"Who knows what Evil lurks in the hearts of men?"
“The Shadow, Lamont Cranston, a man of wealth, a student of science, and a master of other people’s minds devotes his life to righting wrong, protecting the innocent, and punishing the guilty. Cranston is known to the underworld as The Shadow, never seen, only heard... as a haunting to superstitious minds, as a ghost, as inevitable as a guilty conscience…”
"The Shadow, the mysterious character who aids the forces of law and order, is in reality Lamont Cranston, weathly man about town. Years ago, in the Orient, Cranston learned a strange and mysterious secret; the hypnotic power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him. Crantson's friend and companion, the lovely Margo Lane, is the only person who knows to whom the voice of the invisible shadow belongs."
"The weed of crime bears bitter fruit..."
Ummm... yeah. Really, Kiddies, you might as well forget all of that today. It certainly seems like the makers of The Shadow Strikes did. Actually, if I had to guess, I'd say that Grand National, the company behind this film, probably got a request for a Shadow film from Street and Smith, the pulp hero's publisher, had a mystery script already lying around, and figured with a little tweaking it would work. Too bad they didn't take the time to actually read any of the shadow stories or even turn on their radio.
Which is not to say this is a bad picture. Actually it's a fairly entertaining if rather light little mystery involving secret identities, inept police, gangsters gambling, and the usual suspects. It's just simply not really a Shadow movie.
You know, it occurs to me now that I may have been wrong about this movie. Even though he never makes mention of it, there is the possibility that Lamont Cranston is usuing his power to "cloud men's minds". It's really the only way to explain how everyone in the film (especially the police) tend to act so stupidly.
Ok, let's take a short look, shall we?
And here's the Skinny:
Title: The Shadow Strikes
Release Date: 1937
Running Time 61min
Black and White
Starring: Rod LaRocque
Directed by: Lynn Shores
Produced by: Arthur Alexander, Max Alexander
The Shadow Strikes is available to watch or download for free here.
It's also available on DVD from Amazon: The Shadow Strikes
. It appears to be out of stock at Netflix, but here's the link to reserve it: The Shadow: The Shadow Strikes / International Crime.
Until next time, Happy Treasure Hunting,
-Professor Damian
0 comments:
Post a Comment