The Whispering Shadow

In THE WHISPERING SHADOW, Bela Lugosi is Professor Strang, a magician and owner-operator of Strang's Wax Works And House Of Mystery. The question is: Is Strang also the notorious figure of the title? Lugosi is quite enjoyable in his role.

Someone has stolen the priceless jewels of the Czar, and everyone's looking for them. Jack Foster (Malcolm McGregor) witnessed his brother being murdered by The Shadow and his thugs, and wants revenge.

Keep your eyes glued to those jewels! They jump from person to person, box to box, like a crazy shell game! Almost everyone involved is in possession of them at least once!

At nearly 4 hours in length, this movie version of the original serial is quite a chore at times. Still, there are enough shootouts, explosions, truck hijackings, and fisticuffs to hold our interest...

As serials go The Whispering Shadow is acceptable. Produced on a minuscule budget by Mascot Studios, an evil genius known as the Whispering Shadow - for he talks in a low voice and is ubiquitous it seems - is trying to get his hands on the famous jewels of the Czar. he will stop at nothing and his identity is not foreclosed until the final chapter. we are given several men as possible shadows. One is Bela Lugosi in his first serial. Lugosi plays the creator of waxworks out to get the jewels with the aid of his daughter - played by the perky and lovely Viva Tattersall. The leading man is the biggest problem as he has little acting ability. Malcolm McGregor plays jack Foster who is trying to find the Whispering Shadow to avenge his little brother's death. Foster feels guilt as he sent him on an assignment with peril. McGregor has no acting savvy whatsoever and he lunges in fight scenes with all the unbelievable gusto of fake wrestler. That notwithstanding the other actors are mediocre with some exceptions: Lugois makes every role of his interesting. Henry B. Walthall, the silent screen star, adds some credibility. Robert Warwick gives a workmanlike performance as a detective and Roy D'arcy plays an over-the-top radio scientist with glee and relish. The Whispering Shadow isn't as good as other serials of the time. it is undeniably cheap. Cheap special effects. Just get a look in Chapter One at the helicopter crash. How about Chapter 6 which is almost all flashbacks of previous seen footage. I must confess though that I wanted to see who was the Shadow and watched through with little problem. Some of the cheap effects, the shoddy acting, and the cheesy plot twists wormed their way into my heart. Lugosi would go on to several other serials, but this one gives him a primary role with some room to act. Let's face it a serial with death by rays given from a radio or a television cannot be all that bad. Good old-fashioned fun.

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.

The Whispering Shadow (1933)

** (out of 4)

A mysterious figure known as The Whispering Shadow uses his gang to try and track down some famous and priceless jewels. The Shadow's power comes from being able to communicate through rays created by radio and television. Soon a number of suspects are believed to be The Whispering Shadow.

This 1933 film was the first serial that Bela Lugosi ever appeared in but my review is for the feature version. Back in the day a lot of serials were turned into feature movies and some like Lugosi's THE RETURN OF CHANDU had two feature versions. Obviously, by watching this version you're going to be missing out on a lot of the fun including all of the cliffhangers. Whereas the original version ran 225 minutes this one here clocks in at just 60.

As far as the feature goes, it's simply okay. Again, you can't judge the serial because I personally don't know what is missing from it but this feature really lacks much action. It seems that the majority of the running time here is just introducing the various red herrings and this leaves very little time for the action. There's a nice action sequence at the very start but that's about it. The ending, which I won't spoil here, is somewhat of a letdown.

Lugosi is in fine form here as he was able to pick up the biggest paycheck of his career. I thought he was believable whenever the spotlight was on him as the guilty party and he also manages to bring some fun to the part. The supporting cast also includes D.W. Griffith regular Henry B. Walthall in a supporting part.