Welcome all to the final chapter of the exciting 1939 movie serial The Phantom Creeps! Begun over a year ago in October, 2011, SBBN has recapped this cinematic classic with witty banter and stunning detail, to the delight of thousands. Others would say that SBBN has bitched incessantly about this craptastic serial while a few people came along for the ride, laughing when we realized actress Dorothy Arnold was daydreaming about skullfucking her co-workers. Witty banter, skullfucking, either way is good.

Before we begin the final chapter of something that should have ended many, many months ago, I want to thank you all for sticking with me. A new movie serial endeavor will be beginning shortly, my goal with that one to stick to a tighter schedule. I hope you’ll join me for the next series!

Tonight’s thrilling conclusion is a Creeps classic, featuring terrible writing, horrible acting, stock footage of questionable taste, and some very sad actors who never worked in Hollywood again.

The Phantom Creeps
Chapter 12: To Destroy the World

When we last left our intrepid heroes Plucky Girl Reporter and G-Man Bob, they were lounging by the catering table while stolen footage from The Vanishing Shadow starring Ada Ince and Onslow Stevens was doing all the work for them. Ada and Onslow, unwitting (and probably unwilling) stand-ins for PGR and Bob, are seen careening through a construction site in a British car — and by British I mean “the dinks in editing flipped the Shadow footage for no explicable reason” — driving straight into a controlled demolition.

Ada and Onslow suffering for their art by being buried in chunks of dirt.

 

PGR and Bob make it through, of course, because the blast the Creeps production staff created to mimic the destruction in the stolen Vanishing Shadow footage was complete, unseasoned weaksauce.

Yet that same weak blast changed the color of the convertible, turned Ada and Onslow into PGR and Bob, and blew them all the way back to the U.S. where they now drive on the American side of the road. And now you know, kids: A couple of firecrackers in a bowl full of talcum powder really can provide cinematic excitement.

The last two chapters of The Phantom Creeps display a delightful amount of incompetence. The flipped footage fiasco of the demolition scene is continued as Henchman Clooney (Anthony Averill) and Jarvis the ringleader (Edward Van Sloan) stand astonished as they realize PGR and Bob have made it through the explosion:

As we cut to a shot from the front:

They’re on different sides now. And I usually don’t post screen captures where I catch an actor in transition, inadvertently making a goofy face, but Jarvis looks this goofy all the damn time. Edward Van Sloan played small parts in many famous films — you’ve probably seen him looking dignified in Song of Bernadette or the holy trinity of pre-code horror films, Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy — but for some reason, he possesses absolutely no poise in Creeps. Every expression is outsized, ridiculous and hilarious. The production could not have cast a more inappropriate actor for the role, except maybe Chester Conklin, and I think we can all agree he would have at least been fun, therefore a vast improvement.

You’ll also notice that our favorite henchman looks so very very sad. While filming his final scenes of Creeps, Anthony Averill was obviously at the breaking point, trying to hold it together but also knowing that sweet, sweet release was close at hand. Averill was so glad to get out of the serial, in fact, that when PGR and G-Man Bob caught up to him and the spy leader at the beginning of this final chapter, Henchman Clooney Guy helped our plucky girl reporter by putting his hands together for her so she could restrain him more easily.

And she still manages to schmutz it up.

 

Zorka has driven off with the spies’ car, because he’s a genius, and geniuses know that driving a convertible while invisible won’t result in any undue attention drawn to you at all. The spies were left behind with nothing but their freakish face masks, surely props borrowed from a prior, better production, and which didn’t help them evade capture. Henchman Clooney immediately blurted out the location of the meteorite when captured by PGR and Bob, surely in hopes of being able to leave the set of The Phantom Creeps as quickly as possible. Thus our favorite henchman, hogtied and shoved into the back of Bob’s convertable, rides off into the dusty sunset. Anthony Averill would never have a role this big again. A couple of uncredited bit parts later, he disappeared from film forever. Averill died on Christmas day in 1982.

It’s time to say goodbye to another beloved Phantom Creeps character: The medical bag. An ancient wonder dating from before the time of Hippocrates, this relic spent twelve long chapters lugging around the meteor — variously called the meteorite, the element, or the elements — that gave Dr. Zorka his wild, earth-shattering powers. The elements were surely dangerous, most probably radioactive, yet this thin animal skin satchel with its rusting clasps and vaguely erotic shape protected us all from certain doom. Thank you, medical bag, and godspeed, my little friend.

Back at the secret basement laboratory underneath Dr. Zorka’s palatial estate, Monk’s cheese has slid completely off his cracker as we find him trying to have a discussion with the Iron Man, asking him to help him escape. Iron Man cannot hear and possesses no warm feelings toward Monk anyway; Zorka overhears, however, and once again, for the last time in this interminable serial, ignores the obvious warning signs that his henchman has some serious emotional problems that will come back to haunt him at a later, more inconvenient moment. You’d think with that element and all his neat toys, Zorka could have developed a better, more compliant slave laborer than Monk, yet he (and we) are stuck with this whiny dude that cannot die fast enough.

At just over five minutes into this final chapter, Creeps has made it clear that its goal is to wrap everything up as quickly as possible while making no damn sense at all. The spies were dispatched within the first two minutes, Zorka immediately began embarking on his final hail-Mary plan of destruction, and plucky girl reporter Jean Drew has been told she can now tell the world the entire fascinating story. And at Dr. Mallory’s lab, Bob is mobilizing troops via phone, giving the unseen Jim (Regis Toomey) on the other end of the line a stern warning: “Better have them equipped with gas masks. Remember, you’re dealing with an invisible force!”

Because an invisible madman and poisonous gases go hand in hand, as we all learned in seventh grade science class.

Amazing special effects!

 

Dr. Mallory has finally figured out how to deactivate Zorka’s devisualizer; Bob pronounces it “dee-vizz-nnn-blzzzz-errr,” starting the word out strong but just giving the hell up by the third syllable. Mallory has created a ray gun that re-visiblates that which has been devisiblated. I know that’s confusing, but if you were a scientist, you’d totally understand. Mallory’s assistant Perkins (Hugh Huntley) takes great pleasure in zarking a miniature reproduction of The Thinker to demonstrate this scientific breakthrough.

