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Boring

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 movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

George Zucco plays archaeologist Prof. Andrew Forbes, who has discovered the treasure of Montezuma in the sleepy town of San Juan, New Mexico. Keen to keep his horde a secret, Forbes has been sending an ancient half-lizard/half-bird creature, the Quetzalcoatl of ancient legend, to kill anyone who gets in the way. According to the daft plot, the serpent is particularly proud of its plumage, and will suck the blood from anyone who is in possession of one of its feathers, making it a cinch for Forbes to pick off his victims.Hero of the piece is radio mystery writer Richard Thorpe (Ralph Lewis), who tries to solve the case, broadcasting his progress over the airwaves; damsel in distress and token eye candy is Forbes' step-daughter Mary (Hope Kramer), who is oblivious to the archaeologist's nefarious deeds.Even by 'poverty row' standards, The Flying Serpent is cheap—a shoddy and wholly unoriginal piece of nonsense, ostensibly a loose remake of the Bela Lugosi flick The Devil Bat (1940). While there is a little fun to be had from the grade-z special effects (the serpent being a disappointingly small model flapping in an unlifelike manner as it scoots along a wire), the film is, for the most part, instantly forgettable, with lots of dreary waffle between the lamentable monster moments. Thank heavens that it clocks in at under an hour.

This very minor PRC horror film (which the prolific director actually signed under the alias Sherman Scott!) was basically a variation on an earlier popular effort from the same company i.e. the average Bela Lugosi vehicle THE DEVIL BAT (1941), replacing the star with George Zucco and its monster with Quetzalcoatl, the titular Aztec legend (though retaining its blood-draining habits and, hilariously, miniscule size!) that would also be featured in Larry Cohen's much superior Q – THE WINGED SERPENT (1982). Indeed, the bird/reptile hybrid is never shown in detail: it is either conveniently hidden inside the darkness of a cave or otherwise taking to the air to hunt its prey. The latter, then, is another fount of amusement as Zucco has to pluck out one of its feathers and plant it on the person of his next chosen victim (curiously enough, the method is not too dissimilar from that in Jacques Tourneur's marvelous NIGHT OF THE DEMON {1957}) in order to get it to do his bidding and, needless to say, the monster does not take kindly to having its priceless plumage snipped! Anyway, Zucco is the usual wild-eyed Professor with a passion for something or other (in this case, archeology, which has led him to Montezuma's treasure) and a grudge against most anyone (beginning with an ornithologist whose writings about both Quetzalcoatl and the fabled fortune are likely to attract curious/greedy outsiders thus interfering with the villain's plans) The irony is that, with the mysterious murder – which soon multiply, as more and more people 'get on his back' – a radio personality/mystery writer by the name of Richard Thorpe(!) turns up to 'broadcast' the investigations, with even one of the deaths occurring 'on air'! As always, Zucco's female ward (in this case, his stepdaughter – there is, in fact, a whole 'nother puzzle surrounding her mother's death, at the hands of Quetzalcoatl itself, but which is never properly unraveled) falls for the intrepid hero and, in the end, the misguided Professor succumbs to the very creature he had unleashed (albeit unconvincingly since, for no obvious reason other than as a plot contrivance, he flees the scene upon being exposed carrying one of the proverbial feathers in his hand!), which is then dispatched (via nothing more remarkable than normal bullets) by Thorpe. Regrettable comic relief is provided by the radio guy's engineer partner and their flustered Head Of Programs, who keeps moaning about why nobody is more concerned with Montezuma's wealth and calculating how big his own cut will be! Ultimately, while this is certainly nothing to write home about, at least it is not as embarrassingly goofy as the somewhat similar Sam Katzman-produced cheapie THE GIANT CLAW (1957)

THE FLYING SERPENT is a mystery/ thriller, about the ancient feathered serpent, the Aztec God.A shrewd archaeologist has found Montezuma's treasure—gold, diamonds and emeralds …. To protect it—from inopportune people, from treasure seekers, from whoever might disturb him—he uses a curious monster, an ancient beast, a ferocious reptile—bird. The murders begin—first an ornithologist, then a policeman, then others ….The mean archaeologist has a fair stepdaughter; this girls uses to think, and she puts together a couple of things.The mysterious, horrible murders are investigated by a young writer of radio—broadcasts.We never find out whence the feathered serpent came.

If ever there was a far-fetched story, The Flying Serpent is it. The script-writer doesn't even bother to offer any logical explanations for the principal event, let alone gaping holes in the subsidiary story line. Even the size of the title serpent itself seems to vary considerably from that of a large parrot to a small orang-utang.Admittedly, by the extremely humble standards of Producers Releasing Corp, production values are slightly above the usual level of extreme poverty. Director Sherman Scott (Newfield) does his best to whip up an occasional bit of interest in the lethargic proceedings and the players, led by the indomitable George Zucco, all struggle manfully to lend a bit of credibility to their roles (though often defeated by an over-talkative screenplay).The ending is especially ridiculous as all the villain needed to do to ward off the killer serpent… well, I won't spoil the plot by telling you what a dope this guy actually turns out to be! Mind you, he has done plenty of stupid and illogical things already, so I suppose you could say he runs true to form right through to the end.