Singing Cowboys vs. Radium in "The Phantom Empire" - io9 Comments

Singing Cowboys vs. Radium in "The Phantom Empire"

stefan_jones — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:09:07 PST

Matinee at the Bijou rocked. It had a cartoon, a short film or newsreel, a serial, and a feature each week.

SPOILER:

In the last installment of The Phantom Empire, a radium gun goes out of control and begins destroying the underground empire. The filmmakers simulate this by melting, not a model of the city, but what appears to be a matte painting laid out on way. Everything just kind of wilts and sags and runs.

stefan_jones

Singing Cowboys vs. Radium in "The Phantom Empire"

wishnevsky — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:18:56 PST

That's it! The worst movie ever made. Kids on horses with buckets on their heads!... Cardboard robots! Cowboy Music!...WHotwhotwhot whot!

wishnevsky

Singing Cowboys vs. Radium in "The Phantom Empire"

Seth L — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 13:10:25 PST

My love of old serials in unhealthy.

Undersea Kingdom for the win!

Seth L

Singing Cowboys vs. Radium in "The Phantom Empire"

AhnyerKeester — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 10:20:20 PST

@collinxvii: You really are young! These serials didn't show on TV, they were shown at the theater every Saturday. These look like they're from the days before there was a TV in every home. :)

Kids these days. Why in my day we used to...

Just for the record, these are before my time too. :)

AhnyerKeester

Singing Cowboys vs. Radium in "The Phantom Empire"

eyesdelight — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 10:19:54 PST

Great googly-moogly, I remember watching this on PBS's old Matinee at the Bijou show. It was something I definitely looked forward to every week, along with Radar Men from the Moon.

eyesdelight

Singing Cowboys vs. Radium in "The Phantom Empire"

comp_wiz101 — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 09:46:31 PST

Hmmm... reminds me of Bioshock.

comp_wiz101

Singing Cowboys vs. Radium in "The Phantom Empire"

aspiringexpatriate — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 09:38:32 PST

Serials should come back. And the ground is perfectly ripe for them. They're putting money into 'webisodes' which look better than serials ever did. They should just blow those up to film size and show a 3 minute ep before big movies. It's not like the corporations who own the webisodes don't own the movies as well.

aspiringexpatriate

Singing Cowboys vs. Radium in "The Phantom Empire"

papercup mixmaster — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 09:34:06 PST

This is so cool! I'm sad that I was not around in the days of the sci-fi serial. I'm also a little sad that I'm mostly stuck in perspective that sees this titles as funny, not totally-awesome and run-home-from-school-so-you-don't-miss-a-minute-of-the-thrilling-conclusion.

papercup mixmaster

Singing Cowboys vs. Radium in "The Phantom Empire"

92BuickLeSabre — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 09:29:56 PST

So it's like "Footloose" meets Styx's "Kilroy Was Here" meets Will Rogers meets the Mr. T cartoon meets "There Will Be Blood" meets "Rustler's Rhapsody" meets "The Golden Compass" meets "Land of the Lost"?

92BuickLeSabre

Singing Cowboys vs. Radium in "The Phantom Empire"

NefariousNewt — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 09:18:37 PST

Hey, they seem funny now, but I'd love it if somehow the serial would make a comeback, especially sci-fi serials.

NefariousNewt

Singing Cowboys vs. Radium in "The Phantom Empire"

AhnyerKeester — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 09:12:06 PST

Why does this remind me of LOL cats?

AhnyerKeester