If it wasn't for Bela Lugosi, this would be a total bomb. And even with Lugosi, it is worth of a special Oscar....Oscar Mayer, that is! His overly hammy performance will be the one thing that will keep you awake in this ridiculous serial, also available in a streamlined feature version. Lugosi played variations of this role several times, including the original "Chandu the Magician" (1932) and finally in 1955's "Bride of the Monster", an evil man determined to control the world with special powers beyond human abilities. Those powers here come from a meteor he stole (an outtake from "The Invisible Ray", in which Lugosi's eyes underneath that mask are clearly Boris Karloff's!) to a spider-like creation that causes mysterious discs to put people in suspended animation, and finally a hideous robot that resembles certain current politicians. Made as World War II was ransacking Europe, this was a warning of people like Hitler and Mussolini desperate for dominating the world and a warning about spies (here not of any particular country) that have the intelligence of early movie gangsters. You are sparred with the streamlined version of having to return from week after week as they did in 1939 or having to re-live the last five minutes of the previous chapter. All the fat cut from the turkey of the serial to what remains as grissle.
Review of The Phantom Creeps
