{"id":7097,"date":"2013-10-02T04:28:39","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T08:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=7097"},"modified":"2013-10-02T04:34:31","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T08:34:31","slug":"dvd-phantom-the-1931","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=7097","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Phantom, The (1931)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>P to R<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Weak\/ DVD Transfer: n\/a \/ DVD Extras: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label: n\/a\/ Region: n\/a\u00a0\/\u00a0Released: n\/a<\/p>\n

Genre: Mystery<\/p>\n

Synopsis: After escaping from jail, The Phantom is determined to kill the lawyer who sent him up the river and his pretty daughter.<\/p>\n

Special Features: n\/a<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

This Poverty Row production is often wrongly branded as haunted house-styled whodunnit perhaps because many haven\u2019t bothered to watch this exercise in weird mediocrity, or it\u2019s the easiest branding for a messy mish-mash that espouses to echo the mystery-comedy elements in The Cat and the Canary<\/a> <\/strong>[M<\/a>] (1927) and The Old Dark House<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1932).<\/p>\n

A patchwork of psychotically spliced-in stock footage of a prison break covers \u2018The Phantom\u2019 escaping by train and plane from prison – a daring action which alerts the police and the District Attorney (Wilfred Lucas) involved in said Phantom\u2019s conviction. Bodyguards are sent to the lawyer\u2019s house after The Phantom declares revenge on his family, with one protecting daughter Ruth (Allene Ray), a nosey reporter whose editor Sam (Niles Welch) is in love with her.<\/p>\n

At the D.A.\u2019s home, everyone awaits The Phantom\u2019s arrival, including investigative reporter Dick (Guinn \u2018Big Boy\u2019 Williams), who eventually takes Ruth and the D.A.\u2019s spooked butler and moronic maid to a lunatic asylum where the film\u2019s story concludes.<\/p>\n

Hack writer-director Alan James, more experienced in westerns, goes through basic storytelling motions, but any interesting shots seem to come from experienced cinematographer Jack Draper, who later spent a lengthy period shooting films in Mexico. A crazy doctor with a lobotomy fixation takes over the film\u2019s final third, and the eponymous Phantom is a red herring in both the film\u2019s marketing, and the mad doctor\u2019s secret plan to experiment on select victims within the walls of the asylum.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all a mush of ideas folded into a crazy-quilt of scenes, and amateurish actors literally stomping around the wooden floorboards of cheap sets in this primordial sound film. A few post-synced scenes indicate extra cost-cutting measures by the studio, and the lack of any score really grinds down the film\u2019s pacing, making its 62 mins. interminable.<\/p>\n

And yet there is<\/em> something intriguing about the film\u2019s weird amalgam of an escaped caped madman, a crazy doctor, nosey reporters, and \u2018Swedish\u2019 contortionist William Jackie who plays an asylum resident like a Jackie Oakie clone, albeit one who walks around like a chicken. There\u2019s also the doctor\u2019s basement laboratory where the skulls of his unsuccessful patients adorn a mantle \u2013 details that oddly recall the skull collection discovered by Baron von Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) in Mel Brooks\u2019 Young Frankenstein <\/strong>(1974).<\/p>\n

Director James later directed several Dick Tracy serials, whereas co-star Allene Ray, a star of silent western serials, retired from acting, save for an appearance in Gun Cargo<\/strong> (1949). Only Guinn Williams had better luck, drifting between supporting roles in B and the odd A-level films, including a villainous turn in Jean Renoir\u2019s Swamp Water <\/a><\/strong>[M<\/a>] (1941).<\/p>\n

Neither a whodunnit (no one is killed) nor haunted house thriller, The Phantom <\/strong>is available from Archive.org<\/a> as a free download.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2013 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB<\/a><\/p>\n

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Vendor Search Links:<\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a>\"\" \"\"—New movie releases on iTunes<\/a>\"\"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0P to R<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ P to R . Film: Weak\/ DVD Transfer: n\/a \/ DVD Extras: n\/a Label: n\/a\/ Region: n\/a\u00a0\/\u00a0Released: n\/a Genre: Mystery Synopsis: After escaping from jail, The Phantom is determined to kill the lawyer who sent him up the river and his pretty daughter. Special Features: n\/a . […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[2254,2253],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1Qt","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7097"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7097"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7119,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7097\/revisions\/7119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}