The Phantom Rider Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

The Phantom Rider Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 21, 2020

It would be another three years after the release of 1936’s The Phantom Rider before John Wayne would have his career changing role in John Ford’s legendary Stagecoach, a part which at least helped to make (and some might argue instantly established) Wayne the prime Western star of his era. In that regard, it may not be that far fetched to state than in 1936, one of Wayne’s mentors and idols and the star of The Phantom Rider, Buck Jones, was still at least one of the prime Western stars of his era, though for a number of reasons irrespective of Wayne’s ascent, his tenure would soon be coming to a close. VCI Entertainment and MVD Visual have been curating a number of Jones’ outputs in what was one of his “go to” genres, the serial, with previous releases including The Roaring West and The Red Rider. (VCI Entertainment and MVD Visual has also evidently released Gordon of Ghost City relatively recently, but probably due to the exigencies of closures and sporadic mailings due to the worldwide pandemic, I haven’t yet received a screener as of the writing of this review.) None of Jones’ serials would probably be thought of as outright classics, but they all have at least moments to recommend them, and The Phantom Rider is no exception in that regard. It’s a bit overdrawn, as many of these serials tend to be, with rather long, static sections where either long winded dialogue segments or a more than typical assortment of musical interludes interrupt the narrative, but it does offer some surprisingly breezy humor with unexpected consistency, something that helps to elevate this otherwise frankly fairly routine outing.

While there is certainly intentional humor in above average quantities (for a Buck Jones serial, anyway) that keeps things kind of spry throughout this enterprise, there are a couple of “meta” aspects that are in their own way at least as comical as anything in the serial itself. The first has to do with the supposed setting of this story, which involves both a “secret policeman” of sorts called The Phantom Rider (guess who that turns out to be), who is out to keep homesteaders safe from a band of outlaws who are trying to scare them out of house, home and surrounding territory, since the railroad is due and top dollar will supposedly be paid for rights of way (there’s also a subsequent issue with a lost gold mine entering into the plot machinations). The setting, however, is rather humorously called Hidden Valley, which may bring a whole new “back story” to the locale where a certain famous salad dressing was reportedly created. However, the really funny thing (at least for this particular reviewer) has to do with the subtitles, and in that regard, I’d simply urge anyone with an interest in this release to put the subtitles on and then simply chapter skip forward to the beginning of each episode to see the many different descriptions that whoever wrote the subtitles gave to the same theme music that underscores the credits each time. Suffice it to say someone may have had a thesaurus handy.

The serial doesn't waste a lot of time with nuance or fineries, jumping right into a scenario where various homesteaders are being threatened by a gang of bad guys, only to have the white clad Phantom Rider show up and disrupt the villainy. There's some probably unintentional comedy in this very aspect, too, since The Phantom Rider is a sole proponent of truth, justice and the American Way (or something like that), and routinely scares off what are literally hordes of bad guys, simply by showing up. The Phantom Rider's outfit may be the cause of some unintentional angst as well, since his white robe comes awfully close to Klan apparel, even if his face mask (a white scarf) at least doesn't emulate the Klan hood.

More potential hilarity may await viewers with certain jaded senses of humor with regard to that very supposedly "secret" identity, one which isn't quite able to mask the fact that it's an alter ego of the serial's hero, Buck Grant (Buck Jones), a settler who is ostensibly just one of the innocent bystanders caught up in the fracas of villainous gangs trying to scare people out of their land. An actual innocent bystander, Mary Grayson (Marla Shelton), is the obviously love angle here, and large swaths of the serial detail her sometimes stumbling efforts to hold on to her land. The other supposedly "secret" identity is that of the main culprit, who is typically shot from the back and side so that his face can't be seen, though it's literally not a spoiler in any way, shape or form to state that there is next to no actual attempt to really disguise the fact that it is a character named Harvey Delaney (Harry Woods), especially since even from the back and side, you can make out a distinctive suit and hear a very distinctive voice.

The serial is perhaps most notable for some of its comic aspects, with both Buck's chief assistant Spooky (George Cooper) and a bumbling sheriff named Mark (Eddie Gribbon) providing regular laughs. While it's refreshing to have a Western serial built around good, old fashioned white bad guys, there are "Indians" (as they're of course called) here, in not always (by today's standard) PC depictions.

The Phantom Rider Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Phantom Rider is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of VCI Entertainment and MVD Visual with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. The good news is that VCI's Blu-ray releases have been getting better after a number of stumbles, and while some may quibble with my relatively high score in terms of some of what I'm about to discuss, I'm rating this at least in part at this level as a sort of "atta boy" for the label. While there's once again some filtering on display here, there is a noticeable grain field, albeit one that ebbs and flows. It's probably most noticeable in what I'm assuming was some stock footage (and maybe some of that was culled from smaller millimeter formats), and it can be noticeable again when bright skies are in the background, but there are large swaths of this presentation where it's at the very least minimized, and some might argue virtually invisible. The element has been nicely cleaned up for the most part, and damage and age related wear and tear tends to be relatively minimal throughout (look at the mid left center of the frame in screenshot 19 for an example of what I'm talking about). Contrast is generally good, though some night sequence or (especially) day for night sequence have slightly milky looking blacks. Detail levels are generally good throughout, especially in close-ups. My score is 3.25.

The Phantom Rider Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Phantom Rider features an LPCM 2.0 Mono track that simply can't quite escape the recording technologies of the day. While dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly, it, along with the music and especially some of the sound effects, can sound kind of boxy and hollow, without much resonance. There are occasional signs of age related wear and tear like waves of white noise that can kind of waft through certain scenes.

The Phantom Rider Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

While there are no on disc supplements on either disc of this two disc set, this is an informative four page insert with liner notes by Toby Roan that discuss the film and various associated biographies. The score above reflects the lack of on disc supplements.

The Phantom Rider Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The following is said with tongue planted pretty firmly in cheek, but if VCI could simply turn down its DNR Machine to around, oh, say, 5 or 6, instead of the "11" it seems permanently set at, the label would really have some presentations to be proud of. This is one of the more solid looking efforts from the label, but as can probably be gleaned from at least some of the screenshots, the grain field definitely ebbs and flows. That said, I noticed none of the actual encoding errors that have shown up on some previous releases from the label.