The Phantom of the Air Review: Pure 1930s Cliffhanger Goofiness

If you have a free afternoon and a soft spot for clunky, loud 1930s cliffhangers, The Phantom of the Air is a total blast. But if you hate scratchy audio, repetitive plane crashes, and guys in leather helmets yelling over engine noise, please stay far away. 🛩️

This is a 12-chapter Universal serial from way back in 1933. It features Tom Tyler as Bob Raymond, a border patrol pilot who gets recruited to fly a plane equipped with a Contragrav device.

The Contragrav is basically an anti-gravity box. It looks suspiciously like a vintage breadbox with two knobs glued to the front.

The scientist who invented it, Thomas Edmonds, takes his daughter Mary to the National Air Races in Cleveland to find a pilot. Why the Air Races? Who knows, but it gives the filmmakers an excuse to use a ton of real footage from the actual 1933 races.

Honestly, the real flight footage is the best part of the whole thing. You get to see these tiny, dangerous-looking biplanes buzzing around pylons like angry hornets.

Tom Tyler is... well, he is very tall. He stands so straight it looks like his spine is made of solid oak. 🪵

His acting is mostly just squinting at the horizon and looking brave. It reminds me of the dusty, stiff heroes in older silents like When Arizona Won, where the stunts did all the talking.

And boy, are there stunts. People are constantly climbing out of cockpits onto wings while the plane is in mid-air with zero safety gear.

You can easily tell when they switch to a dummy for the big falls. One dummy drops from a wing and its legs bend in ways that are definitely not humanly possible.

I laughed out loud at that part. I actually had to rewind it twice because it was so funny.

There is a bad guy named Mortimer Crome who wants the Contragrav device for his own evil plans. He has a secret hideout that is supposed to look high-tech but just looks like a basement filled with old radio parts.

Crome's henchmen are hilariously incompetent. They spend about three chapters trying to steal the same box and failing because they keep dropping it on their own feet.

Also, keep an eye out for a very young Walter Brennan. He plays a pilot named "Skid" and has about five minutes of screen time, but he still steals his scenes just by being weird.

The music is incredibly repetitive. It is the same brassy adventure theme played on a loop, sometimes cutting off mid-note when a scene ends abruptly.

By chapter eight, the formula starts to wear thin. Bob gets trapped in a burning plane, the chapter ends, and then the next chapter starts and he just... jumps out easily. 🤷

It is cheap, it is silly, and it has almost no logic. But there is a charm to how fast it moves and how little it cares about making sense.

Stuff I wrote down while watching:

• The "Contragrav" device has a dial that goes up to 10. Why not 11?
• Every single character wears their pants pulled up to their armpits.
• The sound of the plane engines is so loud it drowns out half the dialogue, which is probably a blessing.
• A guy gets hit with a wrench and the sound effect is like a hollow coconut cracking.
• The hero's dog, Captain, is clearly the smartest actor in the whole cast. 🐕

If you like old-school adventure, give it a shot. Just don't expect it to make a lick of sense.