Invisible Avenger

A nice waste of an hour. The acting was passable, though the Shadow's mentor guy was a little creepy. The plot was mostly predictable with a few plausibility issues. (Yeah, we're going to show what we believe to be an execution on television.) Having listened to quite a few episodes of the radio Shadow, my conclusion is the Shadow does best when operating like a Super Hero, as he did with Orson Welles in the lead. When the Shadow operates as a shamus with a special trick, it's a lot cheaper.

This is okay, but if it was a pilot for a TV show, I can see why it didn't make it. Still, for fans of the Shadow, this is a rare opportunity to see an attempt at bringing that mysterious voice to film.

The title of this garrulous and uninvolving retread set largely in New Orleans of the radio character popularized in the thirties by Orson Welles may be vaguely familiar to some from its presence as a rather mysterious footnote to the illustrious filmography of the Oscar-winning cameraman James Wong Howe. Howe directed one feature film, 'Go, Man, Go!' (1954), with the Harlem Globetrotters, and between his Oscars for 'The Rose Tattoo' (1955) and 'Hud' (1963) directed a few TV episodes, of which this may have been his first. Assembled from two unsold pilot episodes for a TV series (of which only one was directed by Howe, hence the joint credit) which were spliced together under the intriguing title 'Invisible Avenger' and released as a feature film, it thus finds itself by default among Howe's film credits.

The drab photography, however, belies Howe's contribution; and as an avowed stickler for realism I hope he wasn't responsible for the multiple set-ups employed on the public execution shown being screened on American television. Apart from the "Daddy O" jazz talk and the topical storyline about revolutionaries plotting against a Latin American dictatorship, it feels more like a Republic serial from the forties. Using his radio name of Lamont Cranston, the Shadow hangs out with a mystic sidekick named Jogendra who's taught him how to think himself invisible (hence the title), but rather than simply prowling about invisible he usually waits until he gets caught so he can then confound his captors by disappearing; sometimes for effect he casts a shadow only, and he only ever emits his trademark diabolical cackle when invisible.

Although billed third and cutting a striking figure as a hard-boiled nightclub hostess, Helen Westcott's role proves surprisingly irrelevant to the action.

If not a "made-for-TV-movie," this film may have been intended as a pilot film for a TV series that never got made. When I saw it in a theater more than 30 years ago, that was my impression.

The Shadow is of course a grand old multi-media figure. A generation of kids grew up on the Shadow radio show and comic books, millions of other readers bought the pulp magazine or Shadow books, anywhere from the early 1930's to the 1960's. And of course there was the Alec Baldwin film -- also, not a bad effort. But they just couldn't decide whether to play it as a real adventure story or as parody. Like other attempts in the same era (The Phantom, Doc Savage) that's a prescription for failure.

To me, the best screen "Shadow" of all time was the late Victor Jory, but probably that's because I saw the Jory version when I was a little kid and didn't have very tough critical standards.

I'm still hoping for a Shadow movie with a first rate production from a good, solid script. In the meanwhile, watching earlier efforts like "The Invisible Avenger" aka "Bourbon Street Shadows" just gives me the old "glass-half-empty-glass-half-full" sensation.

Dick Lupoff

Is that Orson Welles intoning at the beginning and end of this pilot for a THE SHADOW TV pilot, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" He had played the role on the radio for a few years, and it sounds like him.

The story, such as it is, consists of Lamont Cranston being called down to New Orleans to deal with the death of a jazz man, only to get wrapped up in a South American revolution. He's worried about turning permanently into a shadow if he clouds men's minds too much, making himself invisible or causing a ship's pilot to imagine an iceberg dead ahead. Richard Derr makes an okay Lamont Cranston, and James Wong Howe is credited as the director, for his third movie directorial credit. He had gotten a job in Paramount's camera shop, and one day Cecil B. Demille found that he seemed to beat everyone into the studio, including him, so he promoted him. In actuality, Howe had been sleeping in the camera room rather than taking the trolley back home, to save time and money. By 1925, he was a respected cinematographer, and by the time he retired in the 1970s, was considered a genius. Which he pretty much was.

The Shadow had been invented as a character to read stories from Street & Smith's DETECTIVE STORY magazine in 1930. He quickly grew popular, so S&S created a magazine around him. He was popular on the radio and in pulp magazines, but a dozen attempts to transfer him to the movies, TV and video games failed to take. the meandering sotry line and cheesy special effects here explain why.

A Shadow movie thats rarely ever listed as a Shadow movie. Richard Derr plays Lamont Cranston, a man with the power to cloud men's minds and become the Shadow. Cranston is on the trail of the people responsible for the disappearance of a friend in New Orleans.

I really like this film. Its not completely faithful to the Shadow myth, but then again what film ever was? (Come to think of it even the stories and radio show changed things as they went along) It certainly plays better than the Rod LaRocque nightmares where the Shadow is some beefy guy in a cape and hat trying to solve some awfully plotted crimes. And it better than the Kane Richmond Shadow movies which are okay, but have the Shadow able to be seen by people. (it's not fair to compare the Alec Baldwin film or the serials since they are different animals)

Derr makes a good Cranston, although one wonders about the relationship with his teacher. Its fast paced and breezy with a good jazz score. It looks as cheap, due no doubt to the budget, but that somehow give it a grittiness it shouldn't have. The film also shows signs of the films troubled production, intended to be one thing it ended up another. There are also two directors listed. Still its a great film to put on at 2am and watch.

What the film really needs are bumpers for The Late Late Late Show and cheesy commercials to go with it for a perfect viewing experience. If you like films from the heyday of late night TV before cable, vcr's and infomercials then this is the movie for you.