The Shadow

Not THE Shadow (as in, the Lamont Cranston Shadow) but more of A Shadow - and this one is villainous. It is an enjoyable mystery that employs many of the clichès of the old-dark-house genre, but does it in a self-aware way (would you ever believe that someone is killed at the exact moment he is about to reveal the hidden identity of the Shadow?). Perhaps overly talky, but the mystery does sustain your interest. Henry Kendall steals the show as an intentionally stereotypical perfectly-jolly-old-chap-fellow - a direct precursor to Charters and Caldicott in "The Lady Vanishes" a few years later. **1/2 out of 4.

This is a very English country house thriller as people gather at Sir Richard's mansion on a pea-souper of a foggy night. Sir Richard needs to safeguard his reputation by ensuring that the police catch a blackmailer known as The Shadow. Famous people have committed suicide because of the blackmailer. Then a man called Elliot gets killed when he tries to confront The Shadow and is left with a clenched fist design curio in his own clenched fist. This is thought to be a vital clue in finding the identity of the blackmailer.

There are some fairly interesting characters. There are the 'Silvertons' posing as brother and sister. We don't really know their motives clearly for engineering a stay at Sir Richard's house through the excuse of being caught on such a foggy night. There is a dotty aunt in the person of Mrs Boscomb who has some funny lines to say. But the fooling Reggie might be a challenge for you to take as a character.

Suspense grows after we realize The Shadow is in Sir Richard's house and the killings look set to continue. This mystery should keep you guessing. I admit I did actually guess The Shadow's identity shortly before the reveal at the end after an hour of wondering. But I still reckon it's a fairly-well disguised whodunit for fans of the genre.

In an old dark country house the police search for a killer known as The Shadow. A creaky old British drama starring stage revue artist Henry Kendall as the kind of bumbling upper class twit that must have been something of a cliche even in 1933. It's passable entertainment more because of its archaic attitudes ("As far as cunning is concerned, women... well you're all married," a police officer warns his colleagues at one point) than the quality of its plot. A young Felix Aylmer plays one of the suspects, and looks just like an old Felix Aylmer with dark hair.

This VERY British 'thriller', in the worst meaning of the word, is honestly one of the most BORING movies I've ever seen. The 'atmosphere' for the meager plot consists merely of some known ingredients for a good murder mystery, like an old house, a foggy night, and a mysterious masked man called 'The Shadow', a notorious blackmailer who's driven quite some prominent people to suicide for the most ridiculous reasons of 'honor' and 'fear of scandal'.

Those who manage to sit through the whole film (and its running time is only 70 minutes, anyway!) without falling asleep, will witness some very poor attempts to bring in some humor, and even poorer attempts to bring in some kind of action or suspense; the acting is awful (even by Elizabeth Allan, who a year later would deliver a wonderful performance in "Mark of the Vampire"), the direction as stiff as the dialogs... And to imagine that at the very same time, in the very same country, the great Alfred Hitchcock was already developing a new kind of thriller that would make even American audiences shudder...!

THE SHADOW is a British 'old dark house' production of 1933 which feels like it belongs in the silent era; indeed, all of the cast are still wearing clothing and collars belonging to the previous decade. The film pairs Henry Kendall and Felix Aylmer as two of the people gathered at a country abode who are shocked to discover that one of their number is a blackmailer known as The Shadow, and the rest of the film sees them trying to solve his identity. Kendall is a likeable lead here and an almost youthful Aylmer very good in support. Yes, it's very talky and rather slow by modern standards, but nevertheless this early talkie is a good product of its age.