The Phantom Broadcast

This film is really NOT a "mystery"....it's about a popular radio "crooner" (who has all the women swooning for him), and his mysterious relationship with his pianist/arrranger.

The film contains a VERY minor "mystery", but it is explained half-way thru the film (I can't reveal any more without giving it away).

However, this is a VERY sad film and has a very unhappy ending (I may be naieve, but I like my films to have happy endings!), and I wouldn't recommend this tear-jerker to anyone, unless you want a good cry.

Don't waste your time with this one.

Norm

Ralph Forbes may have given his best screen performance in The Phantom Broadcast. Unfortunately it was for poverty row studio Monogram and I venture to say a lot of people even back in 1933 probably never got to appreciate it. If they did see The Phantom Broadcast they could not have missed the resemblance to Cyrano De Bergerac.

Forbes plays a brilliant pianist, singer, and teacher who unfortunately is a hunchback. In the quiet of the sound proof broadcast station he's hit upon a scheme where handsome Arnold Grey appears at the microphone and mouths the words to Forbes's voice.

But Grey as the Christian of the piece is not as noble a character as Christian. He's a womanizing playboy and his fooling around with gangster's moll Vivienne Osborne has not gone unnoticed by some bad people.

Eager young hopeful Gail Patrick enters the picture and she interests both Forbes and Grey in different ways, maybe the same way, but Cyrano Forbes won't say and he's also determined that Grey will not trod here.

The Phantom Broadcast is an interesting idea that should have been tried by one of the big studios. It's highly melodramatic and probably too old fashioned for today's tastes. Still Ralph Forbes is brilliant.

Back in the thirties, every studio had its own distinctive style...there were star-studded epics like "Gone With the Wind" at MGM, breezy comedies like the Hope-Crosby "Road" movies at Paramount and gangster films with the likes of Bogart and Cagney at Warner Bros. Then there were the Poverty Row studios, principally Monogram and PRC, where "quickies" were churned out on five day schedules. So it's no wonder that while Monogram's "The Phantom Broadcast" is entertaining, it's also confusing. The premise is that piano player Norman Wilder, a hunchback, is the behind-the-scenes voice for a murdered radio crooner. There are a few obvious questions like why no one notices that while the crooner is performing, his pianist is simultaneously singing up a storm. Or how a few characters enter someone's apartment then apparently forget that it's not their own home. Someone at the studio may have noticed that lapse but was told Monogram's policy...no retakes. Still, "The Phantom Broadcast" is fun. And you can't say that about quite a few movies from the major studios.

The premise is interesting but really stretches the imagination. The story involves a deformed man who becomes the voice for a 1930's style crooner. The two of them have a symbiotic relationship; they need each other. However, the crooner needs the manager/songster much more because without him, he is nothing. The fact that no one ever gets wise is the first flaw. It's just too much. The second is that the abused man continues to function in the face of all the nasty remarks and putdowns. Enter a beautiful young woman singer who is seeking a manager and has great sympathy for the deformed man. A murder is committed and everyone clams up. So many of these movies depend on someone refusing to talk, even when they have nothing to lose. When a murder is committed, the accused acts in a totally irrational way, thinking a young woman is going to be blamed. But there is no reason to do this. He has a witness and she has no motive. Anyway, it's not very tight, and while it has its moments, it kind of fizzles.

Alpha Video which continues to serve serious movie lovers, especially those who want to explore the past through films that will never make it to TV, has an interesting item in 1933's "The Phantom Broadcast." The plot is simple: a much beleaguered by adoring female fans crooner is a first class fraud. Actually "his" voice is that of his crippled accompanist and manager, referred to as "the hunchback."

Singer and manager both pursue the beautiful, innocent girl. The singer is also beset with the affections of a discarded mistress who won't take "no" or "get lost" for a permanent disposition of a tired relationship. Exit singer through a bullet wound.

The sweet, decent gal is a suspect but the old hunchback tries to attract the law's heat to protect her. Such nobility.

Nothing novel about the plot but the acting is, largely, not bad.

For $4.99, which is what I paid, this was 73 minutes of entertainment. Now who do I palm the DVD off to?