FOR THOSE WHO CAME IN LATE…

I have loved THE PHANTOM since it opened on June 7, 1996, so you may have seen me going on about it before, for example when I wrote about it in 2010. This year, when I settled on doing a summer of ’96 retrospective, I knew I wanted to skip a few major movies I’ve reviewed before. But I couldn’t skip THE PHANTOM. Not only is it in competition with MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE for my favorite of the summer, and the one I’ve rewatched the most over the decades, but it’s a major piece of evidence in my thesis for this series: that some of ’96’s so-called failures still mean much more to me than its record-smashing mega-hits. Obviously normal people love INDEPENDENCE DAY and THE ROCK, and their directors are still continuing on the paths started by those movies. I can’t deny their importance to cinema history. But they were only ever important to me as movies I rejected, and they don’t even have that power anymore. But I’m still fascinated with some of the arcane treasures the general public left on the reject pile.

Billy Zane (DEMON KNIGHT) is The Phantom, and though he may always be more remembered for playing a rich asshole with short-sighted views on Picasso, I think this is his greatest achievement. He does perfect super hero poses and movements, he got buff for the role in the days when they usually used rubber muscles, he somehow conveys both a wholesomeness and a wry sense of humor. He shows you how to be in on the joke and still believe in the character.

This was seven years after BATMAN, and the last gasp of Hollywood check writers apparently believing that what people liked about it was it was a comic from the ‘30s. But this movie goes hard in the other direction from the “dark” comic book movies of the era, or even the stylization of DICK TRACY. The Phantom generally haunts the jungle of Bengalla in a skintight purple suit and domino mask, though he can pass for a suave sophisticate in New York City, where he went to college. I’m not sure what he majored in, but he must’ve abandoned it to follow in the footsteps of his late father (Patrick McGoohan, SCANNERS) and 19 generations before him to live in a skull-shaped cave and pass for a ghost, fighting pirates and other bullies with two pistols and a ring that leaves skull-shaped scars. The origins of that mission come at us right at the beginning, in less than 90 seconds of narrated backstory, culminating in an A+ title treatment:

I mean, that’s how you start a movie. That’s especially how you start a movie about a guy who has a wolf named Devil and a horse named Hero who help him with his work and even seem to be able to formulate plans and communicate them to each other.

There are obviously Indiana Jones connections here: the cliffhanger-serial inspiration, the jungle adventuring, the race to find ancient artifacts with supernatural powers before evil people do, the screenplay by INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE’s Jeffrey Boam. It’s no surprise that director Simon Wincer (D.A.R.Y.L., HARLEY DAVIDSON AND THE MARLBORO MAN) went on to direct several episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. I’ve always liked that Quill (James Remar between THE QUEST and MORTAL KOMBAT: ANNIHILATION) is basically Indiana Jones as the bad guy – he has a similar job, a similar hat, he even has a Short Round in Zak (Chatpong “Jim” Petchlor), the local kid he uses as a guide and translator. Like Short Round this kid drives – but only because Quill makes him get their truck across a rickety rope bridge that may or may not hold.

Like Indy, Quill finds his treasure in a cave full of cob-webbed skeletons and brings it back to the States. It’s one of three Skulls of Touganda, which would “harness a great energy” if united. He’s a member of the Seng Brotherhood (ancient pirate order the original Phantom fought against) but is working for New York City oligarch Xander Drax (Treat Williams, 1941), who knows that another of the skulls is in The Museum of World History. The Phantom (out of costume) shows up there first and notes that the skull is totally mislabeled before he breaks the glass and tries to take it. While Indy will tell you that a treasure “belongs in a museum,” The Phantom says “I represent the true owners. I want to see them returned.” (I was reminded of this scene the first time I saw BLACK PANTHER, where Killmonger retrieves a Wakandan artifact from a museum.)

The Phantom’s love interest is Diana Palmer (Kristy Swanson, MANNEQUIN TWO: ON THE MOVE), someone he dated in college but he ghosted her and walked to become The Ghost Who Walks. She’s a rich girl but uses her money to travel around adventuring and shit. She bravely heads to Bengalla alone to follow a lead for her newsman uncle Dave (Bill Smitrovich, RENEGADES), who’s doing an expose on Drax. Admittedly Diana is a bit of a dweeb: when she gets kidnapped she asks her abductors, “Do you realize how many laws you’ve broken?”

Yes, I imagine they do. The culprits are an all-female band of air pirates led by Sala (Catherine Zeta-Jones, CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS: THE DISCOVERY), which is another reason I fell in love with the movie right away. Not only did it introduce me to the concept of “Catherine Zeta Jones,” but it has her playing a wicked villainess who becomes a good guy. How am I supposed to resist that? I will not. She’s flirty with both Diana and the Phantom, says that because he picked Diana over her “that could only be love” (true), and I guess she’s attracted to his alter ego too because when Drax tells his men to torture Kit Walker she lustily says, “I claim the body when you’re done.”

Do you get that? She’s gonna fuck his dead body. That’s what she’s implying. Want to make sure we’re all on the same page here.

But then, while kidnapped, Diana says, “What is wrong with you? Why are you so mean? Don’t you care about anything?”

“Like what?” asks Sala.

“You figure it out.”

And then we get to see her silently beginning the process of figuring it out! She needs time to change, but Diana’s little snipe was all it took to flip her.

It’s still funny to me that motherfuckin Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (between WHITE TIGER and DANGER ZONE) plays the infamous pirate leader Kabai Sengh and all the characters converge in a Pirates of the Caribbean style cove to battle him and his army, but it just feels like a brief side quest. I never even remember how the Phantom defeats him – he jumps and grabs onto a rope to trick him to fall into water and get eaten by his pet sharks! What a delightful little guest appearance.

As much as liked this movie at the time – I remember seeing it a second time in the theater, and I bought the clamshell VHS when it came out – watching it again for this series made me realize I Iove it even more now. One aspect that has definitely grown on me is Williams’ performance. I don’t know, I thought he was a little much at the time, but now he makes me laugh so much. He’s so despicable (making the librarian who snitched on him think he’s going to be okay, then stabbing his eyes out with a rigged microscope!) but sometimes he has this “gee whiz” attitude about it, like when the power of the magic skulls shatters all the stained glass windows in the museum and he joyfully says, “I love this!”

And it just so happens that 30 years later Drax plays less like an archetype than a sad truth, because we too live in “dangerous and turbulent times” when “dictators and tyrants are popping up all over the world.” Diana’s mom (Samantha Eggar, THE BROOD) calls Drax “a respected businessman.” He donates to her foundation, so clearly he’s all right! The Police Commissioner (Al Ruscio, ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN) is in his pocket, and if the mayor (Leon Russom, THE PRIMEVALS) isn’t he might as well be, because he defends him all the same.

Uncle Dave tells Drax, “You own companies that regulate public utilities. You control the trade unions, you influence interest rates and stock prices, and you have personal and business involvements with the Zephro crime family,” which Drax calls “tall tales,” jokes about his ex-wives, and threatens to buy the newspaper. Like they actually do now.

You could argue that Drax’s interest in “the esoteric” to gain supernatural power makes him Nazi-adjacent, but I like that he’s not literally a Nazi like the INDIANA JONES villains, because these days there’s so much overlap between the beliefs and activities of billionaires and Nazis that it’s less necessary to specify both.

Anyway, this man is evil, and he must be slammed!

I don’t know why they used that tagline, but I suppose if they used something better we wouldn’t be quoting it today. “Slam evil” not withstanding, I think this movie has the perfect tone. It’s funny without throwing the source material under the, uh, jungle truck. I’ve always thought of it as defiantly corny and old fashioned. It seems to grin knowingly about its absuridity, but it dares to be like this because it knows it’s right, that this shit is fucking cool. The Phantom himself has a sense of humor, but not a snarky one, and often subtle. A favorite detail that I don’t think I picked up on until I’d seen it a bunch of times is that after his right hand man Guran (Radmar Agana Jao) tells a visitor (Robert Coleby, The Young Doctors) “There’s no smoking in the Skull Cave,” Guran and The Phantom share a conspiratorial grin, like this is something they say just to fuck with people.

I mentioned in my previous review that Boam originally developed the script with Joe Dante, who to this day on his podcast will occasionally claim that the script was supposed to be a “spoof” and Simon Wincer didn’t understand that and treated it seriously so it was a “disaster.” I love some of Dante’s movies, but clearly he doesn’t understand the humor of this one, and I’m as certain as I’ve ever been of anything in my life that his spoof would not have been as good or as funny. Thank God they stopped him.

Someone who did like the movie was Phantom creator Lee Falk, who called it “just great” and said “Billy Zane is the perfect Phantom, he looks wonderful.” I agree.

An Australian acquaintance once told me that The Phantom was as popular as Batman over there. I guess that explains why Zane got really into the character while filming DEAD CALM, and why Wincer fought for the gig. Some of it is filmed in Australia, too, though more of it in Thailand.

Being set in the past, avoiding contemporary music and obvious CGI, and using a tone that was out of place in ’96 all make THE PHANTOM feel pretty timeless. I don’t think there’s anything that feels dated in a bad way, but then again, the subject of a white hero in a foreign land would be more touchy now.

