Queen Tika, Gene Autry and a hidden city ............. at the Peckham Gaumont and more memories of Saturday Morning Pictures

The Thunder Guard enter the secret rock

I remain fascinated how one image has stayed with me for over half a century and still has the power to take me back to a Saturday morning in the Gaumont.


So distant is the memory that I can now no longer even remember much of the cinema

But the scene where two horsemen descend into an ancient city 20,000 feet underground whose residents abandoned the surface thousands of years ago has never left me.

Saturday Morn' at the Pictures

The city had a Queen and all the political and social structure of a pre industrial society but many of the trappings of the future.

So while Queen Tika is assisted by Lord Argo, and her soldiers ride on horses, there are robots and a sinister death chamber powered by electricity.

For years I pondered on those scenes and had begun to think it was all in my imagination.

But no they were real enough and part of Phantom Empire, which ran to12 episodes and was filmed in 1935 by Mascot Films.

And I have an article by James Howard in Eagle Times to thank for bringing that memory out into the sunlight.*

Queen Ticka, a robot and Lord Argo

The film was “an amalgamation of science fiction, and the western genre” and starred Gene Autry one of the “singing cowboys.”**

The plot was convoluted, involving an evil Professor, his equally unpleasant gang and a plan to cheat Mr Autry out of his farm which stood on a deposit of radium.

And in to this already twisted tale is introduced the city of Murania which along with its robots and death chamber has a bunch of very advanced scientists and a machine which can restore life.

Queen Tika is unaware of a revolution planned by Lord Argo and a group who have been saved from the death chamber and is more concerned that the outside world will discover the city.

So to foil that discovery she sends her “Thunder Guard” to the surface to pretty much have a go at anyone they come into contact with including of course Mr Autry, who in turn breaks into the city and the rest as they say will be continued.***

Now until I read Mr Howard’s article I had no idea of the plot or that it ran to a full 12 episodes, and am tempted to buy the DVD if only to explore the extent that Hollywood tried to mix the Western with science fiction against a backdrop of revolution, robots and death chambers.

Eagle Times, Spring 2015

In the meantime it is reassuring that another of those child hood memories is rooted in reality, even if that reality was a tad far fetched.

All of which just leaves me to explore Mascot Films, and the actress Dorothy Christy who played Queen Tika.

Mascot Films was one of those small American film companies which specialised in making film series and B westerns and is notable for producing the first film serial to use sound.  This was the King of the Kongo in 1929.

The company was formed in 1927 and merged with several other companies to form Republic Pictures in 1935.

Ms Christy was born in 1906 and her film career lasted from 1929 till 1953 and so like Mascot Films covered one of the most important periods in the history of cinema.

Not that  had any idea about all this as I sat in that cinema just 50 or so years ago.

Such are the twists of history.

Pictures; from Saturday Morn’ at the Pictures, reproduced in Eagle Times, 2015

* Saturday Mornin’ at the Pictures, No 2 The Phantom Empire, James Howard, Eagle Times Vol 28 No 1 Spring 2015, http://eagle-times.blogspot.com/

**James Howard Ibid Saturday Morn’ at the Pictures

***The Phantom Empire is now available on DVD