THE SHADOW (1940)

 

1940's THE SHADOW shows a little more interest in character over combat, as well as using more of the pulp hero's mythology than did a lot of serials that adapted pre-existing material. 

To be sure, Columbia's scripters changed a number of Shadow-myths. The hero's secret ID of Lamont Cranston is a "criminologist" rather than a wealthy bon vivant, and the viewer never knows why he chose to take on the masked identity of the Shadow in the first place. He never uses any of the deceptive tricks of the Shadow, either the misdirection-maneuvers of the pulp stories or radio's "power to cloud men's minds." On the plus side, Victor Jory stands unchallenged for the honor of playing the best film version of the dark avenger. True, the limits of a serial budget mean that there's nearly no use of the hero's sinister aspects. The Shadow is usually seen in well lighted scenarios, thus negating a lot of the costume's appeal, and he more often punches out his opponents rather than shooting them. However, it makes up for a lot that Jory utters a haunting laugh that is worthy of the character's reputation-- unlike, for instance, the forgettable chortle that emerges from Alec Baldwin's lips in the overblow 1994 SHADOW film.

The hero's accomplices sport the same names as characters from the pulps or the radio series-- Margo Lane, Harry Vincent-- but they're pretty interchangeable "hero-stooges," though it's a mark of distinction that this version of Margo has some training in forensic science. The serial's villain, the Black Tiger, is one of many villains who display some limited form of invisibility; in the Tiger's case, he only turns invisible when he's barking out instructions to his henchmen-- in what may be the most unique villain-voice in serials, since he sounds like he's passing a gallstone every time he talks. Just as in MANHUNT, there's a death-ray weapon that the Tiger's after, though naturally most of the battles between hero and villains are low-tech until the final clash of the Shadow and the Tiger.

Strangely, during that clash the Shadow doffs his disguise to reveal his Cranston identity to the Tiger, seconds after Cranston has unveiled the villain's true ID. This is a pretty rash move to make if you plan to take an evildoer alive, but maybe Cranston had a psychic flash-- in the form of reading the script-- and knew that the Black Tiger was going to be accidentally-- and conveniently-- killed in the final struggle. Following this, Cranston tells Margo that he doesn't plan to play the costumed crime-fighter any more. I assume that if the studio ever harbored thoughts of producing a sequel, they would have simply ignored this coda.  As he did in many of his serials for Columbia, director James W. Horne and his writers tossed in a number of tongue-in-cheek scenes, the best of which allowed the lead actor to assume colorful identities while investigating the crooks' schemes. On the minus side, Horne had nearly no interest in cliffhangers, and THE SHADOW is notorious for a resolution in which the hero survives the roof collapsing on him, by merely getting up and dusting himself off.