Kermit Maynard doesn't usually get praise for his acting nor for the quality of his movies, but "Phantom Patrol" proves he has been terribly under-rated.
For example, I had known nothing of his athleticism, but pay attention during the barrack-room horse-play. Amazing!
I expected nothing much when I started watching "Phantom Patrol" on YouTube, but was enthralled from the very beginning, partly by the credits and partly by the music. Unfortunately, even here at IMDb, there is no credit for the music.
The director, Charles Hutchison, is someone I had seen in some silent serials where he was "Lightning Hutch." Until I saw the credits here, I never knew he had become a director and, judging only by "Phantom Patrol," a very good director.
This is, obviously, a low-budget movie, but there is such a good and literate script, and the players are so above average, the lack of money doesn't matter.
For example, Harry Worth plays two parts, two very different characters although they do, of course, look alike. And he is two very different characters, in a great job of acting. (He reminds a bit of Basil Rathbone, both in his looks and his debonair attitude.)
Kermit Maynard had a brief fling as a star but was soon relegated to "with" parts in bigger-budget movies, but here he is a very pleasant and believable Mountie.
Script writer Joseph O'Donnell, who here is called by the same name as one of the two characters played by Harry Worth, Stephen Norris, has created dialog that is at times amusing, with some nice interplay between and among the other characters.
There is an especially good line when the girl tells the Mountie he's dirty and he replies he got that way dodging bullets. Her response is classic, very, very clever.
The girl, by the way, is played by the lovely Joan Barclay, who sometimes is reminiscent of Myrna Loy, but feistier.
The inimitable Paul Fix is the chief villain's associate and dog's-body and is, as usual, believable and even likable, despite being a bad guy.
The rest of the cast are just so much icing on this delicious cake, and the only complaint I can make is of the quality of the print at YouTube. It's broken and choppy and those flaws can be distracting.
But it's worth putting up with that for the joy of the movie. I highly recommend "Phantom Patrol" for many reasons, and hope you like it too.
