Being of a certain age, it's hard for me to imagine that there are a lot of people who never enjoyed the wonders of the Mascot Pictures 1935 science fiction/western/musical serial The Phantom Empire, which featured Gene Autry's in his first starring role. I can't claim to have seen this epic in the movie theaters (I'm not that old), Ibut I do remember watching it over and over anagain on our old black-and-white television. Even then, I was not deterred from realizing how cheesy it was, but at the same time it sparked my imagination far more than, say, 1936's Flash Gordon.
It was directed by Otto Brower (The Santa Fe Trail, The Devil Horse, Dixie Dugan, and the army training film Sexual Hygiene) and B. Reeves "Breezy" Eason (King of the Wild, The Vanishing Legion, The Galloping Ghost). The idea of the plot came from writer Wallace MacDonald (better known as an actor and producer; his writing credits include In Old Santa Fe, The Fighting Marines, and Hitch Hike Lady) when he was under gas having a tooth extracted. Other writers employed in the scripts included Gerald Geraghty, Hy Freedman, and Maurice Geraghty.
Gene Autry plays himself, running a dude "radio" ranch where produces a regular daily program. His sidekicks are the youngsters Frankie Baxter (played by Franie Darro, at one time considered the best juvenile actor in Hollywood, but at 5 foot 3 inches, his ability as a leading actor was limited, and he switched to voice-over work) and his sister Betsy Baxter (14-year-old Betsy King Ross, a champion trick rider who in adult life became an anthropologist and author); both Darro and Ross did their own riding stunts for the serial. Comic relief was provided by Smiley Burnette.
It just so happens that 25,000 under Autry's Radio Ranch was the hidden city of Murania, popuolated by the desendants of the lost tribe of Mu, who went undergoound 100,000 years before during the ice age. Murania is an advanced city with towering futuristic buildings, advanced weapons (including ray-guns), an extensive elevated transportation system, television, and the cheesiest robots ever filmed. Muranians have live underground for so long that they cannot breath surface air and must wear strange-looking helmets. They regularly leave the city through a tunnel with a sliding door to the outside world -- I'm not sure why -- and ride their horses through the prairie, making a sound like thunder. They are called Thunder Riders -- go figure. Murania is run by the evil queen Tika (Dorothy Christie, (Sons of the Desert, Bright Eyes, The Affairs of Jimmy Valentine; most of her 109 IMDb credits were uncredited). The bad guys on the surface are led by Professor Beetson (Frank Glendon, (The Texas Tornado, Sagebrush Troubadour, King of the Pecos). Wheeler Oakman (Brenda Starr, Reporter, Hop Harrigan America's Ace of the Airways, Jack Armstrong) plays Lord Argo, who is plotting to overthrow Queen Tika.
This is one of those shows where you dang well better suspend your disbelief.
The first episode is thirty minutes,, while the remaining eleven episodes clock in at about twenty:
- Episode 1: The Singing Clowboy
- Episode 2: TheThunder Riders
- Episode 3: The Lightning Chamber
- Episode 4: Phantom Broadcast
- Episode 5: Beneath the Earth
- Episode 6: Disaster from the Skies
- Episode 7: From Death to Life
- Episode 8: Jaws of Jeopardy
- Episode 9: Prisoners of the Ray
- Episode 10: The Rebellion
- Episode 11: A Queen in Chains
- Episode 12: The End of Murania
Needless to say, from the screening of the first episode, The Phantom Empire was a hit/
The link takes you to all twelve chapters:
https://archive.org/details/10PhantomEmpireChap10GeneAutry/1+Phantom+Empire+Chap+1+Gene+Autry.mp4
Then, in 1940, a feature film version of the serial, edited down to 69 minnutes was released. It was pretty good, but did not have the cheesy fascination of the original. Here's the link;
https://archive.org/details/The_Phantom_Empire_1935
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