Hugh Huntley and Louise Brooks in A Social Celebrity (1926). Photo courtesy Dr. Macro.

 

Huntley had been in films and on stage for over two decades at this point, almost becoming a significant character actor after his turn in The Bat Whispers (1930). But the Hollywood stardom train passed him by, his stage career was long over, and he would appear in only a couple more uncredited roles after Creeps before fading into Hollywood oblivion.

Back at Dr. Zorka’s, Reeg arrives with the world’s smallest army, about six guys in WWI army surplus gear who are so unfamiliar with protocol that they salute Regis Toomey as though his character Jim Daly were an Army officer. Zorka runs to a window to assess the threat, and Monk takes a moment to visit the Iron Man… but we’ll get to that in a moment.

The Toomster and G-Man Bob stand outside the mansion with the Army, Bob greedily grabbing one of the soldiers’ gas masks for himself because he’s an asshole. Zorka meanwhile calls upon the Iron Man to crush the U.S Army, which should be easy enough, since Iron Man has taken on groups of five or six henchmen with guns before, and these dudes are quite possibly the same henchmen, just in different duds. The army guys scatter in a panic when they see Iron Man stroll purposely into the foyer, and shoot him quite a few times to no effect while Dr. Zorka cackles in delight.

Bela has the best kid-in-a-candy-store face ever.

 

For whatever reason, Dr. Zorka directs Iron Man in a brisk walk past the soldiers and into the garden outside, bypassing any attempt to squash the Army like bugs. It is a lovely day, so perhaps Iron Man is just getting some fresh air.

Or, perhaps, the script had no convincing way of leaving the Army unharmed enough to exact revenge on this large robot. Since the United States Army is full of a bunch of poopyheads who won’t let a peace-loving robot have any fun, they bring out the very literal big guns and take aim. One large explosion later, Iron Man has been deconstructed into an aesthetically-pleasing pile of large pieces, his iconic head rolling gently across the well-manicured lawn.

Good night, sweet prince. You were our favorite character in this serial, because you were not human.

 

Bela’s “O SHI-” face is pretty good, too.

 

Wikipedia cites The Great Movie Serials: Their Sound and Fury as claiming the Iron Man was “stopped by a single shot seconds after being unleashed.” Untrue!

This is Monk tinkering with the robot, deliberately removing its protection from bullets so it can now be easily destroyed. Monk has an understandable grudge against the Iron Man, who was used in many, many Monk menacings over these past 11 chapters. Even with the tinkering, Iron Man took dozens of bullets and wasn’t harmed, not until a hail of automatic gunfire blew him the hell up. Wikipedia, whether it’s accurately quoting the book or not, wrongly implies the Iron Man’s destruction was poor writing; it was, in fact, some of the best writing and execution in the entire serial! Way to go, Wikipedia. This error will be further elaborated on in an upcoming made-for-TV biopic to be called “Wrong Again: The Wikipedia Story.”

There seems at first to be no fallout, either literal or figurative, from the large explosion that dispatched Iron Man. But once you notice that the entire Army detachment has disappeared without a trace from the mansion seconds after blowing up an eight-foot robot, you get the sinking feeling that this is the moment all hell has finally broken loose in the world of The Phantom Creeps.

G-Man Bob runs into the now-empty mansion to find Zorka, who has invisiblated. But Bob has the de-invisiblator, which he aims at…

Waitaminnit. If Zorka is invisible, how would anyone know where to aim this de-invisiblator? You have to see someone to be able to aim at them, which seems like a serious design flaw to me. Yet Bob knows exactly where in that large upstairs laboratory Zorka is standing, and hits him directly with the revisiblator. What is this fuckery?

The re-visualizer immediately after it has been shot. You can tell, because it looks exactly the same as it did before it was shot. In completely unrelated news, the Flash Gordon set has reported the theft of a few prop guns…

 

But it doesn’t really matter, because the moment Bob makes Zorka visible again, Zorka shoots him, leaving Bob unharmed but destroying the re-visualizing ray. Yes, the ray that Dr. Incompetence spent almost half the serial working on, which turned out to have a fatal design flaw, was destroyed after about eight seconds of use. That is the kind of quality plotline resolution you can expect from a serialized story like The Phantom Creeps, my friends.

Our mad doctor runs downstairs to the secret lab and instructs Monk to take the weapons made from the meteor and escape. Dr. Z plans to destroy Bob, Reeg and the soldiers — who have reappeared without fanfare — with a bottle filled with dry ice and a vague Z-ray thing we don’t know much about.

Zorka zarks a couple of soldiers with a Z-ray that is supposed to be fiendish but merely renders them temporarily unconscious. He also very politely takes time out of his busy frenzied escape from the Feds to jot down this delightful note and leave it on their bodies:

Meanwhile, Plucky Girl Reporter Jean Drew’s articles begin to appear in the paper:

Monk and Dr. Zorka steal an airplane from a mechanic in their bid to wreak havoc upon the world. To get to the plane, they knock the mechanic to the ground, and when he comes to we discover…

it’s Henchman Von Moustache in another role! Like we wouldn’t notice! We just saw him two chapters ago!

Reusing Von Moustache? Heartfelt, emo notes in impeccable handwriting detailing a psychopath’s delusions of grandeur? Mad Genius Running Wild? Oh, you wacky Phantom Creeps, I will forgive you anything at this point.

Bob and Reeg have apparently headed back to Dr. Mallory’s, where Bob finds out via local loop telephony that Zorka and Monk have snatched a plane. Jealous that the villains are about to get in on his lucrative plane-destroying action, he fumes while the Toomster stands there, hands in pockets, rocking back and forth, feigning interest while mentally calculating the cost of a tuna melt and fries at the studio commissary.

Zorka begins his rampage! Tiny little test tubes filled with something-or-other from the meteor are used as bombs, dropped from the plane and strong enough to take out single structures. The mad doctor’s fiendishly clever plan is to fly all over the world, destroying one building at a time until the world surrenders. Or something.

