“There’s a shaft of radioactive light down there. Touch it and you’re dead.”
A fisherman is killed by a sea monster. He appears to have radiation burns on his body. Federal Agent William Grant (Rodney Bell) just happens to be there when he washes ashore. Also there is a biologist who says his name is Ted Baxter. He is there to see professor King (Michael Whalen). Professor King works at the college of oceanography. The Federal Agent finds out that Ted Baxter’s name is really Dr. Ted Stevens (Kent Taylor).
There have been several deaths where there are burns on the bodies. The federal agent is investigating the deaths. There is also a spy named George Thomas (Phillip Pine) who is posing as Dr. King’s assistant trying to find out what the doctor is working on. He is in touch with a foreign agent named Wanda (Helene Stanton). He tries to list Dr. King’s secretary Ethel (Vivi Janiss) to help him.
In the meantime Ted and Dr. King’s daughter Lois (Cathy Downs) meet on the beach. They begin to become interested in each other. Ted has discovered that a sea serpent has been created from a nuclear power produced by Dr. King’s experiments in the ocean. The creature appears to be protecting a radioactive rock on the bottom of the sea. Ted tells Dr. King that someone is trying to sell the atomic invention and the monster to a foreign power. Dr. King suspects his secretary.
The secretary is killed by the professor's assistant. Agent Grant discovers the assistant's activities and arrests the assistant and the foreign agent. A ship explodes off the coast. When Dr King witnesses the ship explode as it passes over the rock, he finally realizes that something must be done to end the deaths.
“The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues” was released in 1955. It is a low budget independent film directed by Dan Milner. It was produced by American Releasing Corporation who soon after changed their name to American International Pictures. It stars Kent Taylor, Cathy Downs, Michael Whalen, Phillip Pine, and Rodney Bell.
The acting is very wooden, the sets are minimal. The pace is slow. The music was actually pretty good. Too good for this picture. It was done by Ronald Stein. The monster is as good as any other monster created for the movies in the 50’s. I’ve definitely seen worse. Some believe the movie is basically a rip off of Roger Corman’s “Monster from the Ocean Floor”. The plots seem different enough to me for that not to be true. I will say that I liked the monster in “Phantom” more than Roger’s in “Ocean Floor.”
This is one of those you either hate it, or you love it cause it’s so bad movies. I found it boring. But I was OK with the monster.
Last but not least I won’t mention that even though the title of the movie is “The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues”, the phantom does not live 10,000 leagues below the surface. Since generally a league is approximately 3 miles 10,000 leagues would be 30,000 miles. In general leagues are used to measure distance traveled and not depth. Since this bad boy never leaves his radioactive rock distance wouldn’t apply either.