The Phantom Empire (1935)

Directed by

Otto Brower, B. Reeves Eason

Genre

fantasy film, science fiction film

Country

United States

Runtime

4h 05m

Rated

NR

Rating

5.8 of 10 from 12 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A singing cowboy finds an ancient civilization hidden under his ranch. Greedy outsiders try to exploit the underground world.

whimsicalfast-pacedcampyadventurouslighthearteddatedmusicalserendipitous

What happens

The Phantom Empire is a 1935 American Western serial film directed by Otto Brower and B. Reeves Eason and starring Gene Autry, Frankie Darro, and Betsy King Ross. This 12-chapter Mascot Pictures serial combined the Western, musical and science-fiction genres. The duration of the first episode is 30 minutes, while that of the rest is about 20 minutes. The serial film is about a singing cowboy who stumbles upon an ancient subterranean civilization living beneath his own ranch that becomes corrupted by unscrupulous greedy speculators from the surface. In 1940, a 70-minute feature film edited from the serial was released under the titles Radio Ranch or Men with Steel Faces. This was Gene Autry's first starring role, playing himself as a singing cowboy. It is considered to be the first science-fiction Western. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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