The Crimson Ghost
The Crimson Ghost 1946 is a Republic film serial directed by Fred C. Brannon and William Witney with Charles Quigley and Linda Stirling playing the leads. This was Witneys last serial, after a career that left him one of the most praised of all serial directors. The serial was rereleased as a sixepisode television series in the 1950s and as a television film called Cyclotrode X in 1966. In the 1990s The Crimson Ghost was one of only two Republic serials to be colorised. The villain of the serial, the Crimson Ghost of the title, is one of the most visually striking of the medium. The horror punk band Misfits adapted his visage as their skull logo, and he has appeared in the music video for the song The Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden.
The Crimson Ghost was budgeted at 137,912, although the final negative cost was 161,174 a 23,262, or 16.9, overspend. It was the most expensive Republic serial of 1946 It was filmed betweenMarch andApril 1946 under the working title The Scarlet Shadow. The serials production number was 1597.In order to prevent the audience deducing the identity of the Crimson Ghost, the studio cast stuntman Bud Geary to embody the villain while several actors supplied the voice, including I. Stanford Jolley. Jolleys role was minor but he received fourthbilling and was therefore highly suspect. When The Crimson Ghost was unmasked in the 12th and final chapter, he proved to be yet another actor entirely, Joseph Forte, who had played a character seemingly above suspicion at that point in the serial. ........
Source: Wikipedia
