SOS Coast Guard

SOS Coast Guard is a 1937 Republic Pictures serial about a wanted scientist who comes back to the United States to sell a deadly gas to a foreign government. The substance breaks down matter, and he intends to make it in quantity so it can destroy whole cities. On his arrival a young Coast Guard man spots him, and the criminal kills him, bringing down the anger of the entire service, above all the dead man's older brother. With a reporter girlfriend and her comic photographer in tow, the brother pursues the scientist and works to wreck his plans. Bela Lugosi plays the scientist Boroff, with Ralph Byrd as Lieutenant Terry Kent, Maxine Doyle as Jean Norman, Richard Alexander as Thorg and Lee Ford as Snapper McGee. The serial runs twelve chapters, about 224 minutes in all, and was directed by William Witney, working with Alan James, from a screenplay by Franklin Adreon and Barry Shipman.

It was Witney's first directing credit among the titles listed for him, and he returned to serials with Adventures of Captain Marvel and Jungle Girl in 1941, then Spy Smasher in 1942. On IMDb it holds a 5.9 rating from 292 votes, a modest figure that reflects a small, mostly nostalgic viewing pool rather than wide rediscovery.