The Return of Chandu

To be honest, this serial was a bit disappointing, but had just enough good stuff going for it to keep the experience from feeling totally without merit.

Chandu was a 1930s radio and movie character who served as the inspiration for Marvel's Dr. Strange and also has echoes of the Shadow of pulp fame. His stories tell the adventures of Frank Chandler (Chandu), a man who went to the Far East to study the mystic arts under an ancient and good sorcerer called the Yogi, and came back with the ability to hypnotize, briefly turn invisible, and more. This serial was the second entry in the series, and it followed Chandu as he tried to defend Nadji, the princess of Egypt and his sweetheart, from a sect of dark magicians who wanted to sacrifice her to revive an ancient sorcerer-queen. Chandu's sister, niece, and nephew tagged along throughout and alternately helped or got themselves in deep trouble.

First, the good: it was a rare and pleasant surprise to watch Bela Lugosi in the role of the hero instead of an antihero or villain. This particular type of hero (vaguely Eastern, brain-over-brawn) seemed tailor-made for the Hungarian actor, and he generally did a pretty good job with it. The other actors, including the lovely Maria Alba (Nadji, whose cute accent reminds me of a 1930s Sofia Vergara) and those playing Chandu's family, also put in great performances. The whole story is also completely saturated in a certain retro pulp exoticism that I have to admit I really, REALLY love, and it does most of it in a way that's at least somewhat respectful the non-American cultures it pulls from, if in no way actually interested in depicting them accurately. They also showcased some very impressive, expensive-looking sets at times, especially several they borrowed secondhand from the original "King Kong" movie made just one year before.

Unfortunately, the bad makes up a much longer list, especially in the latter half of the serial. The second 2/3 of the serial gets extremely redundant, with the "last-episode recaps" sometimes lasting 5 minutes. Much of the dialogue is creaky and awful, with all of the villains aping King James English with "thees" and "thous" in botched attempts to uplift dull, bad writing. There's an obnoxious "jungle drum" that plays over the music and the dialogue any time the villains are featured, making much of it barely audible. There are also some extremely cringe-worthy "native savages" who serve as bad guys for parts of the serial, highlighting the dark side of that pulp exoticism I mentioned earlier.

The plot is full of little holes and deus ex machinas, and the direction is so bad that it actually makes Ed Wood's much later work with Lugosi look good by comparison. The director (Ray Taylor) has the lead male hero swooning under torture in a style that went out with the silent movie, and manages to give us multiple camera angles that look right up Bela's rather angular nose. (Talk about catching an actor's bad side!) Finally, though a lesser sin than the rest, I thought it was a waste that we didn't see more of Chandu's supernatural powers at work. For much of the serial, he's just a regular guy, and not even an especially capable one.

All told, I don't regret watching it once (with Bela Lugosi as the hero being the main draw), but the 12-part serial version of this story honestly wasn't worth the time investment. If the good parts intrigued you enough to want to watch it, there was a movie based on the first 4 chapters of the serial that I kind of wish I had stuck with myself in retrospect. That was easily the most interesting section of the serial with the tightest story, the best dialogue and direction, and the most interesting use of supernatural abilities. You do miss out on the cool "King Kong" sets, but it's well-worth it to avoid the meandering, frustrating, and often draggy latter half of the serial (and the cringey cannibal islanders, to boot).

Bottom line: "The Return of Chandu" is an okay story with an interesting role for its iconic lead actor, but stick with the movie on this one, not the full serial.

Bela Lugosi starred as Frank AKA Chandu Chandler in 1934 in a serial called The Return of Chandu. Chandu has been popularized greatly by the 1932 film starring Edmund Lowe as Chandu and Lugosi as the arch-enemy Roxor. Now, Lugosi gets to play an atypical role for him, the hero - and he does a rather nice job through most of it despite very, very cheap production values, inferior direction, gross editing mistakes, and abysmal special effects. This Return of Chandu is the 65 minute edit that came from the original 12 chapter serial of the same title. The first half was made into this film and the second half of the serial was edited into Chandu and the Magic Isle. When considering that this is a product of a much longer serial, you must understand that you are going to have continuity problems galore and other inherent ones as well. Notwithstanding all of that, this story about Chandu fighting a group of cat worshipers(?)wanting to abduct the princess Nadji and sacrifice her on the island of Lemuria is engaging and fun. It is a very pleasant surprise to see Bela play the good guy and the hero. His magical powers are pretty suspect as we see him "disappear" and look at people very relentlessly with his hypnotizing eyes ala Dracula. Maria Alba makes a beautiful princess if nothing else and the rest of the cast is adequate. Yes, production values are limited and, yes, the editing job here was a hatchet job of the first half of the serial. The second feature, Chandu and the Magic Island, fares better as it has many of the more "action-packed" scenes.

