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A series of earthquakes threaten civilisation as we know it, but
professor Norton (C.Montague Shaw) is convinced he can stop them when he
goes far enough down in his rocket propelled submarine & uses his
earthquake neutralizer. Far beyond sea level though, he & the motley
crew he has taken with him, - including Navy officer & sports ace
Crash Corrigan, female reporter Diana (Lois Wilde) & the professor's
grandson Billy (Lee Van Atta) find no natural cause for the earthquakes
but the lost civilisation of Atlantis, where evil ruler Unga Khan (Monte
Blue) wants to cause enough chaos on the surface to smoothly take over
or destory the upper world - even though he can't even manage to conquer
the neighbouring village. In the professor, Unga Khan thinks to have
found the perfect ally, since the professor has the knowledge to build
him a rocket-motor to fly his tower above sea level (really), & so,
with the help of his mind machine, Unga Khan forces his will on the
professor. While the professor works on the evil urusper's rocket
though, his associates flee & take refuge in the neighbouring
village reigned by benevolent Sharad (William Farnum) who soon puts his
army under Crash's command, as a thanks for saving his life. In a series
of more & more daring attempts, Crash & company try to both keep
Unga Khan from getting his rocket & save the professor from the evil
man's clutches - attempts spoilt by the professor though thanks to Unga
Khan's mindmachine. In the end everything culminates in Unga Khan having
Sharad's village bombed (which Sharad doesn't survive) before he starts
his rocket, though with Crash aboard & the professor finally being
freed from the influence of his mind machine again. When Sharad's rocket
breaks the outer hull of the undersea-kingdom of Atlantis, thus flooding
the realm, the rest of the professor's gang can save themselves only
thanks to his submarine, taking them to surface level, where tha Navy,
thanks to an SOS from Crash, is already in position, & bombs the
emerging tower, while Crash & the professor can escape using one of
Unga Khan's flying machines. Lon Chaney jr, by the way, plays Unga
Khan's leader of the Black Guards, (weak) comic relief is provided by
Smiley Burnette & Frankie Marvin as Crash's friends, who do not
otherwise feature prominently in the storyline though (actually they
are captured as early as episode 2 & do not interact with any of the
lead characters until the last chapter).
One of the truly
great & archetypical serials of the 30's, as this one mixes
legendary Atlantis, flying machines, horse-chariots, robots (looking
like elaborate dustbins), uniforms resembling those of ancient Rome,
futuristic tanks, swordspklay & rayguns with an endearing
carelessness to a highly entertaining if stupid romp. This was the 3rd
time in a row that producer Nat Levine made a serial with a Lost
City/Ancient Civilization plot (after Phantom
Empire & Darkest Africa) & it did seem that the
emergence from Mascot
into Republic couldn't have gone much smoother (Phantom
Empire was his last official Mascot-serial,
while Darkest Africa was begun at Mascot
but finished & distributed under the Republic-banner), as the star
of Phantom Empire, Gene
Autry, would become one of Republic's earliest & biggest
cowboy-stars, while its basic plot as well as some of its scenes (e.g.
the launching of the missiles), sceneries (e.g. the stables of the
guards' horses) as well as its comic sidekick (Smiley Burnette) were
reused in Undersea Kingdom. History however would take another
turn for Levine, as he, before the end of the decade, would be bought out of
Republic.
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