Encyclopedia of American Film Serials by Mayer Geoff

Author:Mayer, Geoff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc.
Published: 2017-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

INGRAM, JACK (1902–1969). Born John Samuel Ingram in Chicago, he enlisted in the Army before he was 16 years old and served in France. Ingram subsequently planned a career in law by enrolling at the University of Texas but abandoned that after joining a traveling minstrel show. Later he participated in several stock companies and, at one stage, toured with Mae West.

His first screen appearance, in a bit part as a good guy, was in Westward Ho (1935) staring John Wayne 1935 for the newly formed Republic Pictures. Although Republic would be a major employer for the next five years, he would rarely appear as a good guy. At Republic he had minor roles in their westerns and serials, including Undersea Kingdom (1936), The Vigilantes Are Coming (1936), Dick Tracy (1937), SOS Coast Guard (1937) and Zorro Rides Again (1937). In his first Columbia serial, Jungle Menace (1937) starring Frank Buck, he played a policeman.

By 1937, with his first credited role in the serial Zorro Rides Again, Ingram had established his niche in Hollywood as a henchman/badman. While there were many variations on the type of henchman he played, there were relatively little variations in the roles offered to him. Occasionally, as in Dick Tracy Returns (1938), there was some substance to these roles. As Slasher, one of Pa Stark’s (Charles Middleton) five murderous sons, he had one of his best roles as a sociopathic killer eager to use his knife while indifferent to the sufferings of others. Mostly, however, he was a familiar, largely one dimensional, henchman with a bad disposition—as in King of the Texas Rangers (1941) where he was working for the Nazis, Valley of the Vanishing Men (1942) where he works for outlaw boss Kincaid (Kenneth MacDonald), Batman (1943) as an agent for the Japanese spy, Prince Daka (J. Carroll Naish), Brenda Starr, Reporter (1945) as Kruger, a vicious gangster working for the master criminal Frank Smith (George Meeker) and Anton in Superman (1948), one of the Spider Woman’s (Carol Forman) henchmen. She rewards him late in the serial by turning her death ray on him.

Ingram became a regular cast member in the Columbia serials directed by James W. Horne in the early 1940s. Horne, ever ready to sacrifice tension and thrills for comedy, accentuated Ingram’s characteristic dour mannerisms as a counterpoint to the excessive antics of his comic villains. This was particularly evident in Horne’s 1940 remake of the 1925 serial The Green Archer where all the villains, especially James Craven as Abel Bellamy, are rendered buffoons and stripped of any sense of menace. Horne ramps up the comic opportunities emanating from Ingram as Brad, the “fake” Green Archer. A recurring gag sees another dimwitted gang member, Dinky (Kit Guard), attack Ingram throughout the serial. Horne encouraged similar “comic” performances from Ingram in Deadwood Dick (1940) and Perils of the Royal Mounted (1942).

Occasionally Ingram was more than just a henchman. In Universal’s Raiders of Ghost City (1944) he is a duplicitous guerrilla who undermines his well-meaning Confederate leader Captain Randolph (Regis Toomey).

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