The Phantom Empire

The Phantom Empire
Theatrical release poster
Directed by
Written by
Produced byNat Levine
Starring
Cinematography
Edited by
Music byHugo Riesenfeld
Distributed byMascot Pictures
Release date
  • February 23, 1935 (1935-02-23) (USA)
Running time
245 minutes (12 chapters)[Note 1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$75,000[1][2]
The Phantom Empire, Chapter 1: Singing Cowboy.
Radio Ranch, a 70-minute feature film edited from the serial

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).

  1. ^ a b Magers 2007, p. 21.
  2. ^ Stedman 1971, 99–100.
  3. ^ Richardson, Jeffrey. ""Cowboys And Robots: the Birth of the Science Fiction Western" by Jeffrey Richardson | Crossed Genres". Crossed Genres. Retrieved March 13, 2023.
  4. ^ 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.
  5. ^ Magers 2007, p. 22.