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Master criminal The Phantom makes a daring escape from death row, &
almost immediately threatens to kill DA Hampton (Wilfred Lucas), who was
somehow instrumental in his death sentence. Of course, the police does
everything thinkable to guard Hampton's life, posting guards all around his
house, but even a nosey reporter, Dick (Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams), who later turns out to
be Hampton's daughter Ruth's (Allene Ray) fiancé, can slip by the cops &
confront Hampton alone in his livingroom. & then there's of course some
hooded madman (Sheldon Lewis), who seems to know all of Hampton's house's
secret hallways, who shows an unhealthy interest in daughter Ruth's
skull, & who mutters something about bringing her to doctor Walden before being chased
off. But while the poice, upon that incident, become incredibly busy doing
nothing, Dick & Ruth make up a plan to get to the bottom of the whole
affair on their own, since Dick happens to know that doc Walden - who had
mysteriously disappeared a few months back - has previously run an asylum
nearby ... which is as good as any a place to start investigating. In the
asylum it seems the lunatics have taken over, as the main porter Sid (William
Jackie) seems to be more than a little weird, & only after much to &
fro he agrees to take Dick to Doctor Walden (William Gould), who seems to be a
very reasonable, down-to-earth man ... but he does show an almost unhealthy
predilection for lecturing lobotomy, & frequently walks around carrying a skull. Soon,
Ruth has disappeared, and has been taken to Doc Walden's secret laboratory, where he plans
to perform lobotomy on her, while Dick still tries to figure how to open the
secret panel that leads to the lab ... but in the end of course he can not only
find a way in with he help of the police who are only just now arriving, but
also save Ruth & identify Doc Walden as the Phantom. Though the
direction is at points incredibly stagey & doesn't seem to take full
advantage for the new sound-medium, to a point where the film looks dated even
for the time of its release, The Phantom is not without its merits,
offering mainstays of the pulp-lore aplenty - including a mad scientist, 2 old
dark houses with secret hallways aplenty, a classic loonie bin, a hooded
lunatic, an unhooded lunatic who's even creepier, ... - & giving a definite
ironic twist to the proceedings, which pretty soon makes one forget that the
plot is pretty much riddled with holes & some scenes feel incredibly padded.
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