The Missing Lady

The Shadow/Lamont Cranston, also known as Kane Richmond is in search of a missing lady. After doing one bit of investigation as the Shadow --a voice and a silhouette on the wall -- it turns into a noir pitched midway between MURDER MY SWEET and THE GANGSTER -- it looks like the same backlot Gordon Wiles shot that cheap classic on.

The problems with this movie are numerous, and they include a script that has been cut so severely that little makes sense, characters who are present simply because they're also in the radio show so they have to show up, and one of those endings where you gather the suspects in a room and lo and behold! There's your man! It's awful.

On the other hand, there's some nice camerawork, particularly in the sequence set on the Bowery, with the El going by. But it isn't worth it.

When art collector James Douglas is found dead, the police notice his statue "The Jade Lady" has disappeared. It appears the missing piece of art is coveted by a lot of people that, at first, seem to interest a lot of people. After all, this statue is worth a quarter million, and it's easy to see the interest everyone shows. Lamont Cranston, better known as The Shadow, is investigating Douglas' murder and he becomes involved in trying to solve the mystery.

The last sequence of the film gathers all the people that want to have "the lady", as it is known. They are a motley crew, indeed. But never fear, The Shadow knows who the culprit is and almost has to pay with his own life, except that he is faster than the would be assassin.

"The Missing Lady" was one of those B pictures that are a lot of fun to watch. It doesn't pretend to be anything else than entertainment. Directed by Phil Carlson, the film is dominated by Kane Richmond who was the hero in the series. Fans of this genre will have a good time with this movie. Almira Sessions and Nora Cecil play a pair of spinsters that are a hoot to watch.

Starring - for the last time - Kane Richmond as Lamont Cranston/The Shadow, and Barbara Read as his girlfriend Margo Lane, this plays like a cheap version of The Maltese Falcon. The 'Missing Lady' of the title is a jade statue, stolen during a robbery in which an art dealer is killed. Cranston sets out to find the murderer and recover the statue, but whenever he thinks he's identified the culprit that person winds up dead as well, leading the police to suspect that he is behind the murders and the theft.

This final Monogram Shadow movie is the best of the three. The God-awful 'comedy' that plagued the second one is dialled right back, and whilst there's still light relief, it's nowhere near as insufferable as before. In fact the picture has a 'heavier' atmosphere throughout, and feels far closer to a straight noir mystery - Bogart and Cagney wouldn't look out of place! Like the last film the Shadow doesn't appear much, leaving Cranston to do the donkey work. But the solution is a satisfying one that makes perfect sense. 6/10.

As a combination of poor lighting, poor scripting, and the poor print I watched (which did, however, bear the TCM logo, so there is probably none better available), "Missing Lady" is very hard to follow - in some instances, it is literally difficult to see what is happening on the screen. The film is half tough film noir (there is a gangster aptly named "The Ox"), half silly sitcom, with the exact same situations of the previous Monogram series chapters repeated (Margo being jealous of any woman Cranston meets, or even doesn't meet, the clueless police inspector shouting instead of listening to Cranston, etc.). There is also a bizarre duo of old ladies who race dual elevators and complete each other's sentences. Looking at this short-lived Monogram series as a whole, I would say Kane Richmond had potential as the Shadow/Cranston, but he needed to be surrounded by better writers, better supporting casts, and higher production values for the series to have any chance of lasting longer. ** out of 4.

So Kane Richmond takes top billing as the "Shadow/Cranston" but it's really "Miss Effie" (Almira Sessions) and "Miss Millie" (Nora Cecil) who steal the scenes as the busy-body lift operators who shimmy around in perfectly symmetrical attire running one of those counter-weight elevators that has a mind of it's own as they entrap their "passengers" whilst they accrue all the gossip. The rest of the plot is all centred on rather a silly misunderstanding between our sleuth and police inspector "Cardona" (James Flavin). You see, the eponymous character is not actually a person, but a foot-high jade statue worth a cool $250,000 - and it's been pinched. The policeman thinks it's a person but "Cranston" knows it's not - and that's the premiss of the hour as they both try to track it/her down whilst the body count mounts up. There's plenty of fisticuffs, trashed furniture and a few wise cracks along the way to an ending that's probably about as convoluted as they come. It's all production-line stuff this with little to remember, but I did think there was just a soupçon of charisma on display here from Barbara Read's "Margo" and the dynamic between the investigator, the inspector and is boss, the "Commissioner" (Pierre Watkin) does raise a smile now and again.