The Black Magic cult of Ubasti needs to kidnap the last known living princess from Egypt so they can sacrifice her to their cat god. However, the good swami Chandu won't let this happen and spends most of the movie fighting these evil goons until they are, naturally, vanquished.

Since this film is called THE RETURN OF CHANDU, you can rightly assume it is a sequel. Just a short time earlier, Edmund Lowe starred as the Westerner who learned the secrets of the yogis. Using these great mental powers, he was able to save a kidnapped scientist and stop the death ray from being used on mankind! For a Saturday morning escapist suspense film, it was a dandy and Bela Lugosi was there to provide wonderful color as the evil villain.

Oddly, in this film, Lowe is nowhere to be seen and Lugosi actually plays Chandu!! So in the first film he was a super-villain and here a super-hero! Plus, in the first film he had a wife and kids, while in this film he hangs with his sister and her two grown kids and by the end of the film he's wooing a young lady!! Talk about continuity problems!!!

This film is a bit similar to the plot in the original, since it involves kidnapping but the level of excitement and the many, many wonderful and weird story elements from the original film are missing. Missing as well is the comic relief--making this film good, but certainly nowhere near the film the original was. Oddly, while it was made by Universal Studios, the film looked pretty cheap and was an obviously low budget film. Apparently, originally, this film was the first half of a serial of the same name. The second half was retitled CHANDU ON THE MAGIC ISLAND and is significantly worse than this first half. Still, it is entertaining and fans of Bela Lugosi will no doubt find it worth seeing.

A final note--The DVD version of this film I saw was from Passport Video and was of very dubious quality (it came in "The Bela Lugosi Box"). This company specializes in releasing public domain films and consistently does nothing to clean up the prints. This one was almost unwatchable due to terrible sound and no captioning. Also, Passport imprints their logo at the bottom right corner of the screen--which seems like a lot of nerve considering they didn't pay for the film!! Public domain AND emblazoning their name across it like they made the film?! Gimme a break. See if you can find a different and cleaner version.

I enjoyed this serial. I got it in a set with two other chapter serials from the same era, Flash Gordon and Radar Men. Cheap sets, cheesy dialog and Bela's overacting surprisingly add up to an engrossing combination. It was strange to see him in the uncharacteristic role of good guy/hero, but he pulled it off with his usual exotic charm. While I watched I could imagine what it must have been like to see these one episode per week in the theater. The exotic natives must have really scared the pants off kids in the 30s, a time when there was much less sophistication and knowledge of the world. These episodes hold up much better than the Flash Gordon series from that time period.

Not a bad B picture with Lugosi as the romantic lead. The sets are kewl -- wonder where they came from?

Don't expect Indiana Jones and you'll be OK

The Plot.

The Black Magic cult of Ubasti, based on the isle of Lemuria, believes that Nadji, a princess of Egypt, is a reincarnation of their long-dead goddess, Ossana, and intend to sacrifice Nadji so that Ossana may be resurrected.

Nadji has taken refuge at the California home of Frank Chandler, an American raised in the east and possessed of White Magical powers, who calls himself "Chandu". Vindhyan, high priest of the cult's California outpost, learns of this and ultimately succeeds in placing her in a trance which Chandu cannot easily break, propelling him to move her to safety, choosing the port of Suva in the South Seas.

There, aided by his sister Dorothy, nephew Bob and niece Betty, Chandu is able to revive her and deal with Vindhyan, only to have the evil Voice of Ubasti, highest of the high priests, spirit her to Lemuria through the magic Circle of Ola.