OldAle1 Singing cowboy Gene Autry (in his first starring film role) plays -- singing cowboy Gene Autry, star of a daily radio broadcast which is performed live from "Radio Ranch." Autry's contract, very strangely, requires that he perform in every show without fail or he will immediately and on-the-spot lose control of the program and the ranch. Yes, it's silly, but you'll soon learn to leave most of your sense of reality behind if you want to enjoy this early genre mash-up involving Autry, his two young sidekicks (Frankie Darro and Betsy King Ross, who was advertised as "America's champion trick rider" but gets precious little trick riding to do, alas) and their team of "Junior Thunder Riders" as they try to thwart both a team of evil and greedy scientists from gaining control of the ranch so that they can exploit its radium deposits, and the underground denizens of the lost city of Murania, an advanced civilization of super-science which will stop at nothing - even mass destruction - to keep the outside world from intruding.Also making appearances are comic duo Smiley Burnett and Peter Potter, who typically have a slapstick gag or two that frequently hinders the heroes in just about every episode; most of the chapters follow a basic pattern of Gene and company getting out of trouble with either the scientists or the Muranians at the beginning of the episode, rushing back to the ranch so that Gene can make his broadcast, a song from Gene or occasionally a western combo, and after the 2nd episode, Gene trying to make sure he doesn't get caught for the murder of his sidekicks' father, his partner (he's not guilty, of course)! This one has it all folks - Laurel & Hardy-type slapstick routines, lots of great singing cowboy music, mad scientists and fantastic inventions, gunfights - one of many ways in which the whole serial seems to exist in a parallel universe can be shown by the fact that they actually stage gunfights, bank robberies etc for the radio show, despite the lack of a live audience! There's little in the way of sex in this one - this seems to be aimed at a slightly younger crowd than Flash Gordon , the next major science-fiction serial to come along a year later. The queen of Murania (Dorothy Christy) is attractive enough but quite severe and wooden; no romance between her and the 28-year-old (but rather older looking) Autry is ever on the horizon. The scenes in the Muranian city are probably the highlights overall, with some surprisingly good sets and solid painting/matte work (keep in mind this was a very low budget affair) and some pretty advanced science fiction hardware for the day - a disintegrating ray, televisors that can show events anywhere, an aerial torpedo that can be controlled in mid-flight, a super-fast elevator, etc.The acting is almost uniformly mediocre to poor, with Wheeler Oakton as the Muranian queen's Chancellor (and ultimately traitor) probably the most memorable, though in basically a typical 30s stock-villain way; and of course it can be fairly repetitive like a lot of serials - but overall the weirdness of the thing and the willingness to just mash up all kinds of disparate elements together and hope they stick worked for me, and I'd have to say I liked this just as much, maybe a little more even, than the Flash Gordon serials of the next few years. The copy I watched is the recent VCI edition, which is not tinted unlike the alternative edition available from The Serial Squadron, but is pretty high quality in most respects, and loaded with extras. I can't recommend this too highly to those few interested in the genre.

unbrokenmetal "The Phantom Empire" is a unique genre mixture of western, SF, musical and adventure serial. Gene Autry, the singing cowboy, discovers Murania, an underground kingdom whose queen sends her whole army after him so he won't tell the "surface people" about the existence of her secret empire. Because a serial with 12 parts needs a few complications, there is a conspiracy against the queen. The rebels need to silence Autry because he knows their plans, but Autry is also in danger from "surface people" who wouldn't stop at anything to get hold of the valuable radium in Murania. Thus chased by everyone, the most important thing to our hero is nevertheless to be at the radio station in time for the 2 pm broadcast! Hilarious fun with clumsy bucket-head robots, ray guns and country songs, a must for fans of 30s serials.

LucyCannon I guess you really do have to be under 12 and never seen 1977's "Star Wars" to enjoy this one for what it is when viewing it for the first time. A little like raw cookie dough, it doesn't taste quite right when you're over 30, except in a setting of group intoxication. I also do not recommend seeing more than a few episodes at a single sitting, and there are 12.Gene Autry's old-timey Hollywood Western music, and his bandmates' yokel humor, are the two brightest notes in this cheesy tin-hat sci-fi serial. Everybody wears an exceptionally goofy hat, it seems, except Queen Tika in her relatively sedate tiara; even the silvery robots wear hats. Why the elevator is powered by a robot cranking it rather than being fully automated, perhaps belies the "advanced technology" of the Muranians (although they do have TV, a novelty in 1935). Why the Muranians thunder across the plain en masse on horseback, if they were hoping not to be discovered by surface folk, is another mystery. More baffling still is why the Muranians need breathing apparatus at the surface, while Gene Autry and his buddies need none when they are kidnapped to the underground kingdom. And (*SPOILER WARNING!!*) if the death ray, run amuck, can destroy the entire city, there's nothing stopping it from continuing to destroy everything in the beam's path until it reaches the Earth's surface -- which it doesn't. Note also that Queen Tika is the only female to be seen in this society. They must breed like bees.One of our party also notes that Gene seems to die more often than South Park's Kenny, only to be revived by the next episode. The Junior Thunder Riders, kids modeling themselves on people who at that point in the story are considered villains, look remarkably like the Klansmen riding to the ostensible rescue in "Birth of a Nation." A female championship trick rider is apparently only there to be the young-girl-in-jeopardy.If you are over 21, rent this one with some friends and plenty of beer and popcorn. It deserves to be shared, but do take a break now and then lest you hurt your brain.

Edwin McBride This movie would be a classic of its type, if there were anything else in its type. The ostensibly peaceful underground kingdom of Murania actually exists on the slave labor of robots, who are planning a revolt. Periodically, the Muranians dress as "Thunder Riders" and after rocketing to the surface, come out of a cave to terrorize the Surface People (us). But they can't terrorize a gang of kids known as the "Junior Thunder Riders", whose motto is "To the Rescue!" They shout this while wearing buckets on their heads, in imitation of the gas masks of the Muranians. Mendacious scientists have detected radium beneath the surface of Gene Autry's ranch, but they don't know that the radium is coming from an underground kingdom. The scientists keep kidnapping Gene so that he won't make it to his weekly radio show and hence won't get the paycheck that he depends on to make his mortgage payment. The mortgage payment is the engine that actually keeps all these balls in the air, and as in all good westerns, the bankers are the real villains. Gene is so cool as he handles the Thunder Riders, evil scientists, mendacious bankers, cruel but oddly flirty Queen Tika, and surprisingly clumsy robots, while always having time for a kind word to the Junior Thunder Riders and Smiley Burnett. You can tell that he lives by the Cowboy Code.