The Shadow Strikes

The Shadow has a mustache?!

The film doesn't really introduce either Lamont Cranston or The Shadow, but seems to assume the audience knows them already. Editing and cinematography are pretty poor, as is the writing and acting. Cranston/The Shadow is surprisingly careless, doesn't laugh, doesn't say "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men...The Shadow knows," or "the weed of crime bears bitter fruit," and appears to lack "the power to cloud men's minds." He evidently has only one servant, not a whole network.

A subplot involving the mystery of Cranston's father's death is barely explored and seems an afterthought, despite the film's suggesting this may have been the reason for the genesis of The Shadow.

Still, it's sort of fun.

With veteran heavy Cy Kendall and versatile movie cop Kenneth Harlan in support, and the extremely experienced and suave Rod LaRocque in a popular product "The Shadow", this film is somewhat of a disappointment in comparison to what it could have been. LaRocque gives us a supremely confident Cranston in a poised performance. LaRocque, a large, very tall man, wisely had perfected the art of downplaying since his entrance into talking pictures and he is fine here. But he should be surrounded with a vigorous director and some more active styled performers. This film falls into the unfortunate detective- filmmaker's pitfall namely: lack of energy.

Whatever Colony Pictures was or wasn't, it certainly was a cheap outfit. While competent and watchable, this film lacks any spark in cinematography, editing or overall direction, apparently due to lack of funds. The plot is a basically solid detective mystery, but the execution of it was sort of loosely thrown together for filming in as few days as possible.

Considering LaRocque's strong screen presence and the generally adequate efforts of the mostly discount cast, a fan of the black and white mystery/detective genre will find this film OK and representative of the genre in the bargain-basement sense.

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.

This SHADOW is not the Shadow of the radio or the comics or even the Alex Baldwin movie of recent vintage. Rather, it is about a bon vivant who likes to play detective and gets mixed up in a murder mystery during which he impersonates a prominent lawyer. This would be all well and fine if Lamont Cranston donned some sort of disguise as the lawyer -- the Shadow is a master of disguises -- but he does nothing to alter his appearance and depends way too much on being able to conveniently appear, disappear and then reappear as the lawyer, who happens to be on vacation. So it's not really the Shadow, but at the very least star Rod La Roque (now there's a moniker!) plays Cranston as a real smoothie. The Shadow as such (and again I must point out this is not the Shadow most of us know, just a guy wearing a hat and hiding his face) puts in all of a 10-second appearance at the beginning and end of this dated little melodrama. Watch it for La Roque, a silent-era heart throb who survived the transition to talkies.

I was drawn to this movie by it's attractive pulp 'Scourge of the Underworld' poster. The action surrounds the will of the eccentric Caleb Delthern who is seen at the beginning before he is shot dead through a window. Delthern's two nephews and a niece are the main suspects of his murder along with gang boss Brossett. One of the nephews is under the control of Brossett through gambling debts. There are plenty of added characters who flit on and off screen so the viewer is constantly whirled through this cast of suspects at speed. This was my double introduction to the actor Rod La Rocque and the shadow character of Lamont Cranston. Cranton (Rod La Rocque) is a will-o'-the-wisp character who has the ability to swiftly disappear when the police or other trouble arrive on the scene. He also has the mercurial ability to easily take on other peoples' identities and gain the confidence that he is who he says he is. I enjoyed the wily interactions between Cranston and his servant Hendricks. Hendricks (Norman Ainsley) is an apologetic slightly-built man in a bowler hat who is ever-alert to his master's thoughts and tricks. I enjoyed this gun-happy 1930s B-mystery and watched it for a second time to clear up some character loose-ends and I look forward to seeing it again.