It's all good until the big hunk of metal appears. This is a good part for veteran character actor Eduardo Cianelli who specialized in playing villains, this edited version of a lengthy serial is lots of fun, but not much different than other tales of wacky mad scientists trying to take over the world. He tries to kill Robert Wilcox in the opening with a poisoned needle blown into his chest, but fortunately a hat stops that.
The mechanical robot, looking like a bunch of metal trash cans fastened together, isn't as silly looking as Lugosi's contraption in "The Phantom Creeps" (also edited to feature length), but obviously young boys giggled in delight at it. Lots of other traps are set, and obviously the heroes are going to get out of harm's way somehow.
Saved by the fact that Cianelli doesn't ham it up and plays it completely serious without obvious madness which makes him all the more sinister. Stuff like this couldn't be sold today, but in the 40's as a chapter play and later on as an edited TV movie (this version), it was a great way of keeping young boys out of trouble.
The mechanical robot, looking like a bunch of metal trash cans fastened together, isn't as silly looking as Lugosi's contraption in "The Phantom Creeps" (also edited to feature length), but obviously young boys giggled in delight at it. Lots of other traps are set, and obviously the heroes are going to get out of harm's way somehow.
Saved by the fact that Cianelli doesn't ham it up and plays it completely serious without obvious madness which makes him all the more sinister. Stuff like this couldn't be sold today, but in the 40's as a chapter play and later on as an edited TV movie (this version), it was a great way of keeping young boys out of trouble.
