Office 444 (1926)

Ben Wilson, Neva Gerba

The popular silent screen action team of Ben Wilson and Neva Gerber star in this rare surviving serial, released in 10 chapters by Goodwill Pictures in 1926. Officer "444" (Wilson) and his comrade-in-... read more arms, Officer Casey (Jack Mower), go up against The Frog, an apparently disfigured master criminal out to steal the formula for Haverlyite, a secret and deadly gas invented by James J. Haverly (Arthur Bickel). The latter is killed along the way and his young heir (Phil Ford) disappears with the formula. Aided by The Vulture (Ruth Royce), The Frog will leave no stone unturned to get his hands on the secret ingredients but he is at all times opposed by Officer "444" and his legendary boss, Berkeley Police Chief August Vollmer, who use the latest in police detection to track him down. There are sundry other interested parties lurking about, including the obviously disguised figure of "Professor Kalium," who heads The Amalgamated Society of Scientists; the mysterious and sinister Dr. Blakley (Al Ferguson; Dago Frank (Frank Baker), another associate of The Frog; and Snoopy (Harry McDonald), a newspaperman who, a title proclaims, "didn't know what the word 'news' meant as he left school before they came to the 'Ns'." Officer 444 was the last of nine serials to star Ben Wilson and Neva Gerber, the latter a Chicago socialite. A tenth chapterplay, the talkie The Voice From the Sky (1930), has been rumored to exist but may actually never have been made. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi