ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 studies the film serials of the 1920s, a so far uninvestigated decade of film serial production, with a focus on operational detection. The Hope Diamond Mystery (Kosmik, 1921), The Power God (Davis, 1925), Officer 444 (Goodwill, 1926), and the sound serial Radio Patrol (Universal, 1937) repeat footage, reiterate, or reenact instances and thereby self-consciously foreground formulaic narrative structures and practices of recycling. These circular recurrences of anecdotes encourage viewers to compare and contrast scenes and frames, enabling them to identify a serial’s theme, its central concerns, or to detect its crime. All of these exemplary serials mobilize forms of repetition to enable viewers to detect a theme or enigma, both fostering and rewarding acts of operational detection. The chapter details how, in encouraging operational detection, serials offer their viewers a subject position that is located at the nexus of immersion, self-reflexivity, and embodiment.
