El imperio fantasma

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!

"The Phantom Empire" (1935) is unique in the entire history if cinema. It's "Melody Ranch" meets "Flash Gordon" - and it's a kick.

In the olden days (the'70s), it was the perfect entertainment for dropping a hit, taking a hit with a sip (or two...or three) and whoosh, off to the unknown, mysterious Murania, located 20,000 feet beneath Radio Ranch.

Radio Ranch's owner, the often bland Gene Autry (who also owned the more famous Melody Ranch...same place) stars with his pal Smiley Burnette (not playing his normal Frog Milhouse role, but nonetheless playing Frog Milhouse)/ Gene also gets some help from teenagers Frankie Darro & Betsy King Ross. It's up to them to stop the evil Muranians from world domination and destruction (what do they care, they're 20,000 feet below the carnage).

This gem was directed by reliable silent film and "B" movie journeyman master B. Reeves Eason, who also directed the "Flash Gordon"-inspired serial classics, "The Undersea Kingdom" (1936) which starred the always wonderful Ray "Crash" (named for "Flash") Corrigan (who has a small role here) and "Batmen of Africa" (also in 1936) with real-life wild game catcher Clyde Beatty. Eason helmed a slew of two-reel Oaters starring Gene Autry & Dick Foran before directing a series of rah-rah war films in the early '40s to compliment his turnout of westerns, mysteries & serials.

Note: As second unit director of the classic 1925 silent film version of "Ben Hur" with Francis X. Bushman & Ramon Navarro, Eason used 42 cameras to shoot that epic's legendary chariot race; as well as directing the massive burning of Atlanta scene in "Gone With The Wind" (1939).

"The Phantom Empire" is virtually never shown. Too bad because it's a fun curio. Perhaps they think it'll start a whole new psychedelic drug epidemic?

BTW, there's a new DVD release by VCI that is terrific: crisp picture and sound, no blips, and as far as I can tell, it's complete.

I had seen clips of this serial in the 1986 video, "Horrible Horror," and never had any desire to see it. It looked cheap and the idea of a singing cowboy western, science fiction combo appalled me. In 2009 my wife bought be the DVD collection, "Classic Sci-Fi TV: 150 Episodes." The Phantom Empire was on one of the disks. There it sat for the past 11 years. It took Covid-19 for me to finally watch it.

Oh, the wasted years! This is a fun serial. Is it a classic? No, but it is never boring. Just when you worry that it may turn into a bunch of singing, or kiddie fare, it takes a sharp turn and keeps you coming back for more. There is/are plenty of action, multiple villains (one who is really evil in Chapter 11), and some slapstick comedy (okay most of it misses, but I did chuckle out loud at least once).

There are other reviews here that deal with the plot, so I won't repeat it here. If you're stuck at home and just want some old time cliffhanger serial fun, check this out. The 4 hours will pass quickly. I watched chapters 1-7 one day and then finished chapters 8-12 the next. By far, Chapter 11 is the most fun, but don't be tempted to jump ahead especially when you think it might turn into a kiddie serial about a gang of horse riding do gooders.

I first saw Phantom Empire back in the 1970s when it was included in a local museum series of vintage films. I was totally enthralled by it and the incredible underground world below Gene Autry's "Radio Ranch". (The ranch was the site of weekly broadcasts of great oldtime cowboy music.) I'm more a fan of old cowboy movies than I am of science fiction, but I was really taken by the sci-fi set, with wacky multi-story elevators, ray guns, and metal robots. I was particularly smitten by the beautiful but evil Queen Tika, ruler of Murania, who had a magical spinning circle on the floor which she would visit and ask to show her anything she wished. The wheel would spin, complete with a spiraling graphic, which then turned into a real-time view of -- Gene Autry, of course, and his whereabouts, providing the Muranians the opportunity to capture him. (Seeing the spinning circle reminded me that as a six year old, I conjured up similar powers from spinning circle, and had forgotten all about it. Since then, my alter ego is. . Queen Tika!) I recommend the Phantom Empire series as an experience in true, though "kitschy", entertainment! Sincerely yours, Queen Tika

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.