And here, my friends, is where the international incidents begin. Zorka’s first target is supposed to be the federal building, but when it came time for the editors to splice in footage, they went with the Hindenburg disaster instead:

Ah, yes, the use of a real world tragedy with many casualties as footage for a Z-grade movie serial. Very tasteful and not repulsive at all. As the zeppelin burns, Zorka cackles in glee and Monk does a double take, having just now realized that Zorka is a really mean guy.

A bit of trivia: Edward D. Wood, Jr. was given a movie camera by his dad on his 12th birthday in October of 1936. About six months later, Wood filmed the Hindenburg airship as it passed over his home in Poughkeepsie, just over three hours before it caught fire after docking in New Jersey. Wood, as you know, cast Bela in his final films in the 1950s; I wonder if either of them knew of this tenuous Hindenburg connection… or cared?

PGR’s article on the incident. Note that she also has mistaken a large flaming Hindenburg for a local federal building. Check out the article below the headline: “Record Set in Flight of Airship”? Hardly! Not unless you mean RECORD NUMBER OF DEATHS, lady.

Next, Zorka destroys what looks to be an Army barracks in more stock footage that I suspect comes from an actual incident. As Zorka and Monk fly to the coast — it takes them about 12 seconds, which is totally reasonable — more war footage is used of a battleship being bombed.

Monk does not approve.

Meanwhile, G-Man Bob seems to have gotten himself a plane. First, I want you to scroll back up and look at Zorka’s plane immediately above this, the scroll back down here. Notice anything? Like, the fact that these are both the same motherfucking planes? Which is obvious thanks to all the dents and that white stripe painted on to make the plane go faster? Unbelievable.

Also note that Reeg is flying this baby; I imagine some talks with supervisors, or perhaps a few insurance underwriters, resulted in someone finally forbidding Bob from ever piloting an aircraft again.

Bela at this point is just going fucko bazoo in the role, complete with unhinged cackles and big goofy grins. It’s terrific, really, seeing him give it his mad scientist all, which is more than this role deserved. And right on cue, a perfect example of why this serial is beneath contempt: As planes close in on Monk and Zorka, our evil genius looks positively shocked, as though a scenario where officials would attempt to prevent him from killing more people never occurred to him.

Thinking on his feet, he decides to force Monk into crashing deliberately into the ocean, causing the rest of the tubes full of meteorite to explode all at once, destroying the entire world! Except, even if he had a full gross of those little bombs he had been tossing out the plane for the last ten minutes, it wouldn’t take out a county let alone an entire planet.

Reeg, the smartest guy on screen right now, knows this and volunteers to machine gun the little bastards out of the air. G-Man Bob, the guy who has spent a dozen chapters saying, “No, no, we won’t bother to chase after the bad guys,” scolds Reeg for potentially “blowing us all out of the air.” Please, you wouldn’t even get your hair mussed, you moron.

Monk, being the completely worthless jackhole he has always been, decides to stand up and attempt to surrender rather than partake in Zorka’s suicidal plan.

In response, Zorka breaks Monk’s neck, which is what he should have done 11 chapters ago.

Killing the pilot surprisingly results in the plane losing control and crashing into the ocean anyway, complete with the meteor on board. The Toomster is given the ridiculous dialogue of suggesting he and Bob follow the plane down as it crashes into the water; this is done entirely to give G-Man Bob the very authoritative job of correcting his clueless underling.

Regis Toomey may be wearing goggles, but I can still recognize an exasperated eye roll when I see it.

 

Zorka’s meteorite weapons go off all at once as the plane crashes into the ocean, instantly killing Zorka. Noo! Goodbye, Bela! We love you and wish you had gotten better roles in your career!

The explosion from the bomb threatens to destroy the world!

Or, uh, creates a delightful little temporary fountain, whichever. Six of one, half dozen of the other and all that. Ahem.

It’s been an entire episode of let-downs, hasn’t it? The Feds called in the U.S. Army for a serious, world-threatening issue, and the Army shrugged their shoulders and sent them six dudes. Zorka mobilized the Iron Man to destroy the Army, but then conveniently walked the robot past them without touching a one, giving them a chance to blow up the robot. In a panic, Zorka took little bits of the meteorite and went back in time to burn the Hindenburg. Finally, the exact thing everyone had been trying to prevent for 12 long, soul-crushing chapters happens: The meteorite explodes!

And the newspapers hit the streets!

See? I told you she was a plucky girl reporter.

Now that we’ve established that the tiny little spurt of water “shook” the whole content, and without any sort of followup as to what the effects of an entire continent shaking were, we segue to The White House, where some guy in a drab room tells our gang of intrepid heroes that they will be getting medals for saving the world.

Check out Dr. Mallory’s side eye. Like that boy has any right to throw shade at anyone. Bitch, please.

 

Well, everyone except Jean gets a medal, because she’s an icky gurl. But The Toomster, everyone’s hero, immediately realizes the slight and says she deserves all their medals for being so brave.

Aw, Reeg, this is why I love the hell outta you, you big lug.

 

Jean gets a little verbal thanks from nameless White House guy — who do you think he is, anyway? Senator? Secretary? The dude that gets to run the souvenir flags up and down the flagpole? PGR briefly flirts with G-Man Bob, and then…

IT’S OVER! IT’S OVER! OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE HAS COME TO AN END!

It’s a sad day saying goodbye to our friends, rolling our eyes at stupidity and losing our patience, but we got through it together. Thank you all for reading. And thank you Regis, Bela, Anthony, Iron Man, medical bag, and enormous chunky fake eyelashes for being there when we needed  you. We will not soon forget you.

***
THE END
of
“THE PHANTOM CREEPS”

REGIS TOOMEY WILL RETURN
in
“RAIDERS OF GHOST CITY”

After two months of accidental hiatus, we’re back on track to finishing the greatest artistic achievement known to mankind: The Phantom Creeps (1939).

