The Adventures of the Masked Phantom

"The Adventures of the Masked Phantom" is a B-western starring Monte Rawlins...a cowboy star with only five films to his credit (the 5th being this movie). And, after seeing the film, I can understand why. Although he's not terrible, Rawlins doesn't have a ton of charisma.

The story is about stolen gold. Apparently, some gang is stealing gold from back east and shipping it west. Why? Well, if a fellow is corrupt, they can use an existing mine and claim that the gold they've smelted comes from that one. After all, it isn't like you can trace gold once it's been re-melted. So, it's up to a masked hero, the Masked Phantom, to get to the bottom of this and save the day.

I cannot put all the blame on Rawlins. Tiny B. F. Zeidman Productions obviously put no money at all into the picture and so he has no sidekick nor charismatic villain in the story. Instead, it's just bad....not horrible...but bad.

I first watched this movie at a camp in Oklahoma. It is so bad that it was funny, kind of like Santa Claus conquers the Martians, in the old west. It has every western cliche that you can imagine, plus Dumpy's dancing! Alamo is the stranger who is also the Masked Phantom. He has a thrwing knife with a skull on the hilt. The real hero is "boots" the wonder dog. The dog can break people out of jail and start cars. Alamo is just riding his (coat)tails.