one of my absolute favorites!

Am I Missing Something?

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

This is a highly entertaining Republic serial, with some pretty good performances, especially Don Haggerty as the heavy, Dirken, and James Craven as Professor Millard, forever inventing things that must never, and always do, fall into the wrong hands. The real stars, though, are the Lydeckers' special effects, as the flying Rocket Man is excellent.As with any Saturday morning serial, criticism is superfluous. But one is left with some nagging queries. Why do they keep inventing these terrible weapons? If they invented a new type of wheat, or something, wouldn't that be so much more constructive? And, given his extraordinary ingenuity, why doesn't Dr Vulcan simply patent his own brilliant inventions, especially the remote control for cars? He could have made a legitimate fortune.We should also note that Jeff King actually fails at the end. Dr Vulcan destroys New York City. King destroys the decimator about a minute before it would have been destroyed anyway. Isn't that a bit of a failure? And, given New York has been destroyed, isn't everyone a little bit cheerful in the final scene? A more serious criticism is that episode 10, The Deadly Fog, is actually a very tedious rehash, in flashback, of the whole plot. King tells Burt the story, even though he already knows it. Skip to the cliffhanger.Two final quibbles. The title, King of the Rocket Men, is a little misleading, as there is only one Rocket Man. And Rocket Man himself looks remarkably like The Man With The Stick from Vic Reeves' Big Night Out.

This movie serial has been on my mind for years. I finally found it via the internet. What a wonderful find! Not the greatest of acting, just a nice memory from days gone by, from when I was a kid and paying 3d (pennies) old stuff!!, in 1956-7 to go to Saturday morning movies with my brothers and be so excited at having to wait until the following week to see if Jeff King would escape! He always did, but it was never as was portrayed the previous week.... the mind forgets the small details when a week has gone by. Tristram Coffin made hundreds of film and television appearances, none of which were Oscar winners, but he was always presenting himself with a hero presence. As I say, not the greatest acting, but a brilliant step back in time to when all life was really rather innocent. Great stuff!!

King of the Rocket Men is one of the most original movie serials ever produced post-WWII. This is the stuff that dreams are still made of. What kid wouldn't give anything to be able to fly in a sonically propelled rocket pack and kick some bad guys butt? More than 50 years after it was made, this serial still has the pulse-quickening action adventure and really great acting that made it the classic that it is. The acting was serious, which made you believe this could actually happen. These actors were highly under-appreciated, yet were better than many of the celebrity "actors" that demand to be the center of attention today. The Rocketeer was based on this serial, and even though it had great production, it just barely induced the kind of excitement Jeff King gave us for 12 exciting episodes. It's a shame the sequels to this were silly and unbelievable. Allen Duffis hit the nail on the head. This is the standard that ALL of the Saturday morning and prime time adventure shows that came after wished they could be. The only thing that was as good was the first Indiana Jones movie, and that got it's inspiration from show's like this. I still marvel at the flying scenes through the canyons and across the Culver City skyline, which still look so real it's breath-taking. The Liedecker Brothers were geniuses. I wish they could make new serials just as good as this one today. I wish a really good sharp copy of these serials could be professionally put on DVD to preserve these serials forever. This one deserves to be protected for the future.

This was a fantastic serial with great special effects for it's time. Unfortunately, many who review such fare today do so from feature length versions. One must always remember that these serials were meant to be viewed, chapter by chapter, on a weekly basis. It was the draw that got you back to the theater and a five cent bag of fresh popcorn with real butter, not butter substitute. This cherished specialized cinema of the 1940's and early 50's, produced mainly for kids, was known widely as "Saturday Mornings At the Movies".To understand and appreciate such cinema, one really needs to have the inventive mind of a child, growing up during such exciting times of pioneering new technology. There was no 24 hour television in color or black and white, VCR's, or anything to get in the way of a child's greatest attribute, their imagination. This was the generation that would grow up to make all of these modern day wonders come true.It is also fair to mention that stars like Tristram Coffin, deserved to be remembered for the fine actors they were; despite the limited range of the roles they played. After all, it takes a fine actor to make even a child believe that a man can strap two powerful flaming rockets to his back, attached to a flimsy leather jacket with four simple control knobs in front, and fly convincingly - without being killed. How many of our high paid, so-called actors of today can effectively accomplish such a feat?