Our story thus far: Dr. Crazypants Evildude Zorka (Bela Lugosi) has harnessed the awesome power of a meteorite harvested from the depths of the 1936 film The Invisible Ray, and plans on using elements from the meteorite to conquer the world. With this element he invents six-legged fuzzy fake spiders that blow up under certain complicated and silly conditions, the enormous and sexually attractive robot known as The Iron Man, and a device that turns him invisible — that is, into The Phantom, who then Creeps around doing things. The Feds are after him, mostly G-Man Bob (Robert West) and his unkillable but confused sidekick Jim Daly, played by SBBN hero Regis Toomey. SBBN calls him Toomster, Reeg and various other pet names, because SBBN loves Regis Toomey, and also makes it a policy to be very, very nice to immortals who are prone to sulking and naps.

Edwin Stanley plays Dr. Mallory, a scientist who is supposed to be helping the Feds but pretty much does the exact opposite. Plucky girl reporter Jean Drew (Dorothy Arnold) tags along with the Feds, while spies — incredibly stupid spies — try to get the meteor for themselves. The spy leader Jarvis (Edward Van Sloan, looking as much like “Gov” from Blazing Saddles as possible without actually being Mel Brooks) is mostly ineffective, but he’s supposed to be clever and evil. His henchmen are interchangeable, and by that I mean the actors change frequently, sometimes in the midst of a scene. Toward the end of the serial, George Clooney look-alike Rankin (Anthony Averill) pulls away from the pack as the lead henchman.

The meteor has changed hands a few dozen times, G-Man Bob has crashed numerous cars and planes, Reeg has been through so many explosions and head blows he should be dead by now but instead has turned Highlander, and Dr. Zorka doesn’t have nearly enough screen time. And now…

The Phantom Creeps
Chapter 11: The Blast

As we near the end of our journey, I would like to give a big shout-out to the people, very likely uncredited interns, who wrote the forewords for Phantom Creeps. I may not agree with the random capitalization or occasional ALL CAPS, but making sense out of this serial is difficult, so I give these unsung heroes a pass. They manage to both entertain and summarize that which cannot easily be summarized, encapsulating it into a couple of coherent paragraphs which surely required the work of at least three expert linguists, a series of well-calibrated scientific instruments and a psychologist, Jungian preferably, but Freudian if that’s all the studio had on hand. Kudos, my friends, and for your efforts I hope you were rewarded with jetpacks and snack cakes in the Great Beyond.

In Episode 11′s opening recap, we’re reminded that the train plunged off the tracks into a raging river below:

Over the Halloween week while my computer languished, broken and neglected, I sulked in front of TCM 24/7. But serendipity struck while I was having a snit, because as I watched The Invisible Man for the third time — maybe fourth, probably fifth, but who’s counting — I realized that the train wreck used in Creeps and Green Hornet was stolen — STOLEN! — from Invisible Man, as you can see here. Seems the interns given the task of finding stock footage to pad these babies out lacked imagination: “Hmm, Zorka turns invisible… invisible… Invisible Man! We’ll use clips from that! Oh yeah, that’s good, I gotta write that down…”

Before we get to the meat of Episode 11, I confess that there is a minor error in my last post. This is very scandalous and irresponsible on my part, and there’s nothing to be done except cry a lot and beg for forgiveness. But I have what I think is a good excuse: I cannot hear the damn dialogue at all.

In Episode 10, the spies are hanging out at the train station being really fucking smug, which is why I figure they did use Von Moustache as a diversion. Henchman Clooney Guy and Ringleader Gov took the meteorite, safely held in world’s oldest medical bag, used for centuries to store the original Huangdi Neijing, to another location as Henchman Von Moustache boarded the train. He does not have a bag of any kind, though, so how dumb do Bob and PGR have to be to forget they were following someone carrying a satchel full of meteorite? I submit to you that I cannot be fully blamed for not realizing, even after ten episodes, that PGR and G-Man Bob were that stupid. Sure, they’re “I thought these SweeTarts were aspirin” stupid, but being foiled by Von Moustache in this manner is drowning in a shower because you forgot to close your mouth stupid.

After the intro and the recap, we’re treated to some spectacular footage of the aftermath of the train crash. Much like prime real estate or the restrooms in a tasteful art museum, the train wreck was conveniently located: The tower Zorka had been enjoying a fistfight in was apparently at the exact point where the train derailed, so when he hit those unconnected levers on some old workshop bench used as a prop… er, I mean, when he hit those super important high-tech train controls, the train derailed just at the foot of the tower.

“Ow! I bumped into some silly levers, but I don’t think they do anything… wait, did I just hear something?”

*the terrible screams of innocent victims doomed to burn alive*

 

“Oh. Oops.”

 

Dr. Z trots on down to the wreckage, where sirens and people are screaming exactly as they did during the 1920s factory fire footage, in a short 12-second loop with a Wilhelm-esque “Aaaah!” that makes the repetition obvious. Zorka overhears the meteorite was not on the train, so he smiles quietly to himself as the scent of burning flesh wafts about.

Meanwhile, Reeg and Dr. Mallory head to Zorka’s lush manse to “give the place a real once-over” which, in the middle of chapter 11 of a 12-chapter series, is a pretty good indicator that a whole heap o’ shit has gone wrong during the investigation of this case.

To add to the list of things that have gone wrong, I’m reasonably sure Plucky Girl Reporter was driving this car in Chapter 9, though now Dr. Mallory and The Toomey have it. It’s allegedly a 1939 Nash Lafayette, according to a guy in comments who is just as rude as I am, which is karmically satisfying but a touch irritating. Truth be told, I can’t find a clear online picture of a 1939 Nash Lafayette that looks like this car, they all look to have slightly different lights and grille. This seems to be the 1939 Nash Ambassador identified here on the IMCDb rather than a Lafayette, and pretty much every character has driven it at some point, with no explanation as to why or how it is changing hands. What else do these people share? Toothbrushes? Prescription medications? BEDS?! This erotic vagrancy will not stand!

Speaking of wrong, the moment Reeg steps into the mansion in pursuit of that good once-over, he fires wildly at movement off screen. That movement is, of course, Monk, the worthless sidekick who was just shot, like, eight minutes ago in Episode 10. He was apparently already up and walking around like nothing was wrong, something you’d think that he’d know not to do after 11 damn chapters of this shit. Just play dead, Monk. It’s the safest way outta this serial.

