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The presence of actual fairies is not necessary in a fairy tale. The important thing is the story's function, its purpose, and the question to ask to determine if a serial or anything else is a fairy tale or not is: does this film or story fulfill a wish-fantasy? Does it present an unkillable character (meaning, he is essentially magical) that fights against impossible odds to defeat a terrible danger? In the case of THE SECRET CODE the answer is yes -- the "magic" character is the Black Commando, who fights the apparently far more powerful Nazi spy ring, and defeats them by "magically" being able to decipher their secret messages.

The term "fantasy" really isn't as appropriate for most serials as it implies less of a purpose, fantasy can be fantasy for fantasy's sake alone. I would say BRICK BRADFORD, perhaps, is more a fantasy than a fairy tale because he seems to ramble about more aimlessly, and the menace he is supposed to defeat less genuinely threatening. Most serials do not wander about aimlessly, they are strictly focused and have that very clear purpose -- every action of the protagonists is directed at trying to defeat the dangerous threat and thus get to the "happily ever after."

"Fairy tale" does not mean fairies, it means a story that functions as a "wish come true."

It has an amplified threat, and an amazing hero or heroine who triumphs in a way no normal person could. Sometimes that hero has amplified power or a special costume or name or symbol. If not, they're rarely if ever shown sleeping or eating, and they don't need to shave, comb their hair, or ever go to the bathroom. Bullets magically always miss them, and they also can magically extract themselves from any physical predicament they're ever placed in.

The Black Commando is a "magic hero" character who satisfies all these qualifications. He can't be killed, he never gets tired, etc. and he's able to defeat the Nazis essentially singlehanded. He's the walking embodiment of the wish at that time that all Nazi spies in the US could be as easily infiltrated and defeated and wiped out. If there had been such a thing as a battalion of real-life Black Commandos at that time with equal super-powers, all spies would have been destroyed. But there weren't -- hence the wish that something like him could exist.

There are some serials that are less fairy-tale like than others, and some which could be more appropriately classified as "straight" adventures or crime dramas but as soon as you introduce a super-villain or unillable hero you up the ante. For instance take something as "realistic" -looking as THE VANISHING LEGION. Isn't that just a straight crime story? Not really. It includes a "what if" in there that amplifies the danger to an unrealistic point, and a "magic" item in the form of the little iPods (yes, that's what they look like) that broadcast the sound of "The Voice" to the bad guys. The amplified threat then is the unknown villain who can control his gang by pocket radios, a magical thing in 1930. The hero Harry Carey seems very down to earth and human but he is as unkillable as any superhero -- and that serial is an example of one that even resorts to cheat endings to help him survive. He's so magically protected, stampeding herds of cattle which have been seen to run right over him in one chapter will miss him by a mile in the next!

As I said, it's not the literal descriptions of characters in a serial or whether they do literal magic or have wings or not that are important and define it one way or another. It's what the characters do that matter, and most importantly, what the function of the whole serial is; the focus of the characters' fight.

In a fairy tale you will see:
1. A villain or threat of terrible proportions who is entirely bad and who seems undefeatable and who may symbolically represent a threat the viewer fears, that he wishes could be eliminated from the real world (this is the "wish" the viewer would like to come true)
2. A hero who is entirely good, without a single flaw, who has heightened abilities and/or special appearance
3. A situation where it is very clear in any given scene who is "good" and who is "bad" and there's no doubt about this whatsoever; anyone in the story is either on one side or the other; the whole universe the characters operate in is entirely black and white
4. (Probably) Special weapons and/or abilities on either or both sides which give the bearer amplified power which does not exist in the natural world, rendering them essentially "magical"
5. The amplified threat destroyed by the unkillable hero, who doesn't even get a scratch in the process, and therefore the "wish" fulfilled.

