The spirit of an executed murderer enters the body of a physician, and forces him to do its bidding–namely, murder. The film starts with Tom Powers (Bogardus) killing someone in a park and walking away. It's not about whether or not he gets away with it – he doesn't – but what happens afterwards. Psychic doctor Stanley Ridges (Paul) believes Powers has the strongest will that the world has known and so is a prime candidate for his experiment. The plan is for Powers to will himself to return after his execution. Uh-oh, guess what .? <br/><br/>The film runs for an hour and so there is never any real time to develop tension, especially given the amount of revenge that Powers and his willpower want to engage in. As a result, it is a matter-of-fact story where this happens and then that happens and things carry along until the end. It's not bad and there are moments of good acting, eg, when Powers is waiting in Death Row and receives an audience with Ridges. I just caught up with THE PHANTOM SPEAKS yesterday, and it's one of a group of disturbing, yet riveting hour long thrillers that Republic produced in the mid 1940s, along with such films as VALLEY OF THE ZOMBIES, THE MYSTERIOUS MR. VALENTINE, and THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST; short, evocative, and deeply atmospheric. While Republic's serials dealt in nonstop action, and their Westerns offered up the artificially cheerful spectacle of Roy Roger and family in a seemingly endless series of singing westerns, Republic's hour long programmers are melancholy, paranoid, world weary, and genuinely disturbing. Directed by such superb veterans as Phil Ford, Leslie Selander, and in this case, John English, Republic's "B" films offered the viewer a vision of the world as a vast, bleak, and friendless place, inhabited only the corrupt and powerful, and their unwilling victims. Superb direction by English, with Tom Powers excellent as the ruthless killer, and the ever reliable Stanley Ridges both sympathetic and harrowing as his dupe. Watch for an uncredited Kenne Duncan in the opening scene as Powers's victim. All of these films, needless to say, should be available on DVD.
Marorr replied
295 weeks ago