictures' "thrill factory"*, and has plenty of stock footage of explosions, fires, floods and other assorted calamities through out.All of these are skillfully woven into the final product. It still has a bright, vital out of doors look;as well as convincing indoor sets. It also has an excellent cast which is headed by energetic,athletic Kane Richmond. Next to Buster Crabbe, Mr. Richmond is probably the best leading man in the Sound Serials. He was also prolific,having been in several other serials.We have over 100 Serials in VHS or DVD formats in our household.This one is a top notch film,period. See it, but don't expect any 'Camp Humor". It's just not there.**NOTE* Republic adapted it from the popular comic book feature appearing in WHIZ COMICS. It was property of Fawcett Publications, whose CAPTAIN MARVEL was previously brought to the screen by Republc, in 1941.NOTE **See also SPY SMASHER RETURNS (1966), the edited-down feature version made for Television.

I do so love to watch professionals at work.When you watch "Spy Smasher," you see a genre and a studio at the top of their form. Everything in this serial clicks and hums along like a well-oiled machine. The plot is exciting and as logical as it need be, the music fast and inspiring, the cliffhangers harrowing, and the acting professional and dead-on. It's Republic Studios at the height of their game, ancestor to the big action flicks of today, and sheer pleasure to watch.

10-year-old boys must have really gobbled this up when it was a brand-new serial back in 1942. Even now it has the power to involve and entertain with its narrative flow, frequent spurts of action, and that pounding musical introduction from Beethoven's Fifth. Best of all it has Kane Richmond, (born in Minneapolis in 1906), who has all the looks and manner you want in a serial hero. He also has amazingly tough skin. In Chapter One he's captured by the Nazis, bound against the wall of a Gestapo dungeon, and given a vigorous whipping across his bare chest -- but hardly seems to suffer so much as a paper-cut! Actually, this is one of those floggings where the whip is never shown touching its victim. Instead, the impression of a flogging is given by means of editing together various visual elements. In any case, this scene ranks 18th in the book, "Lash! The Hundred Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies."