Horror Classic 50 of 50: THE PHANTOM FROM 10,000 LEAGUES

Countdown update: After this movie, there are... zero. Zero horror classics out of 50.

Wow! Can that possibly be true? Why, as good as these movies have been, it seems like only... only 12 years ago that I started this project. And now here I am, about to write up the very last one, 1955's The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues. Do you suppose the people at Mill Creek Entertainment who put these DVDs together saved the best for last? Will this phantom be even better than that other phantom who hung around the opera? Let's dive in and find out.

But first! Let me remind you that this blog ain't over yet! Next week I'll be posting the super mega deluxe Horror Movies Wrap-up post. In 3-D!

Synopsis
So there's this guy out fishing in a little rowboat in the ocean, and suddenly a monster shows up, tips his boat over, and fondles him vigorously until he dies.

Wait! They already showed us the monster? It hasn't even been 5 minutes yet! And here already we know exactly what the monster looks like (a cross between an iguana and one of those Chinese parade dragons, but less animated than either)! The filmmakers must have something pretty special planned for the rest of the movie if they're willing to go all-out like that in the first scene.

Later that day, the body of the fisherman is found on the beach by two men: federal agent Bill Grant, and a visitor in town whose name is Ted Baxter. Ted Baxter! Unfortunately, he's not played by Ted Knight, and he's not a dim, arrogant newsman. The two men are suspicious of each other, and it doesn't help when Ted explains that he's in town to see Professor King at the university. Grant doesn't trust Professor King either, what with his mysterious experiments and all.

Not long after, we see Professor King himself come home to the house he shares with his grown-up daughter. When Ted knocks on the door and asks to see King, King runs and hides in his room, then sneaks out the window, because he's suspicious of Ted (and pretty much all other people). Basically, everyone is suspicious of everyone else. If the cast of this movie had been on the game show Who Do You Trust?, they would have won zero dollars.

So, it's pretty obvious at this point that King is the monster, right? Like, his crazy experiments have resulted in his occasional transformation into a sea monster with killing as a hobby. Man, I've been watching so many of these old horror movies I can see this stuff coming from a mile away.

When Agent Grant and Ted run into each other again, Grant reveals that he's discovered the truth about Ted Baxter: His name's not really Ted Baxter. He's actually Ted Stevens, and he's a scientist himself, a scientist who's done a series of experiments with radiation and sea creatures, which somehow has the potential to lead to the invention of a death ray. And he's never been married to Georgia Engel! He's concerned about Professor King's experiments, because they might lead to something pretty unpleasant for all life as we know it. All of this, of course, makes Agent Grant suspicious.

How about a few more characters who are suspicious? Okay! There's Andy, the janitor who works at King's office, but he doesn't get much to do so why the heck am I even mentioning him? And there's King's secretary Ethel, who snoops around every chance she gets.

Not to mention George! George is former student of King's who now lurks around spying on everyone. He's in cahoots with Wanda, an icy blonde who works for... somebody. It's never explained who, but I guess the implication is that it's the Russians. And you know how much those commies would love to get their hands on our secrets for creating death rays and really ugly monsters!

Ted finally manages to make an appointment to talk to Professor King. By this time, Ted has started flirting with King's daughter Lois. Uncharacteristically, King tells Ted to show up at his house any time and walk in the unlocked front door. It soon becomes clear why the writers made this choice: It's so Ted can catch a quick glimpse of Lois wrapped in a towel just out of the shower.

When King shows up (wearing clothing, not a towel), he and Ted have a talk, and King reveals that he, too, knows that "Ted Baxter" is actually Ted Stevens. How did he deduce this? Well, it has something to do with his owning a copy of Ted's book, which has a giant picture of Ted on the cover. This guy is really, really bad at hiding his identity.

By this point, Ted has gone for an underwater swim himself, and he's seen the monster with his own eyes. As he talks to King, the truth comes out: The monster is a sea animal mutated by the hydrogen-uranium isotope, which King created and which was affected by the heavy water, and now the monster is guarding the uranium, and... whew. Anyway, I was wrong. King's not the monster, he's just a monstrously careless scientist.

I feel like this is a long synopsis. Does this synopsis feel long to you? Oh well, it's my last horror classic. Woo-hoo!

So, the next thing that happens is, the monster comes out of the water, starts singing, and soon becomes a star on Broadway! No, I'm sorry. That doesn't happen. But wouldn't be great if it did? The next actually important thing that does happen is Agent Grant and Ted decide to dive into the water and kill that thing. Their plan doesn't quite work out, because Ted is a lousy shot with a spear gun. Soon, Professor King realizes it's his responsibility to blow up that dang ol' monster, even if it means blowin' up his own dang self in the process.

Is It Scary?
It is not.

Lessons I Learned

• A small deposit of uranium on the ocean floor will cause any ship that passes over it to explode.
  
• The best way to endear yourself to the girl you like is to walk into her house while she's taking a shower and sit outside the bathroom door.

Body Count
Six, plus the entire crew of a cargo ship.

My Favorite Lines

• Lois: "You should do that more often!"
  Ted: "What?"
  Lois: "Smile."
  Ted: (with no emotion whatsoever) "Well, all I need is a little encouragement. And you've given that to me."
• Professor King, to his secretary: "Ethel, I consider you intelligent. A bit bitter, perhaps, no great lover of mankind. But intelligent."
• George, to his ex-lover Wanda: "For quite a while, were were just a man and a woman, weren't we? I didn't know then they could put beauty and poison so cleverly in one package."
• George: "You see too much, Ethel. You should wear blinkers." [Did he maybe mean "blinders?"
• Wanda: "You don't look well, George. Or is it just that I don't find you attractive anymore?"
  

Comments
• The answer to my question, "Did they save the best for last?" is no. This was one of those movies that, despite its short running time (this one was 80 minutes), seemed very slowly paced. A lot of the actors were less than impressive... Ted was a boring lead and Wanda always sounded like she was reading lines.

• Doesn't the word "phantom" usually imply something ghostly, or at least sneaky? This was a big, bulky, ugly monster. Not very phantomian. I'm pretty sure he wasn't from 10,000 leagues, either. Maybe it means the monster is a baseball player, and he's played in 10,000 different leagues in his career. But probably not.

• At various points in the film, we see Professor King performing experiments to mutate a turtle, but he ends up killing it. It's too bad he didn't let that mutant turtle grow to be a teenager... It could have become a ninja.

• The part where Ted Stevens is trying to pass himself off as "Ted Baxter" to Professor King, and then Professor King goes into the next room, where he has a science book written by Ted Stevens with an enormous picture of the author on the cover? Pretty hilarious. What publishing company specializing in books on scientific theory would put the author on the cover like that? Why not a picture of something scientific, like an isotope or the periodic table or the universe?

• At first it seemed like a bold choice to show the monster in the first five minutes of the movie. Upon further consideration, however, it just seems stupid.

• Ted Stevens' hairstyle looked a lot like Sean Connery's from the James Bond movies. I would suggest that he did it on purpose, but this movie was released in 1955, seven years before the first Bond film. So maybe Sean Connery stole his look from this guy!

• Every time a character jumps off a boat to go diving, on the score there's this little glissando on the piano as they plunge into the water. It's pretty cartoony, but I liked it. (I hope "glissando" is the correct term here. If it's not, please don't tell Uvalde High School band director Mr. Derocher that I got it wrong.)

Letter grade for The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues: C-

Next film in the 50-movie set: Nothing. That's all she wrote. That's the whole ball of wax. That's the whole bowl of fruit, the whole salad. But come back next week for the wrap-up post!