THE SHADOW
STRIKES

		Review by E.C.McMullen Jr.
SHOULD YOU? TIP JAR THE SHADOW STRIKES - 1937 USA Release: Oct. 29, 1937 Grand National Films, Inc. Ratings: USA: N/A

Before the time of television one of the most popular imagination shows on radio (it was sound only, you had to use your imagination), was The Shadow.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"

The Shadow was the scourge of the underworld. Basically he is the guy with the gun who gets the drop on you while your back is turned. You bust a safe: the Shadow's voice is behind you. You have your gun pointed at someone else, ready to commit murder: The Shadow has his gun pointed at your back, and is happy to shoot first.

In THE SHADOW STRIKES, the underworld of organized crime has this problem and it's a biggie. What's infuriating about The Shadow is that he's just a regular guy. There is nothing special about him. He hides his face behind a collar or regular walking cape, or just the shadows. He doesn't have super powers, a gang of his own, or special weapons - anything! All he has is that damn gun, just like the rest of us have a damn gun! But he - this Shadow - always turns up at just the right damn moment, right behind our backs, and gets the drop on us.

How does this Shadow always know the right place to be at the right time?

It's got the soldiers of the underworld watching their backs, botching their crimes, and the crime lords teetering.

Lamont Cranston (Rod La Rocque: THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME [1939]) is a small-time attorney. He is nowhere near the man his father was. His father was such a powerful city prosecutor that the mob lived in fear of him. So much so that they eventually succeeded in a successful hit, killing him.

The killer was never caught. All Lamont has to go by is a keepsake: the bullet that killed his father. And Lamont will give anything in the world to match that bullet to the gun.

In fact, Lamont would love nothing more than to step into his father's shoes, but he's not as sharp or intelligent as his old man was. The only thing he inherited from his father was his bold charm and quick witted ability to lie his way out of almost any situation. These come in handy because Lamont's lies are so poorly thought out and off the cuff, they all have an expiration date. Which means Lamont has to be quick doing whatever he sets out to do.

Why would Lamont need to lie so much? Because his secret identity is The Shadow!

Well what the hell does THAT mean?

For Lamont Cranston, being The Shadow means stealing other people's identities and using them for a while. He's always a "shadow" of someone else.

When The Shadow gets the drop on some thugs robbing a safe, he stands there, holding them at gunpoint, makes a phone call to the police, and engages them in idle conversation while they wait. It's all disarmingly charming if it wasn't for the thugs ready to grab The Shadow and kill him, and The Shadow being more than eager to plug these mugs through the heart with hot lead. So he sits there in the dark, shining a lamp light in their face as they wait. As soon as they hear the cops coming up the steps, The Shadow leaves. But the thugs don't get far before they run smack into the gun toting cops, ready to shoot.

Like Batman, Lamont relies heavily on his butler, Hendricks (Norman Ainsley: BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN), to help him with his sneaking about.

Still, Lamont doesn't have the intelligence to keep himself out of trouble, which is why its good for him that he lies so easily. After a bust, The Shadow escapes only as far as the next office. Lamont wants to see why the thugs were robbing attorney Chester Randall. The arresting police Captain Breen (Kenneth Harlan: DOOMED TO DIE, MYSTERIOUS DOCTOR SATAN, BLACK DRAGONS, THE CORPSE VANISHES) sees the light on in the office next door and catches Lamont red handed in the act of going through another open safe.

Lamont quickly attests that he is, in fact, Attorney Chester Randall. It was he who called the police and waited, scared in his office, while the thugs were in! The! Other! Room!

Captain Breen doesn't know Chester so his inquisitive questions are limited. He smells a rat about this Randall character, but there's nothing clear for him to do anything about it. But he'll be able to find the truth by tomorrow morning. All Lamont has done is bought himself some time.

Then the phone rings. Lamont will have to answer it and Captain Breen stays right there to watch him do it.

As it turns out, the Butler of the wealthy Mr. Delthern (John St. Polis: THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA [1925], HAUNTED HOUSE [1940]) needs to speak to him. Tonight! Of course Lamont doesn't want to do it, but with Captain Breen standing right there and watching him, how can he refuse? So he agrees to go to the mansion outside of town.

Captain Breen seizes the opportunity to expose this Randall character and insists on going with him to the Delthern estate.

Fortunately for Lamont and unfortunately for Captain Breen, the Butler has never laid eyes on Attorney Chester Randall and welcomes him in. Captain Breen can go no further as it's now a matter of lawyer client privilege, so he leaves.

When Lamont aka Mr. Randall meets Mr. Delthern, he finds a terrified man. Mr. Delthern wants to change his will, tonight! Why? He believes that he may not live until daylight! He believes that someone will kill him, maybe even tonight!

"Randall" looks upon Delthern as nothing more than a rich kook, until the terrified old man is shot right through the heart.

Mr. Delthern was afraid one of his children might be out to murder him, but who?

Lamont Cranston, as Chester Randall, is now a suspect as well: he was the last person with the late Mr. Delthern when he was murdered.

Worse, day by day, Captain Breen discovers something that proves this mysterious Chester Randall is not who he seems, and every day Lamont has to tell another story to cover the evidence. Time is running out and soon Lamont will have no more excuses. If he is revealed for the fraud he is, then he will disgrace his father's legacy and the underworld that his family sacrificed their lives to fight, will have the last laugh.

Everything is on the line for Lamont as his character flaws come to the fore, ready to self-destruct his life forever. His faithful Hendricks tells him to flee the city while his true identity is still secret. But he can't.

Lamont doesn't know the killer but he knows the man who may have ordered the kill is Brossett (Cy Kendall: THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME [1939], MYSTERY SHIP, BURY ME DEAD), a crime boss who runs an illegal casino in the city. Brossett was also a suspect in the death of Lamont's father. Lamont's not-too-clever trickery has also put the life of Marcia Delthern (Lynn Andersthe: DRACULA'S DAUGHTER) the late Mr. Delthern's daughter, in danger. Lamont has left a dirty trail that will eventually lead back to his identity should he run. But if he stays he may be arrested or murdered. As the clock ticks, Lamont has to fight his own inadequacies and solve a deadly mystery fast: even as more murders pile up and both the Police and Crime lords close in around his throat.

Rod La Rocque played Lamont Cranston as a daffy debonair charmer, a bit too dim to realize how deep a situation he was getting himself into, and too driven by anger at himself and his personal failures to flee or at least choose his battles better. As such he relies on his charm and wits, the latter of which often lets him down. Lamont also allows his emotions rather than logic, to choose whom to trust.

In modern parlance, Lamont Cranston was a Captain Kirk (with shades of Jack Burton) for his time - only without a Spock for guidence (Hendricks is more like his Dr. McCoy).

THE SHADOW STRIKES was the first motion picture based on the literary serials by Maxwell Grant (THE SHADOW). From the original novel, The Ghost Of The Manor, Al Martin (INVISIBLE GHOST) and Rex Taylor (DICK TRACY RETURNS) adaptated the story for the screen, and Al Martin wrote the screenplay.

So how does the story play out? Director Lynn Shores (CHARLIE CHAN AT THE WAX MUSEUM) kept the pace quick to keep it at the then standard feature film running time of 62 minutes. The editing is sharp and the story is always directly to the point with zero wandering. They had to: They were on a super low budget and film and processing was expensive. Despite the cheapness, cinematographer Marcel Pickard (INVISIBLE GHOST, VOODOO MAN, SCARED TO DEATH [1947], GHOST CHASERS) made excellent, creepy use of light and shadow, revealing the nature of different characters before we got a chance to know them. Fred Preble (TORTURE SHIP, THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN, THE MAD MONSTER)'s Art Direction doesn't appear all that great and may have even used sets from other movies. But it works well enough within the framework of the tale.

THE SHADOW STRIKES, based on an actual story, is perfect for a retro movie or even a modern update. I couldn't tell by watching the Alpha Video print if the sets were really good enough to merit digital clean-up. Every movie ever made isn't worthy of expensive restoration and elaborate archiving, but THE SHADOW STRIKES might be an exception. Even in its muddled work print appearance, it is good enough for Three Shriek Girls.

This review copyright 2012 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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