But Monk does not learn, which is why Reeg and Mallory, once again losing focus and forgetting to give the mansion that “real once-over” they promised, drag Monk’s wounded ass out to the car and drive him somewhere. Reeg is just straight-up lounging in the car, half pretending to drive, half napping, with Monk in the back pretending to be unconscious — something the Toomster has already fallen for at least once, mind you — when he passes the spies going the other way. Because, as we have already established, there is no traffic to speak of during the day on this major California coastal highway, and this is the only road to anywhere, which is why the Feds and the Spies and the Zorka and the Plucky Girl Reporter pass each other constantly.

There is a bit of fun for the viewer at this point, though. When it’s time to act as though he has seen the spies passing the other way, Regis Toomey leans forward, shakes off the drowsies and blinks himself out of his half-nap, like he just woke up on the couch after Thanksgiving dinner. You can tell Regis is a cool cat, though, because when he keeps himself from shouting, “Hey what’s the score are we ready for some pie do you need help with the dishes? Where am I?” A consummate professional.

To follow the spies, the driver hired for these interminable second unit road shots doesn’t make a U-turn. Oh no, he opts for the excitement of what must have been a 17-point turn, the entirety of which we are forced to watch. The spies, heading to the port to get the meteor out of the country, are unconcerned because they have… a smokescreen!

Regis Toomey, confused by a fog machine.

 

It works, of course, because Regis, god love ‘im, really kind of sucks at this whole G-Man thing. And then Monk conks Reeg on the noggin since a head blow was exactly what the guy needed, although he kind of deserves it because he already fell for this once and should know better, plus a head blow is no big deal to a man who has been literally exploded and survived, so we’ll chalk this up to tough love. Monk runs off, an impressive feat given he has been shot a dozen times and is also on the verge of complete stress-induced cardiovascular shutdown thanks to all the Monk menacings.

“There’s no use going after him now,” intones Regis as he comes to, which is exactly the weak-ass reason given by Bob for not chasing after the bad guys in the first several episodes of this serial. A moment later, he sulks as Bob the hypocrite lectures him. “I wish I hadn’t let that guy get away,” he pouts.

Oh, Reeg.

 

After a Monk menacing too short to really be satisfying, the robot is used to unlatch the safe he’s opened a couple dozen times before, which again seems like a ridiculously inefficient use of a 7-foot mechanical man. But we do learn that Zorka has a bit of the element left behind: “I still have enough elements to destroy all my enemies!” he gloats.

You gotta admit, that’s a game changer right there. It’s also one of two amazing plot twists that turn the finale into the glorious bag of what-the-fuckery that it is, my friends. See, because Zorka doesn’t want to directly attack the spies with the elements he has retained because it would probably destroy the meteorite, he’s relegated to… oh, but I don’t want to spoil it.

One hot Hungarian, an awesome mechanical machine-man, and a complete fucking dink.

 

Back at the Bradley Building (“For All Your Evil Spy Headquarters Needs. Off the Beltline.”) the spies try to broadcast coded messages to let their international cohorts know the meteorite will be on a submarine out of the country. Their code, by the way, is brilliant, with the secret word for “urgent” being… “urgent”.

Continuing to display the superior spy skills that make them a leader in the field of international intrigue, neither Gov nor Henchman Clooney Guy notice when Zorka invisiblates into The Phantom and sneaks into their car, even though he opens the door normally and slams it shut. People, people, this is why evil never succeeds!

It is here I need to reveal to you another startling discovery: The Phantom Creeps is apparently almost entirely stolen from the 1934 serial The Vanishing Shadow. Not just footage, as I had thought, but even some sets with a few modifications; for example, the exterior and interiors of the mansion are the same, though a pair of sliding doors inside the mansion in Shadow were removed and one of those Shadow doors became the front door for Creeps. There are other similarities, like the mad scientist with an invisiblator called a Vanishing Ray and a destructive beam called the Destroying Ray, his chauffeur, an airplane fetish, the rustling of bushes to indicate an invisible man walking through, a large metal robot, everything.

(Via YouTube.)

Although I think it’s safe to say that the Iron Man in Phantom Creeps outmenaces this little guy any day of the week. So adorable. He even has a cheese wedge for a nose!

Not that there aren’t significant changes made to the Vanishing Shadow plot, but it’s clear the production of Creeps was predicated on finding an extant script and footage to co-opt as their own, then modify just enough to prevent lawsuits and tears. The Vanishing Shadow starring Onslow Stevens and Ada Ince is available on YouTube, though I don’t recommend it for anything but a sleep aid and/or horrible example.

To illustrate how poorly the Shadow footage was integrated with the Creeps scenes: This is a link to The Phantom Creeps, Chapter 11 at about 14:48 in, showing a road crew headed by Lee J. Cobb, whose first screen appearance was in a small part in Vanishing Shadow. Even if you don’t know a thing about either Shadow or Creeps, you can tell exactly where the re-used footage ends and the Creeps footage begins. It’s beyond incompetent, but I still urge you to take 25 seconds out of your day and watch that short sequence. Now imagine that shit for the entire finale of Chapter 11, and you’ll know why I started looking up instructions on the internet on how to chew my own foot off.

This scene isn’t even in this chapter; it’s from Chapter 8 during the “Hey, Bob!” sequence. For fuck’s sake, they couldn’t even get the lobby cards right for this episode! Aaagh! FUCK YOU, Phantom Creeps. Fuck you so much.

 

For those of you brave souls playing the The Phantom Creeps Really Fucking Sucks home game, you can compare the original footage from Vanishing Shadow with the mangled re-purposed Creeps version here:  The Vanishing Shadow begins here and continues here; Creeps begins here.

This episode is a good three minutes shorter than most others, but they make up for it by the fiendish idiocy of the cliffhanger, composed entirely of incompetent second unit footage and poorly manipulated clips from The Vanishing Shadow. The spies pass through the roadblock just prior to PGR and Bob driving through. A wacky plot twist involving Eddie Acuff and stupidity got them into a car that somewhat matches the Shadow footage; basically, PGR said, “Let me drive, in case you have to do any shooting!” thus explaining why an icky gurl is driving instead of a man, which, as described in Galatians 2:1, is a direct affront to God.