In a more realistic story you will see:
1. A less black and white story with more complicated themes, goals, situations
2. Less black and white characters; they may have flaws, get hurt, bleed, get hungry, love or hate someone and act on that basis as well as to fight the threat
3. No "magic" items, scientific or otherwise, which might confer super-powers on anyone
4. A possible mixed-result ending in which not everything goes perfectly, someone's wish doesn't necessarily come entirely true, and perhaps a main character dies on his quest, or a threat isn't entirely defeated but there's another sort of meaningful event that replaces it

Virtually all Republic serials intentionally followed the fairy-tale formula and it's not even worth looking deeper at them to see if there were any exceptions. All Republic heroes and heroines come through their stories unbruised and victorious against impossible odds, and in no case in a Republic serial do we ever see a character who can't be identified as clearly a "good guy" or "bad guy." Every effort is made to make a potential villain into a super-villain, even in one case to the length of giving a guy a special electric chair to sit in that will give him the magic ability to transform into a guy with the appearance of a super-pirate, just so he looks extra cool.

Some Columbia serials might include more complicated elements or characters; I can only think of two off the top of my head that even attempt any such thing and those are BLACK ARROW and SON OF THE GUARDSMAN. In BLACK ARROW it's stlll clear the hero is the "good guy" but, having been thrown out of his own tribe and hunted by the whites alike, he has issues to deal with concerning what side he should be on, if any at all, and whom he should trust -- he's one rare serial character who isn't just fighting the usual physical battles against a crooked enemy, he's also trying to figure out who he is (and unfortunately, despite the interesting setup, this question is resolved at the end of the serial in the lamest possible fashion). In SON OF THE GUARDSMAN the hero also has side-changing issues to resolve when he realizes it's his own uncle, I believe, who's being the bad guy in the area. Despite SOTG's medieval setting, it's not the most fairy-tale like of serials; it doesn't arm the hero with any magic item and he has to improvise a lot to keep himself alive. Both of these serials are more personal, with conflicts in them being more interpersonal than in some other serials.

THE MASKED RIDER is another serial that is very personal. It includes a "magic" character but things do NOT turn out all perfect in the end for everyone. There is tragedy in it, people do bleed, and not all characters are clearly definable as thoroughly good or thoroughly bad. So it may not qualify officially as a fariy tale either, though a good case could be made for it being a "fairy tale gone bad," or "fairy tale distrupted by reality."

CUSTER'S LAST STAND is another one in which the larger-than-life hero gets his fairy tale disrupted by reality.

THE TREY O'HEARTS is an adventure story but its conflict is a very personal one and involves a love triangle and at least at the end one complication which is more than just good vs. evil. It's not really as much of a fairy tale as many other serials because the threat to the hero is limited to a personal decision by the villain to kill him alone, and the villain isn't entirely unsympathetic as the hero's father ruined him in business and killed his wife.

There are also some other early Westerns which are more personal stories and not as fairy-tale like; THE RED RIDER comes to mind. There are good guys and bad guys in it, but the story is about clearing an innocent man of murder and very interpersonal, it's not a large-scale problem and involves no super-scientific devices or characters with amplified abilities. Still, though, almost all Westerns fit into the mythology category as they all add to the cultural myth that everything and anything white people did in the old west was good, and that all decisions involving land should rightfully have been decided in their favor.

There are exceptions I am sure to the "all serials are fairy tales" rule but they are few and far between. I would say probably more silents than sound serials might qualify, as many of them were adapted from more mature novels etc., but if you want to figure out what they might be look for ones that don't include a supervillain or advanced technology or a mystery hero or an adventurer triumphing in an exotic locale to win a treasure -- and that won't be many of them. Rarely are serials actually about realistic people; they're usually about that dreadful threat of one sort or another that requires a super-person to defeat, so the world can be safe ever after.

The rule of thumb would be, is the serial about interplay between realistic characters who aren't all good or all bad, or is it mainly focused on the struggle to defeat an overwhelming threat which is the "wish" that the audience wants to see "come true."

If you can come up with more examples of serials that don't fit that mold, I'd be interested to hear them.