Personally I like to think of The Phantom as the ultimate ally. In this movie he doesn’t really fit the white savior trope, because he’s not heroically rescuing minorities (other than Zak). It’s more like he works for them, playing the part of a ghost to chase off the white treasure hunters. The Touganda tribesmen basically appointed his ancestor by giving him the ring in a ceremony, now the locals signal him with drums when he’s needed, and they show up to help him if required. He’s just being a part of the community, recognizing his privilege and his responsibility to do more. (He also looks equally or more cool running around in, you know, the urban jungle of New York City.)

If you’re interested in the character I highly recommend the podcast mini-series The Phantom Never Dies, which explores, among other things, how G.I.s reading comic books during WWII led to The Phantom being carved into ceremonial shields in Papua New Guinea and becoming a symbol of anti-colonialism in other indigenous cultures.

But I understand that some people might still be uncomfortable with the premise. I dream of some smart person doing an update that reckons with that – for example, if a Phantom had a son with a Bengallan woman, who grew up in the U.S. before inheriting the mantle. It will be interesting to see if the recently announced TV series, if it really happens, tries anything like that (it’s supposed to be produced and directed by Reginald Hudlin, who directed HOUSE PARTY but also wrote Black Panther from 2005-2008, when T’Challa married Storm).

You know what, I remember THE PHANTOM not being popular or understood at the time, but I honestly forgot it did open in sixth place bad. It was beat not only by the other big release of the week, THE ROCK, but also by holdovers MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, TWISTER, DRAGONHEART, and, uh, EDDIE. Well, shit. Nobody wanted to see this? It was just me and my friends? Hmm.

The good news is I think the people who still talk about it generally do because they like it. It’s funny that in those days you just didn’t do super hero movies with brightly colored or skin tight costumes, and you had to try to be dark, you couldn’t even be in daylight like this, much less have such a goofy tone. All of those things have become more common over time, but there’s still nothing quite like this because even its most similar contemporaries, THE SHADOW and THE ROCKETEER, are whiz-bang special effects showcases, and by the time we got to Sam Raimi’s SPIDER-MAN it was all about digital effects. THE PHANTOM has some miniatures and greenscreens, but the emphasis is very much on practical stuntwork – climbing around on seaplanes or trucks or boats, riding a horse, leaping-frogging across moving cars, sliding down an elevator shaft and then somersaulting out of it before being smashed. It’s one of the most “feels like an old serial” movies of our times, as suggested by the “FOR THOSE WHO CAME IN LATE” title card at the beginning.

People used to make fun of shots where you can see that it’s a stunt double, but now I really like them. And when it’s an unfamiliar face wearing a Phantom mask I have this subconscious feeling that I must be looking at the real Phantom.

The stunt coordinator is Billy Burton, who had already done YEAR OF THE DRAGON, DICK TRACY and HARD TARGET, and this probly got him the job on THE SCORPION KING. The second unit director is Vic Armstrong, famously Harrison Ford’s stunt double, including in the first three INDIANA JONESes. Yet another connection.

Anyway, I just want to make it clear that I love this movie. Not sure if that came across. Old jungle saying: THE PHANTOM rules, so revisit frequently. Evil’s not gonna slam itself.

tie-ins:

I’ve never seen them before, but it turns out there were two action figures released by a company called Street Players. To quote a Phantom News websight from the time, “Don’t get too excited, however – they both look disgusting!”

One was “Phantom Rider,” where he comes with Hero, who doesn’t look as weird as The Phantom does, but still kinda weird. The other comes with the skull throne and at least is not bow-legged. Also it comes with both of The Phantom’s rings.

The skull ring looks the same as the one I think most people remember as the only 1996 PHANTOM ephemera – a cheap metal ring handed out to some moviegoers, including me. Obviously it was the skull one, not the cross one, because skulls are cooler. I think somebody told me they got theirs at 7-11, but I have not confirmed that. I held onto mine for many years before I lost it. I’m still sad about it. I’d wear it now if I could. So much slamming to do.

I tried to find out more about Street Players, and learned that they made slightly less disgusting dolls of Jerry Springer, Fran Drescher and Dennis Rodman (who can change into a silver shirt and sunglasses that make him look pretty DOUBLE TEAM).

There were THE PHANTOM trading cards, and there was a novelization by Rob MacGregor, who had written the adaptation of INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE and also six original Indiana Jones novels.

Most importantly, Zane appeared in costume as The Phantom in a “Got Milk?” magazine ad – a series of promotions where they had famous people or characters sporting a “milk mustache” to promote the dairy lobby. Hard to explain. I guess you had to be there. Milk did a body good, was what they said at the time. Apparently The Phantom agreed.