 

And here is where my patience finally crumbled: PGR occasionally drives on the right, U.K. style. There is no reason for that, so I am forced to blame it on stupidity. What’s worse is that the original footage from Shadow has the driver, Ada Ince, on the correct side. The specific clip used in Creeps was apparently something left on the cutting room floor, unused until Creeps needed them. And they were deliberately flipped to put the driver on the wrong side, just to match the mistake of the second unit filming PGR driving on the wrong side!

That’s Ada Ince and Onslow Stevens in flipped footage from The Vanishing Shadow repurposed for The Phantom Creeps, Chapter 12. If your internal organs can handle the pain, here’s the full driving sequence from Chapter 11.

 

So the road crew blows up a hill as PGR and G-Man Bob drive past, ostensibly burying them in dirt clumps and chunks of unfortunate prairie dogs that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cliffhanger! Will they survive?

The big question, I think, is will we? Because I am very close to posting a video of The Phantom Creeps DVD being burnt, run over by a truck, smashed, spat upon, fed to a goat, the droppings buried, dug back up again, shot, then the tiny little shards gathered up and carried across the country during a three-month road trip where, once a day, no matter where my broken-down Pontiac had carried me, I would bury a piece in a shaded corner of the town cemetery until the entire disc was gone, and so were the nightmares. Then I would return home, aged and bearded, my life a shambles but with a tiny hope that it could be pieced back together, if only because I knew that the same hope did not exist for this accursed DVD.

So anyway! Stock up on Gatorade, holy water and Imodium and meet me back here in a few short days for the exciting conclusion of The Phantom Creeps!

Chapter 9:
Speeding Doom

The Phantom Creeps was filmed more than three decades before I was born, yet I feel somehow responsible for the frank, unabashed boredom in the slower episodes of the serial. There’s some guilt for subjecting you fine people to these terrible things, is what I’m saying, yet not enough guilt to make me stop. I will not stop. I can not stop. It is a disease, a virus with no known cure, a fever that must run its delirious course. But we are at last in the final stages, my friends, and for that we can all be thankful.

When we last left our heroes and villains, they were languishing in some stock footage of a burning building, at once spectacular in scope as well as hilarious due to being so dated and overused. In re-watching this episode I discovered that the spies’ security guard locked in a closet by G-Man Bob and Toomey in the last episode was never let out, so apparently he dies a horrible death, thanks to our heroes. Nice work, guys.

 

Just look at this, wouldya? The blocking here is completely unacceptable. Everyone is in a single-file conga line while watching the action off screen, which is the exact thing we were told not to do in high school theater class, where I set the acting world aflame as Viney, the maid in “The Miracle Worker.” My dipshit Kansas high school teacher with a mental illness and predilection for banging her students knew this simple blocking rule, which means at least one person on the set of The Phantom Creeps must have known it, too. C’mon, guys, you’re not even trying.

The most observant of the three spies is not only very obviously blasted on whatever hooch the crew was stashing behind the props, he has seen Zorka sneaking off with the wooden crate containing the magical mysterious meteorite of mystery and magic. The trio jump into their 4-ton 1939 Cadillac Series 90 (with that delicious hood ornament still intact) and give chase.

Speaking of, I got a little obsessed with the cars in this chapter because this is one damnably boring episode. The spies have that lovely Caddy:

And Plucky Girl Reporter is driving what I think is a sporty 1939 Plymouth De Luxe:

This is Zorka’s car, which the IMCDb says is a 1929 Cadillac:

Well, that’s enough fun, gotta get back to the Creeps, where we find someone on set apparently was paying attention, at least to the editing.  After eight episodes that began with a solid block of three to five minutes of recaps, they do a little something different this week and split the recap into smaller, more easily-digestible chunks and puree it in with new footage. That’s why, after Zorka and the three dimwits speed off, we go back to the burning building stock footage.  G-Man Bob is valiantly trying to toss an unconscious Regis Toomey out of a window, which is, of course, your basic standard procedure on how to handle an unconscious Toomster. This is less amazing than it sounds, or perhaps more amazing depending on your point of view, because the stock footage has progressed to the point that the burning warehouse is completely consumed and the outer walls are collapsing into the bay.

This once proud pillar collapses dejectedly into the bay. Moments later, his wife reassures him that it happens to everyone on occasion, it’s no big deal, they can just snuggle.

 

It’s difficult to suspend the proverbial disbelief in this scene, something apparently even the directors knew, so they attempted to mitigate the issue — and this is the less and/or more amazing part — by preventing Bob and Toomie from escaping until the walls collapse, as though an enormous, flaming, four-storey building collapsing on top of you merely provides a hole through which you may gently exit.

Thus, the building collapsed, and Bob and Toomie were tossed into the bay along with a couple of hastily mocked-together window frames. They are rescued and Reeg, in a rather disturbing development, shows signs of serious injury. He’s carried off by a bevy of strong lads, presumably to a doctor, but I think maybe they need to check for Kryptonite because no conk on the head and brief swim in the sea is going to take out Regis Toomey like this. I will not have such shenanigans, movie serial.

Back at the car chase, we’re treated to a hilarious bit where the spies apparently shoot Zorka from behind. He keels over and the car careens off the road to what looks like the carpark of a delightful picnic area. As he veers off the road, we see that somehow the spies were able to shoot him in the front passenger side wheel well despite being 20 yards back and to the left, so clearly a magic bullet was involved. Since the shot-up wheel well we’re shown belongs to an entirely different car, it looks like some magic stock footage was involved as well.

But it gets better: Zorka was only pretending to be injured, so he busts away from them again, invisiblates, conks someone on the head then takes their gun. As he re-invisiblates…

Zorka disappears, but the gun he is holding does not. Truly remarkable. How does the Invisiblator know to make his clothes invisible but not the handgun? By science, that’s how!

