Movies - The Phantom Empire

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	Movies - The Phantom Empire

The Phantom Empire starring Gene Autry, the Singing Cowboy, was a 12 chapter 1935 Mascot serial that combined western, musical, and science fiction genres. It co-starred Gene's sidekick, Smiley Burnette. Gene Autry plays a singing cowboy named Gene Autry, who runs Radio Ranch, a dude ranch from which he makes a daily live radio broadcast. Gene has two kid sidekicks, Frankie Darro and Betsy King Ross, who lead a club, the "Junior Thunder Riders," in which the kids play at being armored knights of an unknown civilization, the mysterious Thunder Riders. The kids, dressing up in capes and water-bucket helmets, play at riding "to the rescue!" A chance to be real heroes occurs when Betsy, Frankie and Gene are kidnapped by the real Thunder Riders, from the super-scientific underground empire of Murania, complete with towering skyscrapers, robots, rayguns, elevators that go up for miles to the surface, and an icy, evil blonde Queen, Tika. On the surface a group of crooks plans to invade Murania and seize its mineral wealth.In Murania, a group of revolutionaries plots to overthrow Queen Tika! The Thunder Riders carry a strange, sword-like weapon which shoots flame from its tip... a possible inspiration for the light sabers of Star Wars.

The action-packed serial was directed by Otto Brower and B. Reeves Eason and written by Hy Freedman, Gerald & Maurice Geraghty, Wallace MacDonald, John Rathmell, and Armand Schaefer.

There was also a 1986 made-for-tv movie with the same title. It is about man-eating cave creatures who battle Amazon women from outer space.

The 1979 television series Cliffhangers, which attempted to recreate the old movie serials, ran three serial chapters in each episode, one of which, "The Secret Empire" was a pastiche of the Gene Autry The Phantom Empire. Events in the underground empire were shown in color, but events on the surface were "in glorious black and white".

The title The Phantom Empire may have been one inspiration for the George Lucas Star Wars titles The Empire Strikes Back and The Phantom Menace.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Phantom Empire ]

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