The Whispering Shadow

Entertaining serial about a diabolical criminal mastermind known as the Shadow who uses his scientific genius to rob and kill while looking for stolen jewels. Notable for being Bela Lugosi's first serial. It's a fun, silly bunch of nonsense. Some cool action scenes, early sci-fi gadgetry, and Bela hamming it up are just some of the reasons to check this out. If you have a few hours to kill on the weekend, it's worth a look. Some chapters move along faster than others, but I was never really bored during any of them.

Bela stars in his first serial. Bela's acting is great, and the serial itself is not bad, considering it was filmed in 18 days (6 days a week for 3 weeks). The exciting titles of the 12 chapters are: 1) The Master Magician 2) The Collapsing Room 3) The All-Seeing Eye 4) The Shadow Strikes 5) Wanted for Murder 6) The Man Who Was Czar 7) The Double Room 8) The Red Circle 9) The Fatal Secret 10) The Death Warrant 11) The Trap 12) King of the World. It is interesting to note that the name of Bela's character was Adam Strang, and the main ingredient of the story was a radio death ray. Perhaps this was fodder for the science fiction writer Gardner Fox when he wrote those "Mystery in Space" comics in the 1960s, with Adam Strange and the Zeta beam! A serial that fans of Bela will find entertaining.

In my youth (1980 or thereabouts), I was a projectionist at an art-movie cinema (remember those?). Anyway, one summer we showed an episode of "The Whispering Shadow" before each week's feature, and all can say is that it was great cheesy fun. My favorite episode was the one that ended with our hero and heroine trapped in a room--AND THE WALLS START MOVING IN TO CRUSH THEM TO DEATH! And as the walls move in, they wibble and wobble, because they are obviously just two muslin-covered stage flats being pushed in by a couple of stagehands, and all the while the hero and heroine roll their eyes and cling to each other and scream and scream and scream! Too funny for words. All joshing aside, the final episode does have an interesting twist that made my twelve weeks in the projection booth worth the while.

... and directors Albert Herman and Colbert Clark. Two-fisted shipping company foreman Jack Foster (Malcolm McGregor) is determined to avenge the murder of his brother, a delivery driver for the same company who was killed by agents of the Whispering Shadow, a mysterious figure leading a criminal gang who keep attacking deliveries made by the company. Company president Bradley (Henry B. Walthall) also enlists the aid of noted detective Robert Raymond (Robert Warwick) to assist Jack in his efforts. All signs point to the culprit being a creepy magician named Professor Strang (Bela Lugosi) who operates a wax museum out of his House of Mystery. Also featuring Viva Tattersall as Strang's lovely daughter and accomplice, Karl Dane as a goofy comic-relief radio operator, Roy D'Arcy and Lafe McKee as shady company employees, Ethel Clayton, Lloyd Whitlock, Bob Kortman, and Yakima Canutt.

The outlandish plot, wide variety of interesting characters, and incredible stunts all combine to make this a stand-out in the serial genre. It's still pretty dumb, and goes on longer than the story can sustain it, but it's silly fun. Lugosi, appearing in the first of several serials he would make, hams it up quite a bit, but seems to be enjoying himself. Dane, who struggled with his thick accent in sound pictures, makes his final film appearance.

Here is another wonderful movie serial from the factory that perfected the genre at the dawn of sound... MASCOT PICTURES. There is such a superb story yet to be told in the life of both this studio and its young founder Nat Levine. It only existed from 1927 until 1935 but was the template for REPUBLIC PICTURES, both as a studio and as a serial factory. It was closed by ruthless Republic Founder Herbert J Yates when he foreclosed on them via his film lab Consolidated Film Laboratories to which MASCOT owed big film processing debts..... along with other small studios like MONOGRAM and LIBERTY. However in those early 30s, MASCOT created a genre .. the talkie action serial with sci fi effects and incredible miniatures by Howard and Theodore Lydecker. Yates lusted after it all to become a mini-Mayer type mogul and won the day by financial default to lump all his debtees together to make his studio in 1935. As a result REPUBLIC PICTURES was created and lasted until 1960 but clever little MASCOT was steamrolled, its talent poached and its style and film library stolen. Nat Levine was discarded in 1937 and bankrupt in 1939. Nobody from these other studios could work under Yates and even Monogram management escaped to GRAND NATIONAL and UNIVERSAL before re-forming in 1937. Levine was not yet 40 years old. He then went to manage cinemas... showing Monogram and Republic Pictures. How awful for him... and what a great biopic there is in this man's exciting young life. (Spielberg? Scorscese? HBO, hello?).....THE WHISPERING SHADOW is one of many spooky and elaborate labyrinth serials now turning up on Alpha Video DVD, a poverty row specialist that is releasing dvds made from old TV prints filmed directly off TV monitors and onto a DVD master. It seems to work well enough but I do believe there is a market for genuinely releasing these great 30s films properly from existing negs. Sometimes the movie version is available and this one is seen as MURDER BY TELEVISION. In the mean time, we can savor what is possible this way. As with HURRICANE EXPRESS or THE THREE MUSKETEERS especially the underworld sci fi cowboy movie serial epic (!) .....THE PHANTOM EMPIRE......... remade in 1936 as Republic's first serial UNDERSEA KINGDOM.

THE WHISPERING SHADOW is a convoluted chase with eerie visuals and wonderful atmosphere. It also interestingly uses Television as a title and as a device which shows us in 2008 how advanced and aware the movie-going public was of TV itself, because to include it in a film so prominently in 1933 as realistic and exciting possibility is a surprise to most viewers today. From the same period is THE RETURN OF CHANDU and in 1937 THE SECRET OF TREASURE ISLAND (Columbia)... but the most absurd obscene and fully wacky is THE LOST CITY (1935). Enjoy! These ancient sci fi serials make great TV wallpaper at your next party.