Details

Release year: 1933

Storyline

The ranchers have given money through Benton to the crooked lawyer Harkness to save the titles to their land. When Harkness gets a better offer, he steals Benton's receipt for the money and Benton is jailed. To fight back, Benton escapes jail at night to become the Phantom.

Top credits

Directors

Fred Allen

Writers

Cast

Kent Taylor — Wade Benton
Lona Andre — Dorothy
Berton Churchill — Mark King
Irving Pichel — Cliff Harkness

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Did you know

• This is one of 20 Zane Grey stories, filmed by Paramount in the 1930s, which they sold to Favorite Films for re-release, circa 1950-1952. The failure of Paramount, the original copyright holder, to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD copy of the film. Therefore, many of the versions of this film available on the market are either severely (and usually badly) edited and/or of extremely poor quality, having been duped from second- or third-generation (or more) copies of the film.

• When this film was re-released theatrically by Favorite Films in 1952, it was re-titled 'The Fighting Phantom' and often shown in tandem with The Light of Western Stars (1930), which had been re-titled 'Winning the West'. It was first telecast in New York City Monday 15 February 1954 on WCBS (Channel 2), in Detroit Friday 2 April 1954 on WXYZ (Channel 7), and in Los Angeles Sunday 5 September 1954 on KRCA (Channel 4); in San Francisco it was first broadcast Wednesday 29 June 1955 on KPIX (Channel 5).

• The 20 Zane Grey stories sold by Paramount to Favorite Films for theatrical re-release, and then to Unity Television Corporation for television broadcast are as follows: The Light of Western Stars/Winning the West (1930), Fighting Caravans/Blazing Arrows (1931), Heritage of the Desert/When the West Was Young (1932), The Mysterious Rider/The Fighting Phantom (1933), The Thundering Herd/Buffalo Stampede (1933), Man of the Forest/Challenge of the Frontier (1933), To the Last Man/Law of Vengeance (1933), Wagon Wheels/Caravans West (1934), Rocky Mountain Mystery/The Fighting Westerner (1935), Drift Fence/Texas Desperadoes (1936), Desert Gold/Desert Storm (1936), The Arizona Raiders/Bad Men of Arizona (1936), Arizona Mahoney/Arizona Thunderbolt (1936), Forlorn River/River of Destiny (1937), Thunder Trail/Thunder Pass (1937), Born to the West/Hell Town (1937), The Mysterious Rider/Mark of the Avenger (1938), Heritage of the Desert/Heritage of the Plains (1939), Knights of the Range/Bad Men of Nevada (1940), and The Light of Western Stars/Border Renegade (1940).