| The Phantom Empire | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | |
| Written by |
|
| Produced by | Nat Levine |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | |
| Edited by | |
| Music by | Hugo Riesenfeld |
| Distributed by | Mascot Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 245 minutes (12 chapters)[Note 1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $75,000[1][2] |
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.[1] This 12-chapter Mascot Pictures serial combined the Western, musical and science-fiction genres.[3][4] 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.[5] It is considered to be the first science-fiction Western.[4]
Cite error: There are <ref group=Note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=Note}} template (see the help page).
- ^ a b Magers 2007, p. 21.
- ^ Stedman 1971, 99–100.
- ^ Richardson, Jeffrey. ""Cowboys And Robots: the Birth of the Science Fiction Western" by Jeffrey Richardson | Crossed Genres". Crossed Genres. Retrieved March 13, 2023.
- ^ a b Broughton, Lee (September 19, 2016). Critical Perspectives on the Western: From A Fistful of Dollars to Django Unchained. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 29. ISBN 978-1-4422-7243-9.
- ^ Magers 2007, p. 22.