USA. 1934.
Crew
Director – Ray Taylor, Screenplay – Barry Barringer, Based on the Radio Serial Chandu the Magician (1931-6) Created by Harry A. Earnshaw, R.R. Morgan & Vera M. Oldham, Producer – Sol Lesser, Photography (b&w) – John Hickson, Art Direction – Robert Ellis. Production Company – Principal Pictures Corporation.
Cast
Bela Lugosi (Frank Chandler/Chandu), Maria Alba (Princess Nadji), Deane Benton (Bob Regent), Lucien Prival (Vindhyan), Phyllis Ludwig (Betty Regent), Clara Kimball Young (Dorothy Regent), Josef Swickard (Tyba), Wilfred Lucas (Captain Wilson)
Plot
American Frank Chandler has trained in the ways of the yogi and operates as the crime-solving magician Chandu. Cult followers of Ubasti from the lost island of Lemuria need a person of Egyptian royal blood as sacrifice to reincarnate the soul of the priestess Ossana and seek to abduct Frank’s beloved Princess Nadji. Chandu employs his magical powers as he sets out to stop them.
Chandu the Magician (1931-6) was a popular radio series that ran on the Mutual Network, later being revived between 1948 and 1950. The series centred around Frank Chandler (voiced by Gayne Whitman), an American who had studied in the East and learned mystic powers of illusion and invisibility that he used to fight crime as Chandu. Chandu was the first of the Magicians who were Superheroes and would be followed on the comic-book page (and occasionally film) by the likes of Mandrake the Magician, Doctor Strange, Zatara and Zatanna, and Dr Fate. The popularity of the radio series saw a film adaptation made only a year after the show premiered with Chandu the Magician (1932) starring Edmund Lowe. There was then a sequel with The Return of Chandu, a twelve-chapter Serial starring Bela Lugosi as Chandu. (Lugosi had earlier played the role of Chandu’s nemesis Roxor in the 1932 film).
In the title role, Bela Lugosi makes for odd casting. Chandu is the hero of the show but Lugosi brings the baggage of a career made playing hammy B movie villains to the extent you have to frequently shake yourself and remind yourself that he is not the villain. Certainly, it is Lugosi at the age of 52 when he was still in serviceable shape as a matinee idol. On the other hand, Lugosi’s thick accent makes the role seem stilted. His Chandu could not be more diametrically opposed to the avuncular and all-American Edmund Lowe who played the part in the 1932 film.
The Return of Chandu was made during the early days of the sound serials. Thus many of the regular aspects of the serial feel undeveloped. The cliffhangers are almost all unexceptional apart from a couple of exceptions I mention below. There are none of the vigorous fight scenes we usually get.
The most visually spectacular parts are a series of scenes that have been appropriated from King Kong (1933) of the natives on the island bolting a massive set of doors, along with some okay scenes with the cultists performing ceremonies in a temple. Although one of the serial tropes we do get is having one chapter (Chapter 10) almost entirely comprised of recaps from previous episodes.
The serial aspect does pick up in the second half where there are one or two decent cliffhangers. There is a fine one with Bela Lugosi swinging across a pit containing a tiger using a chain as a rope just as his weight starts to tear the chain out of the rock wall. There is another fine cliffhanger with Lugosi tied to a cave floor as a henchperson winches a large rock down to crush him.
Ray Taylor directed numerous Westerns between the 1920s and his death in 1952. His other genre works include the serials Tarzan the Mighty (1928), Robinson Crusoe of Clipper Island (1936), Dick Tracy (1937), The Spider’s Web (1938), The Green Hornet (1940), Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940), Sky Raiders (1941), The Master Key (1945) and Lost City of the Jungle (1946).
Trailer here
Full serial available here