Our fourth Secret Matinee series, pairing weekly cliffhanger serial episodes with secret classic features, all shown on 16mm film.

This year it was all science fiction, lead by the serial Buck Rogers (1939, 12 episodes). In 1939, test pilot Buck Rogers and his teen sidekick Buddy crash an experimental dirigible in the distant Arctic, and are put into suspended animation by Nirvano gas. Five hundred years later, the pair are discovered and awakened by men from the Hidden City, where the brilliant Dr. Huer leads the last bastion of resistance against Killer Kane, a ruthless super-racketeer on the brink of controlling the entire world. The only hope: seek the help of the advanced civilization on the planet Saturn! Buck and Buddy join Dr. Huer and Lt. Wilma Deering in an utterly nonsensical but thrill-packed adventure based on the pulp character that started the modern sci-fi craze.

Each week's episode was paired with secret sci-fi classic features organized into monthly themes: Space Madness (hostile aliens and high strangeness...invasions and interplanetary doomsdays!), Steampunk Adventures (retro-futurist worlds of wonder...and other spectacular time dislocations!), and Beasts from Beyond (strange creatures and monsters...crazed giants and bug-eyed behemoths!).

Plus, on Sat. Feb. 25 only: a special Leap Year Time Warp Show, featuring mind-bending shorts and a chronosynlastic featurette! (No suspended animation required!)