The Shadow Strikes

I own a few of the old radio shows this is supposedly based on, and I find them delightful. The Shadow is that dark hero who gives up a personal life to lurk in the darkness. He understands the minds of criminals and is able to make his way into their lairs and root them out. His voice is one of threat and he strikes fear into criminals. This is just a police drama with a rather lame plot about a will and who will inherit a bunch of money. We know he is the Shadow, but instead of a wide network and reputation, he seems just like a guy in a coat. He has a sidekick who does a lot of his bidding, there are hidden microphones and unannounced entrances into rooms, but, overall, it's pretty dull. I would imagine the fans, who grew up with the radio character, must have been pretty disappointed.

Former silent screen matinée idol Rod LaRocque stars as the famous radio detective The Shadow in The Shadow Strikes. Modern fans will remember the film with Alec Baldwin in the Nineties playing criminologist Lamont Cranston aka The Shadow.

The Shadow has a real bag of tricks and the power of illusion at his command. He's not a superhero as such with any real superpowers, but his knack for remaining inconspicuous while waiting to strike was what radio audiences thrilled to.

Unfortunately this film was made by the short lived Grand National studios, a B picture company with limited budget and consequently limited production values. At a major studio even in their B picture unit The Shadow would have fared better.

As it LaRocque is fine in the part and in this case as The Shadow he foils a robbery at a lawyer's office. When the police come he pretends to be that lawyer and the police captain accompanies LaRocque on an errand to a rich man's home who called and wanted the attorney to draw up a new will. But before that could happen John St. Polis playing the rich Mr. Delthern is shot by a sniper.

The plot gets thicker than an Irish stew. But the story was a serviceable murder mystery without the whole Shadow gimmick which wasn't utilized to the max. That must have disappointed fans back in 1937.

Always good is Cy Kendall who plays a gambler/racketeer who has a vested interest in that will. The heavyset Kendall is always playing bad guys in modern dress and in westerns.

Still bad production values from Grand National don't augur well for viewers who might want to see The Shadow Strikes.

Rod LaRoque is Lamont Granston in this B mystery that confounds more than it satisfies. We are introduced to Granston in an opening scene that establishes a few murky facts: his father was killed by a gang of crooks; his butler is his loyal assistant; he apparently fights crime in disguise as the Shadow. Who and what is the Shadow? Well, we viewers know him by reputation, perhaps, but whatever powers he may possess are never really on display in this film.

Granston, in costume as the Shadow, does indeed foil a burglary at a lawyer's office, thereby setting the plot in motion. When the police arrive, Granston quickly assumes said lawyer's identity and becomes embroiled in a family controversy that involves a will, a murder, several suspects in and near the family, and a gang of gamblers somehow also involved. It's a fair if standard B movie plot; our hero stays, for the most part, a step ahead of both cops and crooks as he zeroes in on the killer's identity.

LaRoque himself is fine—he plays Granston as cool and smooth and slightly amused. He's capable of a sharp glance and quick action as needed. (He's also capable of carelessness, such as allowing the police to walk in on him as he's sifting through the contents of a safe.) Wilson Benge tries his best to add a little lilt and humor as Granston's assistant, Wellington, apparently an English butler or possibly a distant relative to one.

Other cast members, though, don't fare well at all—much of the film's dialog is not only clichéd but delivered without obvious enthusiasm. Whether the cast were beaten by too slow pacing or lack of rehearsal or just unimaginative dialog itself, entire scenes come and go without so much as a spark between characters or a snap to a speech. An exception is Cy Kendall as a boss gambler—he at least radiates smugness, to the extent that his small part allows.

Part of the problem with this movie is that we don't know what we are supposed to take as understood about the Shadow—Is this the radio crime fighter? If so, why don't we hear any of his signature lines? If not, why bother putting "the Shadow" in the title at all? The Shadow Strikes is okay as an average B movie, but that title leads viewers to expect something much more Shadow-y. Honestly, it's mystifying what might have led to this half-baked mess....did the producers unexpectedly acquire the character name and rush to shove it into a picture that was already half-written?

Note on the name: The character in this picture is indeed Lamont Granston. Why not Cranston? Possibly you-know-who knows....

Rod LaRocque stars in "The Shadow Strikes" from 1937.

La Rocque plays Lamont Cranston, known to the underworld as "The Shadow" - a shadow who appears when a crime is being committed and stops it in its tracks.

I must say first that this is not my idea of The Shadow. I thought the Shadow was just that, a shadow on a wall who could talk. Not here. He's a person in dark clothing with his face covered and wearing a black hat. Big disappointment.

Anyway, in this film, The Shadow stops a robbery at an attorney's office. He then is forced to impersonate the attorney, George Randall, when someone runs in with an urgent message that one of his clients wants to see him.

It appears, to me anyway, that no one had ever seen this attorney because everyone believes Lamont is Randall. I started wondering if The Shadow appeared to people in a different face and used a different voice to impersonate someone, and we were just to assume that.

Lamont as Randall is summoned to the home of a Mr. Delthern, who wants to immediately change his will as he fears for his life. As he's in the process of changing the will, he's shot through an open window.

Lamont identifies himself as Randall to the police and helps work through the mystery.

This is pretty lame. However, how can you miss out seeing Rod La Rocque, one of the great silent film names, and in a talkie, no less? A trained stage actor, he survived talkies until he quit in 1941 to become a real estate broker, working with his wife - Vilma Banky! Another silent name! And they were married for 42 years. All pretty impressive.

Worth it to see La Roque, an old-fashioned type of leading man in the style of Warren William, William Powell, etc., mustached and smooth.

For anybody who enjoyed the last movie update of the Shadow, this movie might be a bit of a shock. The movie lacks the character of the Shadow, twice we see the man and even then he lacks the magic and is just a man with a coat and had whom's face you don't see. Never you see why he strikes fear in the hearts of criminals.

It looks like a detective story with as an afterthought the character of the Shadow thrown in. The story is about Lamont taking the identity of an out of town lawyer and in doing so he gets involved in a murder plot. As usual it is about big money to be inherited and gambling. And even the evil gangster in this movie is laughable, he seems to do his own things instead of his men, which proves his downfall.

As a mystery, nice ending, as a Shadow movie a tad disappointing.