THE PHANTOM (1943 serial)

Professor Davidson and his small entourage arrive at the village of Sai Pana, looking for the lost city of Zoloz. There may be a treasure buried there, but Davidson is more interested in it as an archeological find. Along with him are his niece Diana, her fiancé Geoffrey Prescott, an assistant, Byron Anderson who may be more interested in the treasure than anything else, and a guide named Larkin who also may be hiding his true colors. Davidson is relying on a map of Zoloz which is engraved on seven pieces of ivory of which he has three. Local hotel keeper Singapore Smith agrees to sell him the three pieces he has, which leaves one central piece yet to find. But we discover that Smith is secretly in league with Bremmer, the kindly local doctor who is actually a spy who wants to find Zoloz so he can build a secret airstrip—we're never told who he works for, but given the era, he's probably a Nazi. As these plot strands come together, we also follow a separate story. Deep in the jungle, The Phantom, the masked, costumed, and supposedly immortal peacekeeping leader of several native tribes, is hit by a poison dart. Knowing he will die soon, he sends a telegram to his son to come to Sai Pana and take over his duties. It turns out that Prescott is the Phantom's son, and he leaves Davidson's group to take over as the Phantom, with only the Phantom's two loyal associates, Moku and Suba, to help him. Bremmer's men are the thugs behind the attempted assassination and soon Davidson's group heads into the jungle, searching for the last map piece, which is perhaps in the hands of a capricious tribe leader named Tartar. The bad guys follow, hoping to get to Zoloz before Davidson, and all are accompanied by the Phantom who has to be on his toes to protect Davidson and Diana while also keeping peace among the jungle tribes.

The Phantom is a comic strip character created in 1936 by Lee Falk. The strip is still running as of summer 2025. He's a benign white protector of an African tribe who is also known as The Ghost Who Walks. He wears a domino mask and dresses like a superhero; in fact, he was apparently the first comics character to don a skintight costume. The Phantom line goes back to the 1500s, and the natives believe he has remained alive all this time, though actually, the costume and duties of the Phantom have been passed down from father to son for generations. He has no superpowers, but is smart, physically strong and agile, and good with guns. Little of this backstory is present in this serial, which unlike the comic strip, seems not to be set in Africa, but most likely, South America or Mexico, based on the Mayan looking sets and the skin color of the natives. The fifteen chapters of this serial are full of plot and incident, which makes this much less repetitive than most serials, though it also muddies the narrative waters a bit. There are several settings, including Sai Pana, Zoloz, a couple of other hidden cities, and the open-air throne room of The Phantom. Various characters come and go, most notably the Tartar king who can shift from bad guy to good guy quickly. As in any good (or even bad) adventure serial of the era, there are fisticuffs galore, gun battles galore, and cliffhangers galore (involving dangerous animals, avalanches, raging fires, quicksand, and poison gas). There is almost too much going on to keep track of, but as long as you know the good guys from the bad guys, you can follow along easily.

The Phantom is played by Tom Tyler, who had appeared earlier in the Captain Marvel serial, widely recognized now as one of the best classic-era serials. I found Tyler quite wooden in that title role, and he's a bit wooden as Prescott in the first chapter, but he's masked for most of the movie so his unchanging facial features aren't a problem. He’s tall and sturdy and well-built, looking both attractive and menacing in his costume. The only other actor to get screen credit is Jeanne Bates who is adequate as Diana (who forgets about her missing fiancé rather quickly). Frank Shannon (Dr. Zarkov in the Flash Gordon serials) is so-so as Davidson. Better is Kenneth MacDonald as Bremmer whom we know from the get-go is no good, but who successfully hides behind his good guy persona right up to the end. MacDonald gives him a little more personality than most serial villains have. John Bagni provides solid support as Moku, and Guy Kingsford is so very slimy as the treacherous Byron—it takes several chapters for him to become a full-on baddie but he is nicely cowardly and whiny throughout, looking like someone you'd like to slap for no reason. Standouts among the many, many bad guys who pop in and out are Sol Gorss as Criss, the most active of the thugs, Joe Devlin as the sweaty Singapore Smith, and Anthony Caruso as Count Silento, who is not as important to the plot as his fancy name might suggest. The best cliffhanger is the one involving a rickety footbridge over a mountain gorge.

I took pages of notes while watching, but didn't need many of them for my review, so here are some odds-and-ends observations so I don't feel like I wasted my notetaking time: Suba, the assistant of the Phantom whose job is to create a literal smokescreen for the Phantom to make his appearances and disappearances to the tribe, looks a bit like Jeff Goldblum; Prescott's pet German Shepherd Devil (played by Ace the Wonder Dog) gets quite a bit of screen time and is good at looking dangerous; a couple of major incidents, including the death of Blackie (a character who is talked about but never seen), occur offscreen—maybe they ran out of money?; I may have missed something, but it seems like Bremmer knew all along where Zoloz was and didn't really need the map; I chuckled at one scene when the Tartar king slugs one of his guards and calls him a clumsy fool; speaking of the Tartar king, I never figured out if Tartar was his name or the name of his tribe. I watched the first two chapters of this many years ago and lost interest, but now that I'm more acclimated to the serial genre, I quite enjoyed it. The VCI DVD is OK but it could stand a nice restoration. Above left, Tom Tyler with Ace the Wonder Dog. At right, Tyler and John Bagni [DVD]