The Shadow-15 Chapter Cliffhanger Serial-1940

Columbia's "The Shadow," released in 1940, was the first serial directed "solo" by James W. Horne, who with Ray Taylor had co-directed "The Spider's Web" two years earlier. There are many similarities between The Shadow and The Spider, also common to The Green Hornet and Batman, including a "wealthy young man about town" whose crime-fighting secret identity might not be appreciated by the police. In the serial, Lamont Cranston (Victor Jory) is a "scientist and criminologist" though still apparently without any dire need to work to support his activities. He is aided by his "secretary and lab assistant" Margot Lane (Veda Ann Borg), and by his chauffeur, Harry Vincent (Roger Moore). The plot has a mysterious criminal, "The Black Tiger," trying to gain financial control of the city through a campaign of terror against the leading industrialists. He has a way to make himself invisible to his underlings, and an easier to explain knack for finding out what the business leaders are planning with Cranston and Police Commissioner Weston (Frank LaRue) at the Cobalt Club, since he is in fact one of its members. Even in the radio serial Cranston's "invisibility" was not physical, but neither here nor in the pulp fiction stories upon which the serial is based does he use "hypnotic powers to cloud mens' minds so that they cannot see him," instead relying on disguises. His "Chinese" disguise as Lin Chang, used to infiltrate the criminal underworld, is absurdly stereotypical, but this is done for theatrical purposes so the audience knows it is Cranston; only the characters in the plot are supposed to be fooled. Lin Chang operates from the "Oriental Bazaar," where his assistant Wu Yung (Philip Ahn) is always ready to open the hidden garage door allowing the Shadow to escape his pursuers. Credibiliy is stretched by the abilities of The Shadow to survive explosions and collapsing ceilings, though nothing unusual for serial movie heroes. While the low budget shows, and some of the cliffhangers are repetitive, this is one of the better Columbia efforts. Victor Jory is well-suited to the title role, played with a subtle humor not typically seen in serials. The usual comic approach of director James W. Horne is also evident but less extreme than in his later serials, mostly involving the Black Tiger's bungling henchmen, who include Eddie Fetherston, Jack Ingram, Constantine Romanoff, Charles King, Dick Botiller and Kit Guard. The music by Lee Zahler is, like the comedy, not always the best fit for the action, but it usually serves the purpose well enough and is a distinct improvement over what was used in "Mandrake the Magician" a year earlier. The serial was released by Columbia/TriStar on VHS in 1997, their number 72693, with sharp image and good gray scale, having only a few places showing film deterioration. The sound, on the Hi-Fi track, is clear with little noise and low distortion. Update, 12 May 2016: This review was originally written for the DVD from Hodgepodge/ATI (see below), apparently no longer available. The new one from Mill Creek is much better, from Columbia's video source, without a videotape head-switch glitch, and with Columbia's copyright present. It is highly recommended. While still having all 15 chapters on a single disc, it is double-layer and compression artifacts are not obvious; none of the jerky action seen in the earlier DVD. Picture and sound are both very good, given the minor issues with the source print. Chapter 8 ends with the newer "Sony Pictures Television" logo, in color, a little jarring but the other chapters have the older one with "Columbia Pictures Television" as did the VHS tape. The release even has some DVD "chapter marks" within the serial's chapters, making it easier for the "last week" intros to be skipped, if desired. I retain the following for "historical" purposes: The DVD edition sold by Hodgpodge is identified as being distributed by ATI, AudioTape Inc., of Longbranch, New Jersey. There is a note on the cover that the "Works presented on this DVD are in Public Domain" and the source appears to be Columbia's VHS edition, minus the chapter end credits for "Columbia Pictures Television, a SONY Pictures Entertainment company." Legal or not, the transfer leaves a lot to be desired, mostly from cramming nearly five hours of video onto a single-layer DVD-R, confirmed by the 4.5 G-byte size of the "VIDEO_TS" directory. This results in a number of digital compression artifacts, including jerky motion, "checkerboard" transistion between scenes and splotchy areas especially in darker parts of the picture, though the sharpness and contrast aren't too bad. The sound is adequate, and reasonably synchronized with the picture, but it has more noise than the Hi-Fi track of the Columbia tape. The menu works properly, and the price is not unreasonable for a small-volume distributor, so I'll resist the temptation to rate the DVD at less than the 3-star "OK" level. Fortunately, Mill Creek has come to the rescue, with a good, and honestly-sourced DVD release.

A really fun old serial. One of the best I've seen. Very good video quality and disk dynamic

Definitely a 5 star serial. Not as good as Captain Marvel, but that's just my opinion. Acting is decent, plot is typical of most serials, but still entertaining. I would have preferred it be on 2 discs with less compression, but the picture is still decent. The reason I removed a star is a direct result of the Margot Lane character. Her nonsensical, blood curdling screams in response to situations that didn't warrant screams of any sort, really made me cringe. Her scenes really adversely affected the show. These were truly situations where even movie screams made no sense. One other thing that annoyed me was the cliffhanger repetition. More than half the chapters ended the same way. An explosion and The Shadow being buried in some sort of rubble.

40's continuous chapters. A classic. One of the better series of the 40's

I was astonished as I always am at Amazon to find so many older serial from films and radio and TV shows! And at such low prices. Rare indeed are Shadow films w/ Victor Jory although a host of other actors have played Shadow in films the latest being Alec Baldwin. My fave Shadow actor on radio was Orson Welles who shocked the world in the 30's shortly following the Crash of '29 when his Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast War of the Worlds on Halloween night- news documentaries style! I heartily recommend this serial eps film, Amazon and yes, even Alec Baldwin's Shadow film, the latest.

First off, Amazon needs to ship DVDs in extra soft bubble mailers or boxes. My "New" DVD arrived with a broken DVD case. Not cool. As for the DVD, it played fine. For a 40s serial I was worried about picture or sound quality, but this release was completely watchable. I would have preferred this be a 2-DVD set however, as compressing 4 hours of video onto a DVD did noticeably lower the quality. I've seen Flash Gordon serials that looked much better simply because they didn't try to cram the whole series on one disc. No bonus features, which didn't surprise me, but I was annoyed by the lack of any subtitles. I watch everything with subtitles, and certain members of my household need subtitles because they are hard of hearing.

If it weren't for the budget and story line limits holding back this production, this could have been the best Shadow ever seen on the screen. As it is, Victor Jory looks and sounds like the real thing and the costume is pretty good as well. However, writing is poor and he doesn't get much to work with. Almost all of the key characters from the Shadow team show up, but not many of them get to do anything. The cliff hangers are repetitive and not very clever. How many times can a ceiling cave in on you without your getting even a scratch? Unfortunately the typically racist oriental disguise should and does take away from the enjoyment for a modern audience. Hopefully, everyone will be embarrassed by that. Still, for fans of the old serials, this is fun to watch and even more fun to speculate on what may have been.

This is a good old cliff-hanger type of serial from back in the 1930's and 40's. Unlike a few, the acting in this one is rather good. Casting Victor Jory as Lamont Cranston was a good move, as was the casting of several of the other characters. Admittedly the P,C. crowd would have conniptions about Jory's portrayal of a Chinese merchant, but that bunch knows where they can go, what they can go in, and what they can do to amuse themselves on the way! This film was made in the days long before P.C., and it shows. I guess that's why I love these old films, but then too, I'm a product of those times and I couldn't care less! This is a great CD, and I'm sure you'll love it, too.

While not quirt the radio Shadow, this is a very fun serial. Victor Jory makes an effective hero with his great voice. Excuse the then common stereotypes and the not politically correct aspects of some of the serial and enjoy.