The Phantom Creeps

Bela a mad scientist with a giant iron robot, an invisibility belt, some sort of explosive discs that blows up when spiders go near them (I'll get back to you on that one), a treacherous sidekick and enough megalomania to run a fair sized media empire! All he needs to do in order to rule the world is get rid of the cops, some spies, and eventually the army. Will he succeed? He's hitting barriers right from the outset when his wife goes to rival Doctor Mallory and the next thing you know Bela's having to fake his own death using a tramp who vaguely looks him. As this is a condensed version of those serials they use to show back in the day (and I can still remember Flash Gordon getting shown in the early eighties) what you here is Bela getting into various scrapes every twenty minutes or so.

All he wants to do is rule the world, what's everyone's problem? In order to get there, Bela's going to have to employ that giant robot, use a secret laboratory with enough secret passages to fill a dozen Gialli, and put up with that damn sidekick who's always trying to scupper his plans. Things naturally lead to Bela flying about in a plane dropping those exploding discs on everyone, including the Hindenburg zeppelin! Not sure about that one.

For me, Bela works best when he's given the most insane material to work with (like being half Ape in the Ape Man or basically everything he does in Black Dragons), so I'm fairly happy with this one, as he goes invisible quite a lot, use a ray gun to knock people out, and generally portrays a soulless madman convinced of his genius (or genius, if you're posting anything on Youtube). I'm not sure if I'd be able to handle the full version of this mind you.

The special effects, I thought, were rather groovy too!