January 14, 2020 Lost Planet Airmen

The Liberty Gazette

January 14, 2020

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: In 1949, a 12-episode movie serial called “King of the Rocket Men” featured Dr. Vulcan, an evil genius who only appeared as a shadow, and who planned to conquer the world. Of course, he had to eliminate the good guys—the scientists who were making America great.

A couple of those good guys who narrowly escaped Vulcan’s dark plot developed an atomic-powered rocket backpack which they attached to a leather jacket, and a bullet-shaped helmet and a ray gun. With these inventions, they would fight the sinister Vulcan in a tug-of-war throughout the dozen shows, eventually stopping him from taking over the world.

The flight sequences were inspired by the Buck Rogers comic strip; accomplishing the scenes with special effects is amusing to read in the 21st century. To make the main character, Jeff King, alias Rocket Man, appear to fly across the landscape with his jetpack, specialists ran a life-size dummy on pulleys along a wire tilted at a downward angle to the horizon. This was the same way they had achieved the flying look for “Captain Marvel” in 1941. For the shots where they had to show a real person, such as for take-off, they placed a springboard just below camera view. The work was shared among three different stuntmen. For landing shots, the actors just jumped down into the view of the camera. Edit it all together, and it sort of looked like a guy leaping into the air, flying, then landing on his feet like a cat.

A few years later, the production company (Republic) put all those episodes together to create a 65-minute feature film version and changed the title to “Lost Planet Airmen”.

Linda: Remember the song, “Hot Rod Lincoln” a top hit in the early ‘70s? Charlie Ryan wrote it, but the popular version, the one I remember, was recorded by a group called Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen. Listening to the song recently, I wondered where they got the name for their band. George Frayne IV, the lead singer, took the stage name Commander Cody, similar to Commando Cody, the character in another 1950’s film series, and the rest of the band stayed in tune with the 1950’s movie theme as the Lost Planet Airmen.

Interestingly, Charlie Ryan’s song was a response to Arkie Shibley’s “Hot Rod Race” about a Ford and a Mercury neck-and-neck when suddenly a kid whizzes by in a souped-up Model A. Ryan wanted to give the kid’s perspective. He beefed up the story like the kid did the Model A.

Several different singers recorded the song, including Johnny Bond, who then wrote a sequel called “X-15”, which elevated the stakes to an air race in a North American X-15, a hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft flown by NASA and the U.S. Air Force. To the beat of “Hot Rod Lincoln” it begins, “Gather ‘round you cats, and you will hear ‘bout a race I had in the stratosphere…”

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