THE RETURN OF CHANDU offers a rare chance for horror movie fans to see their beloved Bela Lugosi playing the heroic protagonist for once. Lugosi plays the titular investigator who intervenes when an Egyptian princess is kidnapped by a sinister Ubasti cult living on the lost island of Lemuria. I watched the condensed version of this whipcracking serial, which comes in at half the time of the original three-and-a-half-hour version. As such, it's rather choppy and poor quality, giving little time for sense of setting or place, but focusing on cliffhanger peril and island-hopping. Lugosi is great value and I did love the mythological aspects of the storytelling, straight out of WEIRD TALES-era pulp fiction.
Review of The Return of Chandu
