Magazine Review: The Phantom Detective September 1935
Quick recap: The Phantom is Richard Curtis Van Loan, a wealthy man-about-town. While he started fighting crime out of boredom and a chance to get thrills, he soon developed a burning hatred of crime and major criminals that allow him to carry on a crusade. A master of disguise, the Phantom Detective’s true identity is known to only one man, newspaper publisher Frank Havens. The Phantom, while not as flashy or memorable as some other pulp heroes, was actually the longest-running.
The cover for the September 1935 issue has nothing to do with the story inside, but is interesting in that the Phantom is not idly watching as usual, but somehow bringing a noose in sight of the murderer.
“Master of the World” by Robert Wallace is the lead story this issue. A criminal mastermind calling himself le Diable Boiteux, “the Lame Devil”, is going around coercing inventors into signing over the rights to their creations to him. Those who refuse are murdered and their inventions taken anyway. The idea is to have a stockpile of super-science that he can use himself to take over the world or sell to the highest bidder to fund the takeover.
Van Loan just happens to be on site when one such invention, a vertical takoff and landing (VTOL) airplane, is sabotaged so that the U.S. Army won’t be able to recreate it, and the inventor is kidnapped. The Phantom fails to rescue the inventor in time, but does learn of the Lame Devil’s existence and general plan, and then begins to plan a counter offensive with Havens’ help.
The Phantom quickly narrows down to a group of men most likely to have the Lame Devil among them, but then gets stymied. One of the Marshall Science Award Committee has a background that would point to him definitely being the criminal, but we have a novel-length story to fill. So he has an alibi for at least one of the attacks; is it real?
As standard for the pulps, the Phantom gets into and out of deadly peril multiple times, barely slowing down for a brief nap at one point. It helps that the Lame Devil is one of those villains who likes putting the hero into death traps that surely the hero cannot escape–and then leaving. When the third of these came up, I was thinking, “You have a gun in your hand. You just killed a hapless henchman with it. Just shoot the Phantom already!” But no. Deathtrap number three coming up!
The biggest disappointment I had with the story was that the Lame Devil never used his stolen inventions to kill a victim in a bizarre and inexplicable way. All the deathtraps and other murders involved normal technology available at the time, excepting pulling a wire in the VTOL aircraft’s engine.
“True Phantom Facts” is an illustrated spread of factoids related to law enforcement and crime. One of the bits is that K-9 units were just starting to be used in New York City at the time.
“Choctaw Rose” by Anthony Rud takes us to the backwoods of Alabama, as a postal inspector attempts to arrest a Cajun murderer. But halfway back to town, the man claims he has not, in fact, committed murder after all, and needs to go back to his wife in the cabin! The creeper of the title has thorny vines, and apparently was a nuisance before kudzu came in. Content note: the postal inspector’s ethnic prejudice gets in the way of performing his job correctly.
“Blind Doom” by Allan K. Echols involves a crooked lawyer named Judge Pound. He’s been embezzling from the accounts of his blind ward for years, but now a new operation could restore the lad’s sight. Not only does Pound face ruin if the young man asks for an accounting to pay for the operation, but he needs the last of the money to pay off a blackmailer. Murder is clearly the best solution, right? Content note: suicide.
“Murder on the Elevated” by Avin H. Johnston starts on the Elevated Railway, where a woman has been shot. The police quickly determine none of her fellow passengers could have done it, so the bullet had to come in from outside. But is this a random shooting, or was the woman deliberately targeted? This one involves a lot of high-handed behavior by the police sergeant that wouldn’t fly nowadays.
“The Breaks” by A. Leslie takes us behind bars as Squint Gallant talks his cellmate into a prison break. They just so happen to be in a cell where shoddy construction has allowed Squint to find a way out. The cellmate gets a lousy break when a fall from the prison wall breaks his leg, then he gets riddled with bullets, but it’s a good break for Squint as that distracts the guards long enough for him to get a good headstart. But can Squint keep up the good breaks, or will his criminal habits give him a bad break, putting him right back at the beginning?
“The Snatch” by John Clemons has a British diplomat incognito at a cheap hotel to escape the press. But just before he needs to get going to an important meeting, he’s held at gunpoint by a would-be kidnapper. Then the kidnapper is interrupted by an agent of a certain hostile foreign power. And then both are blindsided by mysterious underworld figure Shep Malloy. A four-way standoff begins! Shep, it turns out, is a deep undercover operative for the Feds, with his true identity known only to one man. This is the weakest story in the issue, brought down by poor use of third-person omniscient narration. (Pick a protagonist!) Pity, as the plot could have been much more entertaining with tighter writing.
“The Phantom Speaks” is the editorial, and blatant pro-cop propaganda. Among other things, it calls for a crackdown on people who use “slugs” to cheat subway turnstiles, and a federal law to prohibit transporting firearms across state lines.
Overall, a decent issue of a classic pulp magazine, with “The Breaks” being the best individual story. My copy is an Adventure House reprint; they may still have copies in stock.
