Chandu the Magician -- Bela Lugosi plays the bad guy

By Doug Gibson

Several days ago, the astute, knowledgeable Steve D. Stones reviewed the 1934 serial "The Return of Chandu," in which Bela Lugosi is the stout-hearted, good magician. We promised a follow-up review of the bigger-budgeted 1932 "Chandu the Magician," in which the now-forgotten "big star" Edmund Lowe played the magician hero, and Lugosi the foil, the evil Roxor, who plans to destroy the world with a powerful ray machine.

Now Chandu was a popular radio show of that long-ago era, and plots generally need to stay close to the scripts. Chandu is Frank Chandler, he has a sort of chaste romance with the Princess Nadji, played by Irene Ware, and he's protecting the same family, in the film called "The Regents," dad, mom and two teenage kids named Bobby and Betty Lou. What's happened is that Roxor has kidnapped the Regent patriarch so he can get the information on his death ray (why would anyone invent a death ray that can destroy the world, or turn it into a mindless, brute era??)

But he does, and he wants Nadji as well and Roxor also is not above selling the kids into slavery, anything to get dad to cough up the formula. The relatively short film, 70-plus minutes, has Chandu doing his best to foil Roxor's plans.

"Chandu the Magician" is a better film than the serial, which drags and drags, and it has some cool special effects of that era. A couple involve escapes from stone-enclosed prison rooms and from the ocean. Lowe is not too great as Chandu but he's OK. (Why didn't anyone conceive of having Lugosi play two roles: Chandu and Roxor?!)

A key problem with "Chandu the Magician" is that it doesn't know whether it wants to be a comic spoof of the fantasy genre or a dark fantasy. It tries to be both. That indecision makes a secondary character played for laughs, Miggles, sort of misfire. It's a little jarring to laugh at Chandu having sport with the constantly whimpering Miggles and then cut to a scene where kidnapped, very nubile teenager Betty Lou, played by June Lang, is being sold at auction, in a revealing costume, as a sex slave. The pre-code clashes with the kid code.

Yet "Chandu" is a lot of fun, with scene after scene after scene of good people being rescued by Chandu and his allies. Despite the occasional dark detour it can be enjoyed by kids. Watch it before "The Return of Chandu" if you can. It's easy to buy. The ending is a bit of a letdown. I'm not giving away any surprise that Chandu wins but I kind of wish he had vanquished Lugosi's Roxor in a more exciting manner. Lugosi is, by the way, excellent in his bad guy role.

"Chandu the Magician" was released by the Fox Film Corporation and it had a relatively large budget for that time, $349,000. Director William Cameron Menzies would later direct two science fiction classics, "Things to Come," and "Invaders From Mars." Watch a clip below.

The Return of Chandu -- Bela Lugosi plays the hero in this serial

At Plan9Crunch, we're going Chandu! Steve D. Stones reviews here the 12-chapter 1934 Principal Pictures serial The Return of Chandu, starring Bela Lugosi as the hero/magician. Next week, Doug Gibson will review Chandu the Magician, the 1932 feature film in which Edmund Lowe plays the hero Chandu, and Lugosi the evil villain Roxor!

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The Return of Chandu - Leisurely Paced Serial Action

By Steve D. Stones

The Return of Chandu (1934) is certainly not Bela Lugosi's greatest serial of the 1930s. I give my vote to The Phantom Creeps (1939) mostly because of the giant, evil robot in the serial. Many Lugosi fans cite SOS Coast Guard (1937) as his greatest.

The Chandu character began as a radio drama star before 1934. MGM produced a big-budget Chandu film in 1932 entitled - Chandu The Magician. Chandu was played by Edmund Lowe in that film. Lugosi played his archrival - Roxor, a mad scientist.

In this film, Lugosi plays Frank Chandler, alias Chandu The Magician. Chandu is protecting the princess of Egypt - Nadji, as she visits Beverly Hills, California. A religious cult leader named Vindhyan, played by Lucien Prival, is determined to kidnap Nadji to use her as a sacrifice to bring back to life the goddess Ossana of Ubasti.

Nadji is kidnapped by the cult and taken to a South Sea island of Lemuria. Here we see a number of sets that were used just a year earlier in King Kong (1933). Natives open giant doors leading into Lemuria, the same doors that held back Kong. The natives worship a giant sculpture of a cat.

The entire serial is a back and forth of kidnapping and rescuing of Nadji. In an attempt to rescue Nadji, Chandu battles villians in jeweled turbans, a tiger pit and even a giant paper mache rock that is lowered on him in chapter 11.

Unlike many serials that followed in the 1940s, The Return of Chandu lacks edge of your seat action and fisticuffs.  The serial is very leisurely paced. In chapter three when Nadji is first kidnapped and placed in a mummy's coffin, Chandu uses his magical ring to help guide his vehicle to the hideout of the kidnappers. Chapter 10 spends lots of time showing flashback sequences of previous chapters. This technique was used in many serials to pad out the length of time a chapter would last. Even the Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s used this technique.

Principal Pictures Corp. not only released Chandu The Magician as a 12-chapter serial, but also as two separate feature films. The first feature was of the same title of the serial, and was a condensed version of the first four chapters. The second feature used the remaining eight chapters, and changed the title to Chandu On Mystery Island.

For further information about The Return of Chandu and other classic serials of the 1930s, refer to Hank Davis' book - Classic Cliffhangers volume 1 (1914-1940) and the book - Sinister Serials by Leonard J. Kohl, both published by Midnight Marquee Press. Happy viewing!