The Shadow (1940)

The Shadow battles a villain known as The Black Tiger, who has the power to make himself invisible and is trying to take over the world with his death ray.

Director:

James W. Horne

Writers:

Joseph O'Donnell (screenplay), Ned Dandy (screenplay),

Stars:

Victor Jory, Veda Ann Borg, Roger Moore

Cast

Cast overview:
Victor Jory	...	Lamont Cranston, aka 'The Shadow'
Veda Ann Borg	...	Margo Lane
Roger Moore	...	Harry Vincent
Robert Fiske	...	Stanford Marshall
John Paul Jones	...	Mr. Turner (as J. Paul Jones)
Jack Ingram	...	Flint
Chuck Hamilton	...	Henchman Roberts
Edward Peil Sr.	...	Inspector Joe Cardona
Frank LaRue	...	Commissioner Ralph Weston

Storyline

Columbia's 9th serial, slotted between "Overland With Kit Carson" and "Terry and the Pirates", was intended to have Lorna Gray in the role played by Veda Ann Borg, and to have been co-directed by D. Ross Lederman and Norman Deming. The credits specified the serial was "Based upon stories published in "The Shadow Magazine", while the ads proclaimed it to be "right out of the air waves and magazine stories." What appeared was a mixture of both with Lamont Cranston the true identity of The Shadow, although Lamont Cranston was only an occasional disguise of the pulp magazine Shadow. The hypnotic invisibility of the radio character was completely ignored, as was the almost invisible "Living Shadow" of the pulps.(In the serial, the only invisible man (The Black Tiger) was the villain, as even James Horne probably realized that six to ten henchmen taking orders from an invisible man was more plausible then six to ten henchman falling all over the place from unseen blows delivered by an ...

---

Plot Keywords:

the shadow | serial | based on pulp magazine | character name in title

---

Taglines:

WRAPPED IN MYSTERY! LOADED WITH THRILLS! (original Australia poster - all caps)

---

Genres:

Action | Crime | Drama

---

Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

5 January 1940 (USA)

Also Known As:

Le fantôme du cirque

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

285 min 285 min (15 episodes)

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Victor High Fidelity Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Chapter Titles: 1) The Doomed City, 2) The Shadow Attacks, 3) The Shadow's Peril, 4) In the Tiger's Lair, 5) Danger Above, 6) The Shadow's Trap, 7) Where Horror Waits, 8) The Shadow Rides the Rails, 9) The Devil in White, 10) The Underground Trap, 11) Chinatown Night, 12) Murder by Remote Control, 13) Wheels of Death, 14) The Sealed Room, 15) The Shadow's Net Closes.

---

Connections

Featured in The Lady with the Torch (1999)

User Reviews

The Original Shadow

Personally, being such a radio fan, I have come across some information that other reviewers do not seem to be aware of. First of all is the fact that the portrayal of the Shadow in this film predates, for the most part, the characterization of the Shadow in the radio series. There are a few differences between the original version of the Shadow and that of the radio show.

Originally, the Shadow was a mysterious host of a show called "The Street and Smith Dectective Story Hour." He had no character. However, the sponsor of the program eventually noticed that the host of the series was more famous than the series itself.

Thus, a series of "Shadow" novels came out. The Shadow, while lacking the ability to make himself invisible, managed to steal other people's identities. He would run around, pretending to be someone else, while not having an identity of his own.

Originally, the identity of Lamonte Cranston was just a stolen identity. Some time after the Shadow had been spun off into a comic book series of his own, Margo Lane met a man named Lamonte Cranston on a cruise. On the way back, the Shadow masqueraded as Lamonte Cranston and Margo Lane got the two confused.

This is more or less the version of the Shadow that the serial bases itself upon. The radio series started with a Shadow who had all kinds of abilities. However, the series gave the Shadow the power of invisibility and toned down all the other powers to the point that the radio version of the Shadow practically had no other abilities.

Needless to say, saying this version of the Shadow is disappointing just because it is not the Shadow of the radio series is not fair. The serial would have very likely been based on the Shadow of the pulp novels, comic books, etc, of the thirties. The radio series, which did not become popular until some time later, gave the Shadow his powers of invisibility and pretty much got rid of the rest of his abilities. This is something other reviewers do not appear to be aware of.