BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

dongwangfu Spoilers below:I assume that Ken Maynard's horse Tarzan has some Jedi mind control tricks, because no one ever recognizes the fact that the "Phantom Rider" and one of the main characters ride the same horse. At one point, Tarzan rolls in the mud, to become a horse of a different color, and feigns lameness. Then, the next scene, Tarzan appears without mud and not lame. Good thing that cowboys don't pay any attention to anything besides the color of horses!That is only one of a number of deeply implausible aspects of "The Phantom Rider". In its favor, the title character is likable and the plot a little different than the standard -- the writer plays a little with whitehat/blackhat conventions. While he doesn't break the cardinal rule of westerns of this era that it has to culminate in a fight on a rock outcropping, at least the lead doesn't ever break into song. His telepathic horse, though, is worth at least three stars.

kidboots Ken Maynard was heading towards the end of his career when he made this film in 1939 - come to think of it "Tarzan" was getting long in the tooth as well (he died in 1940). Seeing this is almost Maynard's last film and age and weight issues were catching up with him, I think it is wrong (like one of the reviews) to judge his popularity on his last few films. He had been a big cowboy star since the mid 1920s.Ken Mitchell rides into a hostile town. He has been sent a will from his uncle, begging him to come and help at the ranch and in the event of his death to take over. By the time Ken gets to town his uncle has been killed. His uncle, Jim Mitchell, was the most hated man in town, squeezing out the small ranchers and foreclosing on mortgages. Ken vows to help the ranchers and to try to fix things. He swears he will never be like his uncle. However, to find out if Collins is at the bottom of things, Ken decides to pretend to go in with Collins' mob - sabotaging the heroine's water supply, foreclosing on poor farmers with starving children. He then becomes the "phantom rancher" - anonymously giving money to the ranchers so they can pay their mortgages.Harry Harvey, who has almost 400 film credits in his resume, plays Gopher.Dave O'Brien (from "Reefer Madness" (1936) and the hapless guy from Pete Smith Specialities) plays the chief henchman, Luke.Dorothy Short (star of the cult exploitation films "Reefer Madness" and "Marihuana: Assassin of Youth" (1937) - I wonder if she smoked!!) plays the heroine Ann. Surprise, surprise - she was married to Dave O'Brien for quite a few years!!!I thought that it was an okay western.

Steve Haynie Ken Maynard was 44 when Phantom Rancher was released in March, 1940. (The copyright date in the film is 1939.) His physical appearance was still strong and that of a classic western movie hero, although older and slightly heavier. In Phantom Rancher we see Ken Maynard on screen almost the entire time. His acting was top notch as it should have been. Unfortunately, Maynard's career in films was coming to an end as he worked himself down from the bigger movie studios to Colony Pictures for this movie. The once great Ken Maynard was making poorly put together movies while Gene Autry and Roy Rogers were the kings of the western genre.The problem with this movie is the "phantom rancher" idea itself. No one can recognize the phantom as Ken Mitchell. He wears a simple mask and a cape, speaks with the same voice, and rides the same horse. Collins, the villain, is face to face with the phantom and never gets it. If there is a first rule of B westerns, it has to be "don't count the shots coming out of a six-gun." The same thing applies to the plot of this movie. You really have to be willing to let the story unfold unquestioned because the whole mask thing does not work in this movie. It is a major part of the plot, so you have to take it or quit watching.Ken Maynard was known for his riding skills, but we do not really see any trick riding in Phantom Rancher. There is a great scene that has Ken as the phantom riding back to his ranch to avoid being caught, and as Tarzan gallops at full speed he takes the bridle and saddle off. Ken jumps off with the saddle and Tarzan jumps into his corral. This looks like something Ken Maynard would have done years before, but the scene is carefully edited to give that appearance. I suspect it was a good stunt double. The scene is short, but it is the kind of thing that makes B western heroes larger than life.Dave O'Brien played many different types of roles in his career, and I am used to thinking of him in the Texas Rangers series. In Phantom Rancher he plays the part of the lead henchman. His character is the only one to suspect that Ken Mitchell is really the phantom rancher.The Republic Lone Ranger serials, The Lone Ranger and The Lone Ranger Rides Again, came out in 1938 and 1939. Equity's The Adventures of the Masked Phantom, starring Monte Rawlins, came out in 1939. I wonder if there was a rush by the smaller studios to cash in on the "masked hero" franchise of the Lone Ranger that Republic appeared to have locked up. Columbia would later do the Durango Kid series, with Charles Starrett using a bandanna for a mask.Some of the later movies in that series were a bit hard to believe.Phantom Rancher is good and not good. Ken Maynard is wonderful in this movie. The gimmicky plot is the weakness. I do not want to discourage anyone from seeing this movie, but it is better not to expect much and be pleasantly surprised rather than to expect a great movie and be disappointed.

Mike-764 Ken Mitchell arrives to take over the ranch belonging to his recently deceased uncle, but when he arrives he finds himself hated by all the townspeople, since his uncle was trying to acquire all the ranches in the area, and then foreclosing all the mortgages that were being taken out. What Ken doesn't realize is that his uncle was working hand in hand with realtor Collins, who had a rancher, Markham, killed when he wouldn't sell his ranch to him, and now everyone in town (especially Markham's daughter Ann) believes Ken killed Markham. In order to right the wrongs his uncle did, Ken garbs himself as the Phantom Rancher, where he pays off all the ranchers who wouldn't accept Ken's charity as well as round up Collins and his gang. So-so western where nothing is really spectacular, but nothing boring. It could have used more action, but Maynard's persona helped carry it in dull spots. Rating, based on B-westerns, 5.