Two of the spies run off and are seen by Plucky Girl Reporter who is quite literally sitting in her car across the middle of the road for no reason. A third spy, the drunkest of the lot and rapidly becoming my favorite character, is captured by Zorka, who for some reason ArachnoBlams him even though he’s only two feet away and could quite easily be shot, pistol whipped, elbowed in the ribs, tipped over, covered in a blanket, or any number of other, less wasteful things.

Meanwhile, Dr. Mallory has got the smugs because he’s not the one who lost the meteorite this time.

 

After a brief Monk menacing that is really more of a Monk mild scolding, the spies end up back at the pier, or maybe a different pier, who knows, it’s some place next to the water and ships are sailing. PGR sees the spies take the meteor to another yacht and alerts everyone, who meet up with her at the pier. When Toomey arrives, PGR is obviously concerned for his health, and truth be told, he is walking like a man who has been hit on the head many times per week for the last, oh, let’s say eight weeks or so. Yet I cannot be made to believe Regis Toomey is seriously injured, not after everything we’ve been through together.

Because I am distracted by things other than the plot this week, here’s another tangent: PGR’s dress looks very similar to one I had when I was in high school. There was a bit of an Old Hollywood deco/moderne theme in fashions and decor in the 1980s, and one of my favorite dresses was nearly identical to PGR’s here. It was covered in polka dots and made out of a space-age polymer, but otherwise matched PGR’s, even down to the boutonniere:

Please ignore my spiral perm and the teacher’s spiky ‘do. Sure, it was 1989 and we were stupid, but you probably were too. Note PGR’s concerned look at a wounded Regis in the lobby card detail on the right.

 

Back at the show, G-Man Bob gets into another plane. Oy with the planes already! Who would give this man a plane at this late date? Psychos? Idiots? Insurance scammers? Wait, do insurance scammers own lots of planes? The must own lots of planes because nothing else makes sense at this point. Just… just whatever. Just fly your plane, Bob, and leave me the hell out of it. Hand to God, Bob, I am done with this.

Toomie, PGR, Eddie Acuff and other assorted people I don’t care about get into a boat to approach the spies’ yacht, because that plan worked so well last time. Monk and Zorka arrive, too, and sit in a boat that I don’t think ever launches away from the pier. The spies see Bob’s posse floating around but no one sees Monk and Zorka, even though it’s a clear and lovely day and they are not even trying to hide. It’s all very silly and now you know why I was staring at the cars and the dresses for these 18 long minutes.

G-Man Bob’s cunning plan is to drop a note onto the yacht threatening to blow it up if they don’t turn over the meteor. Now, despite being nowhere near the yacht, the good mad doctor Zorka somehow guesses at the contents of the note. He laughs at Bob’s ultimatum and declares it a bluff — bombing the yacht means bombing the meteor, which would result in a massive explosion that would flatten the entire coastal city.

But Dr. Zorka, like dozens before him, has underestimated Bob’s stupidity. Bob does indeed bomb the yacht, nearly hitting it a few times before the spies send out a dummy bag pretending it has the meteor in it. Bob looks really fucking smug in this sequence, which is completely unjustified because, if you will recall, the G-Men have no neometer anymore since the completely useless Dr. Mallory lost it. No neometer means no idea the spies have sent over an empty bag; the neometer was their only chance at detecting this, because every last one of these agents slept through Things The Enemy Will Do To Trick You class in G-Man School.

As the transfer is made, the spies attack the G-Men and PGR and conk The Toomster on the head. An unconscious Toomie falls face first into PGR’s lap and knocks the throttle forward, and she is unable to move the lever because Reeg’s body is in the way.

Pardon the poor quality of the screen capture, but I simply had to share this moment with you. I will not lie to you good folks: Regis Toomey face down in Dorothy Arnold’s crotch got my attention, and fast.

 

Lots of fast-motion fighting occurs as the boat speeds toward things and barely misses them, PGR having difficulty steering with Reeg down there doing whatever it is he’s doing, and I shall not speculate because I am a lady, and ladies don’t fucking talk about shit like that.  After what passes for excitement in this serial — the random henchmen falling off the boat as it dodged floating whatnots was pretty funny, I have to admit — PGR’s meager sailing skills betray her and the boat finally crashes into a buoy.

We already had two B-level character actors floating about in the water this episode, and it looks like we’re gonna revisit that delightful theme next time in episode ten. This is an episode which promises more InvisiZorka, more henchmen that look like George Clooney, and — just possibly, I say in a teasing fashion — the return of the Iron Man. So please, join me next time for another edition of Why The Hell Am I Doing This Theatre.

The Phantom Creeps
Chapter 8: Trapped in the Flames

 

When we last left G-Man Bob, he was about to crash yet another airplane, leading us to several inevitable questions: How large is the FAA file on this guy?  Has he ever actually landed a plane? What are the gross annual earnings of the half-dozen scrap metal businesses that thrive on the broken, mangled airplane wreckage Bob leaves in his wake?

The crash heralds a few minutes of what I refer to as Mostly Dark Theatre; it’s impossible to see what is going on, and while it might be the terrible print that exhibits a plethora of deep scratches and murky greys, the lack of light also conveniently concealed poor special effects.

The bad guys and their hired sailors gloat about taking down G-Man Bob, which you’ll notice they did with a couple of department store rifles they picked up as an impulse buy at K-Mart while grabbing some snacks and a couple of folding chairs. The thing is, the spies didn’t really succeed at anything. G-Man Bob is contractually obligated to destroy all planes whether he’s being shot at or not .

 

Note the extra on the left: That’s character great Al Bridge, known mostly for his roles in Preston Sturges flicks. He does pretty much nothing in chapters 7 and 8 except say “Yes, sir” and stand around. By the time he was in Creeps he had been in over 100 films, mostly small roles, though usually not thankless bit parts like this one. It’s true, The Phantom Creeps demeans us all.

Before slamming elegantly into the pier, G-Man Bob bailed out of the plane, requiring stalwart sidekick Regis Toomey to go search for his buddy.  I will assume Toomey wants to find Bob floating face up and not the other way around, though sometimes I’m not so sure. There’s an underlying hostility there, is what I’m saying.

