The Green Hornet is a 1940 thirteen-chapter serial from Universal Pictures that was based on a radio series from the 1930’s by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker. Gordon Jones (The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap, The Big Shot) stars as both Britt Reid, publisher of The Sentinel newspaper, and the masked hero known as The Green Hornet. Screen legend Keye Luke (Mad Love, Charlie Chan at the Circus, Gremlins) also stars as Britt’s valet and fellow crime fighting assistant fighter Kato. Anne Nagel (The Mad Doctor of Market Street, The Mad Monster) also has a lead role as Britt Reid’s secretary Lenore Case, who believes The Green Hornet is a hero while the rest of the city thinks he’s a villainous gangster. The serial is directed by Ford Beebe (The Phantom Creeps) and Ray Taylor (Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe).
Due to crime in the city rising and increased racketeering activity, The Green Hornet and Kato investigate various illegal activities in each chapter, fighting off criminals and avoiding death while trying to find the ringleader of the criminal syndicate. Despite The Green Hornet battling various gangs of villains, has become a target for the police as they believe he is also one of the criminals. Britt uses his newspaper to keep the police and citizens from guessing if The Green Hornet is a hero or villain, which helps in keeping his identity a secret. Reid gets the news of criminal activity during the day and goes out at night as the Green Hornet to put an end to the racketeering.
The Green Hornet is a fun, action packed serial and yes, he and Kato are similar to Batman and Robin. Britt Reid is a wealthy financially well-off character just like Bruce Wayne. They both have their own car to get around in and have a plethora of gadgets they use to fight off the bad guys! Neither Batman nor The Green Hornet have any superpowers and rely on their fighting skills and weaponry to stop the criminals!
VCI Entertainment have given The Green Hornet a Blu-ray release. They first released the serial on DVD in 2009 which received many positive reviews. The Blu-ray improves on their DVD release. The black and white image shows very little to no damage and has a fine grain structure, showing that no DNR was applied to the picture. The black levels are balanced, with excellent shadow detail. Whites look nice and clean with a balanced grey scale to compliment it. Some of the chapters look crisper than others but overall, this is a wonderful release. I did notice in Chapter 2 a small bit where everything was blurry and wavey for a few seconds, probably due to some issues with the film elements. Also, per VCI “Unfortunately the second reel of Chapter 9 is no longer viable for 35 mm transfer, so the elements here are the best available”, meaning chapter nine’s image quality is sub-standard compared to the rest of the serial.
VCI’s Blu-ray has an English LPCM 2.0 dual-mono track. The audio was clean with dialogue coming in perfectly clear. Action sounds such as gunshots and in car chases came in a bit more aggressively. The music, basically soundtracks from other Universal releases that we all will recognize, was also clear and perfectly balanced with the other audio. No age-old anomalies such as drop-offs, crackling or hissing were detected. I had no trouble listening to all the various sounds on the Blu-ray. English subtitles are available for this release.
There are no new supplements but everything in the VCI 2009 release has been ported over which includes the I am the Green Hornet by Clifford Weimar, The Parking lot Racket Radio Episode and The Highway That Graft Wrote Radio Episode. A trivia feature and photo gallery round out the remaining extra. New to this release is a liner notes booklet. It’s eight pages long and will make a nice read.
The Green Hornet is a fun serial with some great action and cliffhangers, and the VCI Blu-ray release looks and sounds more than passable to go with extras ported over. Easily a recommended release to fans of the great serials that were made during this era!

The Green Hornet (1940 serial)
Director- Ford Beebe and Ray Taylor
Cast- Gordon Jones, Keye Luke, Ann Nagel
Country of Origin- USA
Distributor – VCI Entertainment
Number of Discs -2
Reviewed by – David Steigman
Date – 5/1/2023