The Phantom Empire (1935)

My experience of "The Phantom Empire" comes from the two hour movie pieced together from the twelve chapter serial, so admittedly, there is much I didn't get to see. To say that the film is unique is an understatement; where else do you have a Western blending with sci-fi and dating back to 1935? Gene Autry stars in one of his earliest films, hosting a daily broadcast adventure with his Radio Riders. He's also assisted by Frankie and Betsy Baxter (Frankie Darro and Betsy King Ross), who are the young leaders of the National Thunder Riders Association. The group is fashioned along the lines of the Boy Scouts, taking their name from the thundering sound of horses ridden by an underground race called the Muranians. Viewers are also treated to an early pairing of Gene with a very young Smiley Burnette, though his screen time is limited as one of Gene's Radio Ranch singers.As typical with "B" Westerns and serials of the era, the emphasis is on action and danger, here provided by unscrupulous men who invade Gene's ranch because of radium discovered there. Meanwhile underground, the action on the ranch is monitored by Queen Tika of the Muranians (Dorothy Christy), who must protect her stronghold from the people of the surface world, while at the same time fending off a revolutionary advance by one of her ministers, High Chancellor Argo (Wheeler Oakman).Science fiction tangles with science fact at all levels here, and it's a hoot trying to make sense of it. For example, the elevator that transports the Muranians back and forth travels a distance of 25,000 feet in about three seconds, that translates to about 6,000 miles per hour! However there's one very interesting statement made by Queen Tika that proves to be entirely prophetic - "Get the captain of the Thunder Riders on the wireless cell phone!" Before it's all over, Gene escapes from such terrors as the D-Ray Lithium Gun and the Chamber of Death, while impersonating a Muranian himself along the way. He obviously takes his role seriously, pay attention to an early scene when he's shot off his horse; he hangs on to his hat while tumbling all the way down a hillside.If you don't have the patience for the five hour serial, the recently made available DVD from Digiviews offers a reasonable alternative, though purists may not think so. However the gist of the Phantom Empire experience is presented well enough here with acceptable quality, and enough songs by Gene Autry to make your viewing time worthwhile.

This stuff is too horrible for words. It makes Plan 9 From Outer Space look like a masterpiece. The only way to watch this as an adult is with your hand over closed eyes, looking sideways through your fingers, carefully out of one eye once in awhile to follow the action. Even then, you spend most of your time cringing, shuddering, giggling, or gasping in amazement. But, you *love* it anyway, either in spite of its uncountable flaws, or because of them. This serial has had a hold on me for almost fifty years since I first saw it in the early '50's. Every recollection of it brings a smile. It is a serial with everything, and combines elements of every movie genre one can imagine: western, musical, comedy, science fiction, crime, and dashes of horror and child adventure. It has cowboys, evil scientists, lost cities, robots, radio and television, death rays, machines that resurrect the dead, and radium. Radium everywhere. This wonder element is the fuel that powers every futuristic machine in the hidden, underground city, and the desire of the evil scientists who scheme to get rich from it, and will kill to further their schemes. As adults, of course, we are obliged to ignore the reality that radium couldn't possibly do what it does here, but that's a trivial detail, irrelevant to the fun at hand. The robots are a hoot: garbage cans that walk, but they are the only part of this movie I never came to accept. You watch each chapter for a little while, and it begins to take you in. It isn't long before you're thinking, "This is *terrible*, but with just a little work here and there .. it could be pretty good." Then, you're hooked, and it's time to apply for membership in the Thunder Riders. There is no way this serial could be remade today. For one thing, the notion of Radio Ranch, a radio variety program broadcast from a remote location, doesn't fly in a world of HDTV and personal computers. But, so help me, I can't help wishing someone would try!

This movie would be a classic of its type, if there were anything else in its type. The ostensibly peaceful underground kingdom of Murania actually exists on the slave labor of robots, who are planning a revolt. Periodically, the Muranians dress as "Thunder Riders" and after rocketing to the surface, come out of a cave to terrorize the Surface People (us). But they can't terrorize a gang of kids known as the "Junior Thunder Riders", whose motto is "To the Rescue!" They shout this while wearing buckets on their heads, in imitation of the gas masks of the Muranians. Mendacious scientists have detected radium beneath the surface of Gene Autry's ranch, but they don't know that the radium is coming from an underground kingdom. The scientists keep kidnapping Gene so that he won't make it to his weekly radio show and hence won't get the paycheck that he depends on to make his mortgage payment. The mortgage payment is the engine that actually keeps all these balls in the air, and as in all good westerns, the bankers are the real villains. Gene is so cool as he handles the Thunder Riders, evil scientists, mendacious bankers, cruel but oddly flirty Queen Tika, and surprisingly clumsy robots, while always having time for a kind word to the Junior Thunder Riders and Smiley Burnett. You can tell that he lives by the Cowboy Code.

No, I wasn't 12 in 1935! Try 1955 when this 12 episode serial played on Saturdays in Colorado Springs. I grew up with westerns, with Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Lash Larue, and the rest. I was also acquainted with the science fiction serials and films of the period. Imagine my GLEE when I found out that they had merged the two genres!!!I saw this again recently, and while it has aged a bit in relationship to more modern westerns and SF films, this is indeed a landmark film: The only SF serial in which a major Western cowboy is the star!!!I am amazed that so few people have scored this film in IMDb. Please do yourselves a favor and seek out this one, watch it, enjoy it, and then give it a vote respective of its mark in cinematic history!