Reeg illustrates well his finely honed FBI search and rescue skills by hopping into a boat, sailing out about 12 feet from the shore and yelling, “Hey, Bob!” Your hard-earned tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen.

The Toomster hollerin’ all over the place doesn’t attract the spies because they’re just as dim as everyone else in this serial, though it does manage to attract Bob, who swims to the boat because Regis can’t sail it to him for some reason that I’m sure has nothing to do with the fact that he is standing in something that is less a boat than it is a cardboard prop with Saran Wrap glued to it to prevent it from sinking for the 10 minutes they need it. Reeg pulls Bob into the boat, a moment which becomes unintentionally hilarious as actor Robert Kent spazzes out and kicks and squirms so much Reeg almost throws him back into the water and shouts “CUT!” out of frustration.

The pair investigate the yacht but the spies have already scarpered. Despite the fact that the crew was visibly helping the spies moments earlier, the captain says oh hey no, mang, those dudes were just renting the yacht, we thought they were shooting delicious seagulls in the middle of a densely foggy night and not at you in the plane, dude, for serious. Well, no, I’m lying to you; that’s just what I wish had happened.  The captain does indeed explain that the spies merely hired out the yacht, and this is presented as both truthful and fully explanatory, which is as confusing as it is boring.

Speaking of boring, the next day everyone hangs out at Dr. Mallory’s place as he makes a new neometer to replace the one he lost and which the spies now possess. Regis is just straight up sleeping on the job here, both the fictional FBI job and the real world acting job. I’m telling you, the guy naps through 80% of this serial, and you can’t hate on that because it’s the smartest thing anyone involved in the cinematic arts has ever done.

We’re now back at the lovely Bradley Building, which BBFF Ivan has recently discovered houses not only our traitorous spies and the sinister Dr. Zorka, but also the criminal masterminds fighting The Green Hornet! The Bradley clips are undoubtedly reused footage, probably from a film made a good decade prior to The Phantom Creeps. Check out the fashions on those that walk by the building. It’s hard to tell, but the woman is in a late-20s outfit complete with cloche hat; another woman on the left comes along immediately after in a tam o’ shanter and outfit straight out of Clara Bow’s It. This footage was clearly not shot in 1939.

The spies finally decide Dr. Zorka is alive, just as the Feds have recently figured out. The spy leader holds court in his office, reviewing the scuffle between his henchman and the mysterious new tenants the previous day. With a delightful sense of smug satisfaction, he declares, triumphant: “The office was taken under the name of Zane. Note the ‘Z’ — as in Zorka!”

Oh, my aching head.

Dr. Z concocts a plan to get the meteorite back by invisiblating and sneaking into the spies’ office. The filmic concept of an invisible man has changed throughout the serial, originally appearing as nothing, merely the camera filming where one would imagine Zorka to be.  That morphed into a vaguely humanoid-shaped transparent white glow, which in this episode is now paired with the shadow of fluttering fabric nearby. Later, the fabric is discarded and a cut-out of someone in a fedora is used to cast a shadow at the same time the transparent white oval is used, which is a nice enough effect on paper, but makes so little sense in reality that I can only shake my head and sigh. It doesn’t help that the backlighting sometimes creates two fedora heads floating about.

Another thing that doesn’t help is that the spies reveal in minute, unnecessary detail the location of their meteorite in the course of what is supposed to be general conversation, giving InvisiZorka the exact info he needs at the exact time he needs it. The stupid very literally pains me. Guys, if you knew how bad my head hurt after summarizing these things…

Cinematic Exedrin in the form of Iron Man is close at hand, however. The spies, deciding that a Zorka alive is a Zorka hiding out at his charming mansion slash scientific house of horrors, go barreling in the front door, wander around the lab, and get sneaked up on by the Iron Man. Because a 2-ton iron monstrosity is nothing if not quiet and sneaky.  He proceeds to make mincemeat of about half the spies while the rest run around like scared kids on Halloween.

G-Man Bob, by the way, is peeping in a window, watching all this unfold. When the scaredy-cat spies run off, Bob and Reeg give chase, ending up at a warehouse near the pier Bob just destroyed the night before. They go in the first door they see and it just happens to be the laboratory where the spies’ scientist is working on the meteor.

In case you were wondering, and I know you were, this is the episode where the iconic publicity still of Monk and Zorka originates.

Bob and The Toomster lock a hapless security guy in a closet as they sneak into the lab, having forgotten altogether about the spies that they followed to the warehouse district in the first place. The spies, being marginally less idiotic today than the Feds are, turn the tables to follow the G-men, but not before just chillin’ and lookin’ all nonchalant and shit.

And here’s where the serial turns into The Maltese Bippy. First the Feds get the meteor from the scientist, but then they’re surprised by the spies who get the meteor back, then InvisiZorka shows up and gets the meteor while everyone who is still corporeal punches each other in the face.

And then everything burns the fuck down.

This is marginally more exciting than the usual endings we’ve suffered through, you and I, though any disbelief that may have been suspended vaporizes like Dr. Mallory’s competence once the stock footage arrives. As you can see above, the warehouse is a wooden building, but Zorka is seen parked across the street in front of a row of brick New York tenements. That was apparently done to explain the brick buildings that show up in scenes from old movies that are used once the fire really gets going.

Footage from a previous film, which appears to be an early talkie from about 1929-1931 — maybe the same one the Bradley Building shots are from — shows the large brick National Produce Company in flames as firetrucks race to the scene, weaving through a sea of Model Ts and past crowds of flappers. Once the firemen reach the National Produce Company, footage changes to what appears to be shots of an actual fire, also from the late 1920s or early 1930s.

Meanwhile, on the backlot, the spies and Zorka have escaped, leaving Bob and Reeg behind. Reeg is unconscious again, and Bob must try to rescue him before it’s too late.

 

Huh. Whaddya know, it’s too late.

Much like The Phantom Creeps lied to its audience, I have lied to you, dear readers. Those low-rent character actors floating about in the bay do not appear in this episode, but I promise you they will be here next week, same Creep time, same Creep channel.