The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues

With a 1950's title like this, what's expected besides drive-in fare. I have to admit, I don't hold these cheapos to the same standards as uptown features. So I really don't care about most cost-cutters, such as using the same boat, or the same stretch of beach, or Jefty's road sign from 1948's noir Road House, or even peripheral logic, for that matter.

What I do expect are a few horror jolts, of which this flick has almost none. For example, the hokey sea monster provides neither scares nor suspense. Also, I expect some sexy skin, which Downs does supply, especially in the upper reaches. Plus, there should be some good action, of which the 82-minutes supplies instead a lot of snorkeled swimming. And lastly, a low-budget story shouldn't be too long since that means padding. So, please tell me what purpose Helene Stanley's drop-in mystery woman serves. My best guess is she's supposed to be a commie connection.

Actually the movie is more a character study than anything else, with wild-hair Whalen managing a nicely calibrated central performance. In fact, his conflicted Prof. King may be the movie's most interesting facet. Good also to see an aging Kent Taylor picking up a payday, even if he's too old for Downs. All in all, the 82-minutes amounts to an odd drive-in feature, as though the producers had a bunch of parts, but real trouble fitting them together. The flick's not bad enough to be funny, or good enough for a B-feature. In short, it's a drive-in dud.

Most of the cast seems glad to be working if not half snockered in yet another tale of misguided radioactivity that didn't have much extra going for it other than a wide screen format. A world weary scientist finds a common fresh water turtle on the beach where with the use of his new fangled death ray mutates it into a large snapping turtle and then into a man in a hilarious rubber suit that has to be weighted down to keep the actor from floating belly up to the surface.It's a fast 78 minutes and with all of it's cheapness and faux pas it's hard not to like.It's not as good as Creature From The Black Lagoon but not nearly as bad as it's DVD co-feature The Beast With A Million Eyes.

While this Science fiction story lacks any real sense of credibility and our monster-The Phantom disappoints due to a lack of action and a rather plain appearance, there's enough inherent strangeness and weirdness going on here to make this an intriguing watch to fans of cult movies - the science fiction variety. Seeing Kent Taylor and Philip Pine is a treat here as always and they , along with Cathy Downs and Michael Whelan do give competent performances. Recommended mainly to those with a lot of patience and a love for Grade-Z movies.

If you really like movies, if you like to understand them, then you need to balance your viewing.

Sure, there's a short list — an amazingly short one — of films that are whole creatures and that you should watch.

But you really should spend some time with these artificial creatures as well.

Why?

Because when you have a stable genre, when everything is thoroughly predictable, the shell of the movie sort of falls away. You no longer have to look at the movie, you can look at the machine behind it. That's something that's harder to do with stuff that actually engages, like Tarkovsky.

In this case, we have all the standard pieces: radiation, a marine monster that happens to be the right geometry to house a man, foreign spies and so on. Every element is from the catalog. Every assembly is from a mass production rulebook. The music is also off the shelf: viola for suspense, harp for underwater movement and so on.

But look and see the famous "rule of twos." Sooner or later you'll have to make up your mind about the extent to which structure in art is an impediment or an aid. But before you get that far, you have to see the structures that are being used.

Here we have two government investigators, one brainy the other brawny. We have two women, one young and alluring the other old and vengeful. We have two scientists, one honorable the other not.

There are minor, very minor plot twists as we switch all of the doubles. Each of the pairs has a hidden third: the embodied "government," the dead son, the girl friend (a third woman) who is an espionage seductress.

Already, in your mind's eye you can see the chart.

Is this an aberration of nature, like the monster within the story? Is it a creation that can give power in the short run, but at costs? Is is good science or black magic?

Before you jump to conclusions, see my comment on "Seabiscuit" for another example of the rule of twos, but in an environment of higher production values.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

This is a group of horrible mediocre people doing horrible mediocre things.

Boring and uninteresting.

The creature...blah.

Give it a miss unless you can make a drinking game out of it!