Jack Carlyle

Both Frankie (Frankie Darro) and Betsy (Betsy Ross King) manage to parachute to safety. Meanwhile, 25,000 feet below the surface, in Murania, Queen Tika (Dorothy Christy) sentences the captain of the Thunder Riders (Ray Bernard, later known as Ray "Crash" Corrigan) to death in The Lightning Chamber for failing to catch Gene Autry and thus prevent the continuation of the Radio Ranch, whose popularity threatens to expose the secret underground empire. But the captain, Ord, is spared by Argo (Wheeler Oakman), Murania's Lord High Chancellor, who is secretly planning to overthrow the queen. Back at the ranch, an incognito Gene comes across the rifle that killed his partner, Baxter, but Professor Beetson (J. Frank Glendon) and his thugs are right behind. Discovering too late that his getaway car is missing the brakes, Gene crashes over a steep cliff. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Gene Autry, Frankie (Frankie Darro) and Betsy (Betsy Ross King) all escape the tunnel explosion courtesy of the Junior Thunder Riders, who manage to unlock the secret exit. Planning to broadcast from a shack in the desert, the fugitive Autry is surprised by a Muranian lieutenant (George Magrill), whom he manages to subdue. Impersonating his captive, Gene is brought down to Murania to face Queen Tika (Dorothy Christy), who is displeased that her emissary let "Autry" slip away. Unmasked, a bemused Gene opines that Murania's dead air "is more suitable to rats and moles" than surface people. Taking great umbrage to such heresy, the Queen sentences the intruder to the electrical death chamber, where he is to be executed by a charge of 200,000 volts. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Saved from electrocution by the sudden appearance of a trap door operated by the traitorous Lord Argo (Wheeler Oakman), Gene Autry overhears the Muranian conspirators plan to destroy the universe by means of several hideous weapons invented by Rab (Warner P. Richmond). After subduing both Rab and Gaspar (Stanley Blystone), Gene is able to contact Frankie (Frankie Darro) at the Radio Ranch. Believing that Gaspar has betrayed her, Queen Tika (Dorothy Christy) orders the Junior Riders to be destroyed by a guided radium bomb. Gene bravely fights his way to the surface armament tower and manages to change the bomb's trajectory away from the kids. Unfortunately, the device makes a u-turn instead and explodes the armament tower. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this comedy with musical numbers set in the Old South, Bing Crosby plays a singer (talk about a casting stretch!) from Philadelphia named Tom Grayson, who has fallen in love with Southern heiress Elvira Rumford (Gail Patrick). Tom wants to marry Elvira, but a man called Major Patterson (John Miljan) has announced his desire to do the same, and he challenges Tom to a duel to decide who will have Elvira's hand. Tom is not at all agreeable to this idea, which leads Elvira's father (Claude Gillingwater) to proclaim Tom to be a coward and deny him permission to wed his daughter. Elvira's sister Lucy (Joan Bennett), who is infatuated with Tom, thinks that he's merely being sensible, but Tom thinks that Lucy is too young for a serious relationship. In need of work and not especially welcome in the Rumford's community, Tom takes a job performing on a riverboat piloted by the blustery Commodore Orlando Jackson (W.C. Fields). One night, Tom finds himself in a barroom brawl with a man named Captain Blackie (Fred Kohler), who dies accidentally from a shot fired by his own gun. Hoping that his infamy will draw crowds, Jackson begins billing Tom as "The Singing Killer." Tom comes to realize that Lucy may be the right woman for him after all, but Lucy is not interested in a man with blood on his hands, and now Tom must convince her that he's not a killer at all. Noted gambling aficionado Fields has a hilarious poker-playing bit, and he steals most of his scenes from the rest of the cast. Mississippi was loosely based on the play "Magnolia" by Booth Tarkington. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Seconds before his automobile crashes over a cliff, Gene Autry is saved by Frankie (Frankie Darro), Betsy (Betsy Ross King) and the Junior Thunder Riders. Still wanted for the murder of his Radio Ranch partner, Gene is forced to broadcast from Frankie's secret laboratory in the barn. Meanwhile, down below in Murania Queen Tika (Dorothy Christy) is troubled by the rebellious Lord Argo (Wheeler Oakman), who is eager to blow up Radio Ranch once and for all. Finishing his broadcast with a rendition of "Uncle Henry", Gene manages to escape before Professor Beetson (J. Frank Glendon) and his men break down the door to the laboratory but spilled gunpowder creates an explosion in the getaway tunnel. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In the final chapter of The Phantom Empire, Gene Autry is saved by Oscar (Smiley Burnette) and Pete (William Moore), who manage to drag him away from Murania's feared disintegrating atom-smashing machine. In the control room, Queen Tika (Dorothy Christy) can only watch as a bumbling Lord Argo (Wheeler Oakman) turns the out-of-control atom-smasher on himself and Murania. Deciding to die with her people in the melting Murania rather than live in the undesirable surface world, Tika allows Gene and his friends to escape the underground kingdom. Back in his own domain, Gene tricks Professor Beetson (J. Frank Gledon) into revealing that he, and not Gene, killed Frankie's (Frankie Darro) and Betsy's Betsy Ross King) father. With Radio Ranch safe from usurpers, Autry and his friends perform "Uncle Noah" to end a rather eventful broadcast season. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In the opening chapter of the Mascot serial The Phantom Empire, a stagecoach is held up for its content -- musical instruments. One of the "outlaws," a bashful young man, removes a fake mustache to address his radio audience: "Yes folks, it's Gene Autry making another raid on your time with his 'Radio Riders,' broadcasting from Radio Ranch." After a rendition of Smiley Burnette's "Uncle Noah's Ark", the airwaves are given over to teenagers Frankie (Frankie Darro) and Betsy Baxter (Betsy Ross King), who relay the story of how they founded the "Thunder Riders' Club" for kids. Out riding in the desert one day, Frankie and Betsy spotted a group of strangely garbed horsemen who seemingly disappeared without a trace. Using old buckets as headgear, the kids' reenact the encounter and invite boys and girls to form their own groups and come visit a real radio show being produced. Unbeknownst to Gene and his radio performers, however, there is radium in them thar hills, and not only that; the ranch may also be situated on top of a secret treasure trove, the underground world of Murania, a "Scientific City" inhabited 100,000 years ago by people fleeing an ice age glacier. Professors Beetson (J. Frank Glendon) and Cooper (Edward Peil, Sr.) are after both the radium and the treasure and the former make a couple of unsuccessful attempts at Autry's life. The villains trace the radium to a place known as The Garden of Life, a development that greatly endangers the lives of the Muranian people 25,000 feet below. Their ruler, Queen Tika (Dorothy Christy), decrees the entrance to the Garden of Life be destroyed for good and the capture of Gene Autry, less the area be overrun by radio fans. Alerted to danger by the sound of the Thunder Riders, Frankie and Betsy discover a lost Gene in the desert. "Say, we have a broadcast at 2 o'clock," the rustic crooner exclaims. "If we miss it, we'll lose our contract!" Climbing down from the Garden of Life plateau, Gene, Frankie and Betsy can only watch as their rope is torn asunder by the Riders. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

A newspaper journalist must choose between the two women he loves in this drama. On one hand, he is in love with a publisher's daughter. On the other, he also loves a stage star who came to Tinsel Town to seek her fortune but finds she can only get parts as an extra. The hard working reporter soon finds himself promoted to city editor after he provides a couple of gangland scoops. For a while, he stops seeing the actress in favor of the publisher's daughter. The jilted actress then becomes a gangster's moll. It is during a car chase in which the editor is chasing the crooks, that he must finally choose whether to continue chasing them or to follow the car containing the actress. Naturally, he chooses hers. Love ensues. Meanwhile, the publisher's daughter is left out in the cold. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this western, a man is accused of murder even though there is no body to prove that a killing has occurred. They look and look, but the corpse has disappeared. Only one woman knows the truth, and she's not telling. Fortunately, the accused uncovers her wicked plot and clears his name. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Cowboy star Bill Cody trades his Stetson and chaps for the red uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Mason of the Mounted. Our hero heads below the border to the U.S. to bring in an elusive murderer. His quarry turns out to be the mastermind behind a busy gang of horse rustlers, all of whom are well armed. Be that as it may, the Mountie manages to decimate the other members of the gang and haul the head villain back to Canada. Andy Shuford, a young "Our Gang" alumnus who'd been successfully teamed with Bill Cody on several previous occasion, is back on hand in Mason of the Mounted. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second version of Louis Joseph Vance's 1907 mystery melodrama The Brass Bowl, this early talkie featured stage actor Alan Birmingham as wealthy world traveler Dan Maitland and his evil lookalike, the master criminal Anisty. Leila Hyams played Sylvia Graeme, whose father Andrew (George Pierce) is in jail due to some incriminating papers which Sylvia believes are being kept in a safe belonging to Maitland. Both Maitland and his doppelgãnger arrive on the scene and soon one is impersonating the other, and vice versa, in a confusing game of "who's got the papers." In the end, Sylvia helps bring about Anisty's downfall, saving her father and falling in love with Maitland along the way. Masquerade had been filmed twice earlier under its original title, in 1914 featuring early action star Benjamin F. Wilson and in 1924 starring Edmund Lowe. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide