Mysterious Doctor Satan 1940 colorized cliffhanger serial

1940 · science-fiction · Republic Pictures

Only a masked hero known as the Copperhead (Robert Wilcox) can stop a mad scientist (Eduardo Ciannelli) who plots the domination of America by stealing key pieces of technology that will enable him to build an army of robots. (When this 15-chapter cliffhanger serial was first proposed, the hero was intended to be Superman, but the copyright owners backed out on letting the studio use their character. Instead of scraping the project entirely, the writers repurposed the script with a costumed hero of their own creation called the Copperhead.) I colorized this using AI software that doesn't always get the colors right, but I think it looks fairly natural. Hopefully a more professional job will be done someday.