PHANTOM OF THE AIR (1933)
Serial
Article 2005 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-10-2006
Posting Date: 2-7-2007
Directed by Ray Taylor
Featuring Tom Tyler, Gloria Shea, LeRoy Mason

A flyer who works for the border patrol agrees to test an inventor’s anti-gravity device, and then attempts to protect his invention from smugglers.

As far as I know, there’s no feature version of this serial, but if there is, I hope the editors were smart enough to emphasize footage from the first episode and the last three episodes of the serial rather than the eight in the middle. It’s only about episode nine that this serial really comes to life; up to that point, it’s either unmemorable or disappointing. One of the problems I have with it is that the serial puts forth a cool science fiction device (a contragrav – that is, an anti-gravity device), but then does nothing else with it but install it in a plane and then control it from a distance. Other than the fact that the plane can be controlled remotely, it moves and acts just like any other plane, which I find pretty disappointing. Another problem is the serial overuses some of its aerial stunts, such as people climbing out on the wings of the plane; these can be pretty exciting scenes taken individually, but not several times in succession. Worst of all, the villain remains something of a nonentity during the first nine episodes, and it’s really hard to care about a serial when the villain is this dull; it’s only when he decides to visit the scientist’s isolated airport in the last few chapters that he and the serial come to life and actually starts delivering the thrills. Walter Brennan is in here somewhere, but I didn’t spot him. Hero Tom Tyler is mostly known for his B-westerns from the period.

THE PHANTOM SPEAKS (1945)
Article 2004 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-9-2006
Posting Date: 2-6-2006
Directed by John English
Featuring Richard Arlen, Stanley Ridges, Lynne Roberts

A spiritualist visits a murderer sentenced to die in the chair under the belief that the murderer’s will is strong enough to come back from the dead and visit him, thus proving his theories about the human soul. However, the murderer has his own ideas; he not only visits the spirtualist, but takes control of him and uses him to exact revenge on those who convicted him.

The most common praise I usually hear in regards to THE BLACK FRIDAY is for Stanley Ridge’s performance as a kindly doctor who becomes possessed by a ruthless criminal. He must have liked the challenge; here he is again in virtually the same kind of role. The modus operandi is different, (substituting spiritual possession rather than brain surgery), but the effect is pretty much the same; the main difference is that the spiritualist bears a bit of the responsibility for his own situation this time. This is one of Republic’s forays into horror, and their output in the genre is uneven, though some of it is quite interesting. This isn’t one of their best, largely because the story is a bit obvious, and I’ve seen several variations of the “back from the dead for revenge” plot line. My favorite moments have more to do with the acting – not so much from Ridges (who has been here before), but from Tom Powers, whose performance as the murderer Harvey Bogardus is very memorable; the scene where he walks a man and his daughter away from a murder site is one of the tensest moments in the movie. Powers had an interesting career; he worked in some early silents, and then went to Broadway and established a successful stage career, then returned to movies in the early forties. There are some interesting credits here; he appeared in the early Winsor McCay animated feature GERTIE THE DINOSAUR and in DONOVAN’S BRAIN, another movie which prominently features possession of another man by an evildoer to gain revenge.

PARIS PLAYBOYS (1954)
Article 2003 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-8-2006
Posting Date: 2-5-2007
Directed by William Beaudine
Featuring Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bernard Gorcey

When a French scientist working on a secret rocket fuel vanishes, Sach , who looks just like the missing scientist, is hired to impersonate him in order to flush out either the scientist or those who want to kill him. Slip and Louie accompany Sach to Paris to help. Hilarity ensues.

At one point early in the movie, Slip tells a group of people who are convinced that Sach is really the rocket scientist that Sach has never been out of the United States. However, the Bowery Boys visited London only the year before in LOOSE IN LONDON. In short, I think I found a continuity error in the series. However, it could be argued that Slip’s memory is faulty; after all, he’s not really the sharpest needle in the etui, and for those who don’t know that word means, than I can only say that my years of solving crossword puzzles has put me in good stead in helping me dredge up vaguely French-sounding words out of the world of crosswordese. But I digress. And, at any rate, the concept of hunting up continuity errors in the Bowery Boys movies strikes me as more than a little silly itself.

Nonetheless, this one is a lot of fun. It’s also somewhat more in the vein of the Three Stooges than some of their other movies, but seeing as the script was co-written by Edward Bernds (who honed his craft with Three Stooges shorts), that should be no surprise. As usual, I like Leo and Bernard doing their usual schtick, but Hall does a good comic acting job in a dual role, and he actually manages a rather difficult feat in that, despite the fact that Sach adopts a French accent when he impersonates the scientist, he remains a distinct character from the real scientist (also played by Hall) shows up. The fantastic content doesn’t pop up until the end of the movie, but since the nature of that content is made clear from the outset (the rocket fuel), it should be no surprise that some of it actually gets invented at some point. All in all, this is a fun entry in the series.