Produced by Nat Levine, this twelve chapter serial shows all the tricks that made Mascot Pictures so popular. No frills,thread bare sets,sparse dialog but lots of breath taking action.Harry Carey plays Happy Carridan,oil driller whose sabotaged at every turn by a gang called The Vanishing Legion,to keep him from drilling in an oil field. The Legion is led by a mysterious character called "The Voice".He directs the gang and gives orders over a short wave radio.Much of the serial is given to a young Frankie Darro who's Father is unjustly accused of murder.Vanishing Legion, like so many other Mascots has a ragged look,dated even for 1931. Harry Carey portrays Carridan in a happy go lucky fashion well suited for this type of character.Popular star Edwina Booth often goes over the top in her role as the female lead.Bob Kortman snarls his way through his role as the Voice's head henchman..Darro is charming and athletic in a juvenile role. Of course no Mascot would be complete without Rex,the Wonder Horse.The identity of The Voice will surprise many viewers.Carey's future wife Olivia appears in a minor role as a nurse. Except for the opening titles there is no music,the opening theme by Lee Zahler. Typical Mascot serial,aided greatly by the casting of Harry Carey and Frankie Darro.
4 Reviews
High budget serial with plenty of thrills!
JohnHowardReid13 August 2017
Warning: Spoilers
One of my favorite Mascots. True, I'm a fan of Harry Carey. He can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned, and here he has a great role for which he's admirably suited. Carey, Edwina Booth, Lafe McKee, Frankie Darro, Bob Kortman and "This is The Voice speaking" virtually carry the entire serial, so far as acting charisma goes.
Carey looks rugged, yet he's still athletic enough to do his own running, jumping and fighting. Miss Booth is no actress. True, she was fabulous in Trader Horn, but there she had the advantage of speaking gibberish. Forced to parlay in English-American, she is much less convincing. Not that it matters. Even though less enticingly dressed for Texas than the jungle, she has charisma in spades, completely dominating every scene in which she appears.
Lafe McKee, of course, is always ultra-reliable and here he manages to invest his portrayal with a nagging suspicion that maybe he is himself "The Voice". Frankie Darro was never a juvenile I particularly cared for until I saw him (again with Harry Carey) in Mascot's The Devil Horse (1932) in which he did all his own riding and stunting. He does the same in this serial.
Bob Kortman deserves a special paragraph all to himself. A heavy with a ready-made, scarred, irregular face and gravelly, sneering voice which could readily turn to fear when cornered, he was forever inextricably cast as the villain's chief offsider. A serial henchman par excellence.
Perhaps the most popular of all serial gimmicks, the masked/hooded/disguised/unidentifiable master villain gets a great work-out in The Vanishing Legion through the simple, economical yet wondrously effective device of not showing him at all! Communicating with his gang via shortwave radio, his dramatic voice is a threatening whisper, guaranteed to send chills up any juvenile or adult spine.
Of course, more than penetrating the mystery of any menacing mastermind, serial fans are principally looking for action — and plenty of it. That's a commodity that director Breezy Eason is an expert at supplying. True, some of the hangers are a bit weak, but almost always the ep is chock full of fighting, chasing and fast riding. Indeed the script contrives to supply the best of both worlds: — horses and cars, outlaws and crooked businessmen, posses on the manhunt and saboteurs on the oil well. Directors Breeezy Eason and Ford Beebe have handled this melange of action with expertise and skill, assisted by fine camera- work (both exterior locations and indoor studio work) and a generous budget that has guaranteed plenty of extras.
That budgetary largess is also reflected in the fact that this serial has no economy chapters, indeed no flashback sequences at all. Not does the pace slacken all that much over the concluding eps. Maybe not quite as many full-blooded chases put across with such recklessly sweeping running inserts as before, but still plenty of horsemen on offer, still plenty of confrontations and ambushes, arrests and escapes, hostage-taking and temporary alliances, — plus a neat piece of taking flight in which the villain is finally brought under hoof.
What I like about the story is that — replete with action though it is — it always moves forward, never backtracks or takes chapters off to wander down side streets, blind alleys or irrelevant detours. Nor does it contrive to introduce any stock footage or other economies. "The Vanishing Legion" provides high budget, high adventure thrills from first to twelve.
Carey looks rugged, yet he's still athletic enough to do his own running, jumping and fighting. Miss Booth is no actress. True, she was fabulous in Trader Horn, but there she had the advantage of speaking gibberish. Forced to parlay in English-American, she is much less convincing. Not that it matters. Even though less enticingly dressed for Texas than the jungle, she has charisma in spades, completely dominating every scene in which she appears.
Lafe McKee, of course, is always ultra-reliable and here he manages to invest his portrayal with a nagging suspicion that maybe he is himself "The Voice". Frankie Darro was never a juvenile I particularly cared for until I saw him (again with Harry Carey) in Mascot's The Devil Horse (1932) in which he did all his own riding and stunting. He does the same in this serial.
