THE PHANTOM - Week 2 (1936)

Continued . . .

THE PHANTOM Big Little Books

The Art of Frank Hamilton (Part 3)

Parts 1 and 2 are HERE.

Comic Gallery: THE PHANTOM

1938

1938

1943

The Ghost Who Walks Vol. 4: 1940-1943

Hermes Press' fourth volume of The Phantom: The Complete Newspaper Dailies features three continuities. First up, our hero uncovers an underground air base prepping for use by a hostile nation. Then thieves make off with the treasure he and his forebears have been hoarding for 400 years. And finally, WWII comes to Africa, with an invasion by the Japanese.

As usual, the Phantom comes at trouble with flying fists, blazing guns, and a wry sense of humor. So far, I'm pleased to report, nine volumes of dailies have been published. I have a little catching up to do. 

BLB Gallery: THE PHANTOM

1947

1941

1939

Comic Gallery: Don Newton's PHANTOM (1975-76)

Overlooked Films: Adventures of (ALMOST the Phantom) Captain Africa

Last week I yakked about the 1943 Columbia serial The Phantom starring Tom Tyler. That’s HERE.

Well, recently Mr. Richard Prosch (who hangs out on Meridian Bridge) tipped me to the fact that Columbia was in the process of filming a sequel, with part-time Lone Ranger John Hart in the title role. But things went sour when the studio lost the rights to the character. Their solution was to create a pseudo-Phantom called Captain Africa.

I haven't seen this serial, but based on what I see in these lobby cards, the studio didn’t change much. Hart’s mask looks identical to Tom Tyler’s. Instead of a cloth hood he has a leather aviator’s cap. And instead of the Phantom’s gray long johns, he wears a turtleneck and riding britches. Though he’s now a government agent instead of a jungle god, he still appears to be worshipped by the natives. And the natives, as in the first serial, are white. And though I haven’t seen a lobby card with Devil (or a reasonable facsimile) on it, one of the later chapters is titled “Captain Africa and the Wolf Dog!”

So, now that I know that Adventures of Captain Africa (1955), was ALMOST another Phantom serial, it’s on my to-be-seen list. 

BILL CRIDER TAKE NOTE! Chapter 4 is titled "Into the Crocodile Pit!"

More Overlooked Films at SWEET FREEDOM.

Here's a pic of Hart in the Phantom suit, before the franchisee pulled the plug.

Overlooked Films: The Phantom (1943)

These days, comic book superheroes in tights are a dime a dozen. But the guy who started the trend was a comic strip hero, who first wore his underwear in public back in 1936.

This is him - The Phantom - who finally got around to making his motion picture debut in 1943. And surprisingly, they got the costume right. My only quibble is that in some scenes, his tights looked more black than gray.

This 15-chapter serial starred cowboy hero Tom Tyler, who’d demonstrated his superhero chops in the 1941 serial Captain Marvel. I have to give Tyler a slightly lower score than his costume, but overall he made an acceptable Ghost Who Walks.

First off, when Tyler runs through the jungle, he looks like Tiny Tim tiptoeing through the tulips. But his worst offence comes at the end of Chapter 1, when the Phantom falls into quicksand and is menaced by a hungry crocodile. Anyone who’s read the comic strip knows how the real Phantom responds to the prospect of certain death: He makes a wisecrack. Not so, our Tom. Instead, he cringes, grimaces, wiggles and is afflicted with an extreme case of jazz hands.

So how does he escape at the beginning of Chapter 2? He keeps on cringing, grimacing, wiggling and jazz-handing until Devil saves his butt. In fact, Devil saves his butt in about one of every three chapters. The only problem with Devil is - he’s supposed to be a wolf. Here, though, he’s just a dog, proudly portrayed by Ace the Wonder Dog. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Except, of course, that he’s supposed to be a wolf.

Then there are the natives. This is darkest Africa, right? And since we’ve all seen plenty of Tarzan movies, we know what African natives are supposed to look like. Here, they look like a cross between Wild West Indians and South Pacific Islanders.

STILL, once you get past the jazz hands, Ace the Wonder Dog and the homogenized natives, it’s a pretty decent serial. Most of the cliffhangers are okay, the dialogue is a couple of steps above dumb, and there are more fistfights than you could shake a fist at. And heck, this is the Phantom (sort of), so despite its flaws, this serial is required viewing.

More Overlooked Filmy stuff at SWEET FREEDOM.