Phantom Empire

One of my favorite black and white movie serials is "The Phantom Empire" starring Gene Autry with Frankie Darro and Betsy King Ross. {My mom calls it Phantom Opera.} It was set in the old west. Gene Autry has to be at Radio Ranch by two o'clock. His kid friends, Betsy and Frankie Baxter, have seen the Thunder Riders. There's an underground world called Murania, where the Thunder Riders live and they are ruled by a queen. Gene got into trouble because some scientists loaded his gun for a fake movie scene and Gene killed the guy, who was Frankie's and Betsy's father on accident. The kids decided to make a club called the Junior Thunder Riders. Betsy and Frankie knew that Gene didn't kill their father on purpose. The real Thunder Riders captured Gene and took him to the underground world. He was saved from the death chamber by Lord Argo. He got out of Murania. Then the kids wound up in Murania. Gene Autry's friends, Pete and Oscar, helped find Murania and tried to save them. The kids almost killed themselves by setting off electric rays to open the door. They still lived.

Then Gene Autry spilled the beans about who let him out of the death chamber. There was a war between the queen and Argo. Argo put the queen in chains. She was going to get melted. Gene Autry helped her. Then Argo and his men were locked up in the room with the melter. Argo was going to melt the door down. He pushed the switch which would make the melter go crazy. The queen let Gene and his friends out of Murania and she died with her people as the melter melted Murania. In Murania, they used robots and they used air masks to breath when on the earth. The movie serial is divided into chapters. There are 12 chapters. Pronunciation for Murania is - "mur" like in "murder and "ania" like in "mania". This was a very exciting movie serial, because it has cliffhangers. Don't go down there, you'll get melted!