PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*
The main significance of this cheap-looking and confusing serial is largely the novelty value of seeing a very young Lon Chaney Jr play a costumed western crusader. The character of The Black Ghost wears an all-black outfit and sports (for about two minutes) a full face-mask. When he goes unmasked, though, he sports a large mustache, and this is apparently enough for keep everyone from recognizing the Ghost as local newspaperman Tom Kirby, because, well, Tom's clean-shaven. Even Tom's girlfriend Betty (Dorothy Gulliver) doesn't recognize Tom with that 'stache, and she sees him up close more than anyone else. Oh, and the Ghost assumes a bogus Spanish accent, possibly to impress anyone who was pining after seeing Zorro return to the screen.
The conflict is a standard "who's selling guns to the Indians" plot, and both Tom and the Ghost labor to prove that it's the evil Morris. There's a subplot about Morris's assistant Maitland (Francis X. Bushman), who lies to his lovely wife about his true business, but none of that melodrama shapes into anything impressive. The action scenes-- lots of riding and shooting, with few real cliffhangers-- are nothing special. There's one howler in which an imprisoned Tom hoaxes a Black cavalry officer into thinking he hears ghosts, and it's about what one might expect.
Chaney is OK playing his "white" self, but laughable as a Latin lover type. Gulliver gives the best performance, not least by seeming to be in love with Chaney's Lothario, though she's also a gutsy if not formidable heroine.
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