The Phantom Creeps (1939, Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind)

For the first few chapters, Bela Lugosi can carry The Phantom Creeps. He’s hamming it up as a mad scientist surrounded by actors who can’t even ham. Creeps has some truly terrible performances, particularly from its other leads, Robert Kent and Dorothy Arnold. He’s the military intelligence of... Read full article

The Phantom Creeps (1939, Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind), Chapter 12: To Destroy the World

Sadly, there’s not much world destroying in To Destroy the World. Not even when Bela Lugosi, finally reunited with his meteorite and able to escape, decides instead he’s going to steal a biplane and bomb things. Starting with the federal building. Only he drops a bomb on a zeppelin, which does i... Read full article

The Phantom Creeps (1939, Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind), Chapter 11: The Blast

The Blast features some of Phantom Creeps’s most prevalent tropes. Good guys following bad guys because they happened to drive and pass one another. Jack C. Smith’s henchman (to Bela Lugosi’s mad scientist) getting shot and dazed. Smith’s been shot at least three times (and dazed) in the ser... Read full article

The Phantom Creeps (1939, Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind), Chapter 10: Phantom Footprints

The title, Phantom Footprints, could almost refer to when a spy–seeing invisible Bela Lugosi’s shadow–thinks there might be something there. But then another spy just tells the first spy to shut up about it. It happens twice, first with Anthony Averill saying it’s stupid, then (after Averill... Read full article

The Phantom Creeps (1939, Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind), Chapter 9: Speeding Doom

Speeding Doom once again has the good guys, bad guys, and Bela Lugosi trying to get Lugosi’s box. In the box is a powerful meteorite, which allows for all of Lugosi’s inventions. But the good guys and bad guys don’t know about it yet. They still aren’t sure Lugosi’s alive. Until the bad gu... Read full article