Bob Kortman deserves a special paragraph all to himself. A heavy with a ready-made, scarred, irregular face and gravelly, sneering voice which could readily turn to fear when cornered, he was forever inextricably cast as the villain's chief offsider. A serial henchman par excellence.
Perhaps the most popular of all serial gimmicks, the masked/hooded/disguised/unidentifiable master villain gets a great work-out in The Vanishing Legion through the simple, economical yet wondrously effective device of not showing him at all! Communicating with his gang via shortwave radio, his dramatic voice is a threatening whisper, guaranteed to send chills up any juvenile or adult spine.
Of course, more than penetrating the mystery of any menacing mastermind, serial fans are principally looking for action — and plenty of it. That's a commodity that director Breezy Eason is an expert at supplying. True, some of the hangers are a bit weak, but almost always the ep is chock full of fighting, chasing and fast riding. Indeed the script contrives to supply the best of both worlds: — horses and cars, outlaws and crooked businessmen, posses on the manhunt and saboteurs on the oil well. Directors Breeezy Eason and Ford Beebe have handled this melange of action with expertise and skill, assisted by fine camera- work (both exterior locations and indoor studio work) and a generous budget that has guaranteed plenty of extras.
That budgetary largess is also reflected in the fact that this serial has no economy chapters, indeed no flashback sequences at all. Not does the pace slacken all that much over the concluding eps. Maybe not quite as many full-blooded chases put across with such recklessly sweeping running inserts as before, but still plenty of horsemen on offer, still plenty of confrontations and ambushes, arrests and escapes, hostage-taking and temporary alliances, — plus a neat piece of taking flight in which the villain is finally brought under hoof.
What I like about the story is that — replete with action though it is — it always moves forward, never backtracks or takes chapters off to wander down side streets, blind alleys or irrelevant detours. Nor does it contrive to introduce any stock footage or other economies. "The Vanishing Legion" provides high budget, high adventure thrills from first to twelve.
The critic......has spoken.
Mike-76420 April 2004
Happy Cardigan, chief of a group of oil well drillers, is having his work sabotaged by a group taking orders from a mysterious boss called the voice. Cardigan takes under his wing a young boy, Jimmy Williams, whose father, framed for murder, is on the run from the law as well as a group calling themselves the Vanishing Legion. For 12 chapters its up to Cardigan, Jimmy, his horse Rex to save Jimmy's father from falling into the hands of the agents of the voice, get the oil drilled in time to meet the contract, and discover the agenda for the Vanishing Legion. For 1931, this is a pretty good serial, but a lot of the time the direction is weak, with at times a point-and-shoot format and lots of silent stock footage spliced in. The serial does have its good points, Harry Carey is perfectly cast as the rugged oil driller and does show a lot of nerve with his acting. The "Voice" is a nice gimmick for Mascot and the identity did surprise me. Rating based on serials- 6.
The identity of "The Voice" will astonish you!
reptilicus19 October 2003
Serials have been a favourite of mine for a long time and discovering this one was a treat indeed. Nat Levine made some of the best early talkie serials. With writers like Wyndham Gittens and Ford Beebe (later to become a director) and directors like B. Reeves "Breezy" Eason I can see how Mascot Serials were very popular. This one offers western stalwart Harry Carey as "Happy" Cardigan who is contracted to bring in an oil well. Happy stands to go broke if he does not deliver the black gold on time. Meanwhile a gang of sixgun toting badguys called The Vanishing Legion are out to stop him from bringing in the well at all costs. They are led by a criminal mastermind known only as The Voice. He is never seen but his word is law. There are lots of fights, car chases, wrecks, fires and wild horse stampedes. Can Happy and young Jimmy (Frankie Darro) bring in the oil before it's too late? What about the mysterious woman (Edwina Booth) who seems to be on both sides of the conflict at once? What about young Jimmy's dad who says he was framed for murder and is being hunted by good guys and crooks alike? And who is the mysterious Voice?
I can answer that last question, but I won't tell you who the killer is! The voice of The Voice is provided by none other than a pre-stardom Boris Karloff! Boris had made 2 serials for Mascot, KING OF THE KONGO (1929) and KING OF THE WILD (1930). He keeps his sinister commands at a whisper most of the time but in a few chapters his tones and that trademark lisp become quite reconisable to his fans. Boris' contribution to the film is important to the plot but he receives no billing and this film is left off all his filmographies. Finding it is a rare treat.
I can answer that last question, but I won't tell you who the killer is! The voice of The Voice is provided by none other than a pre-stardom Boris Karloff! Boris had made 2 serials for Mascot, KING OF THE KONGO (1929) and KING OF THE WILD (1930). He keeps his sinister commands at a whisper most of the time but in a few chapters his tones and that trademark lisp become quite reconisable to his fans. Boris' contribution to the film is important to the plot but he receives no billing and this film is left off all his filmographies. Finding it is a rare treat.
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