The Shadow? There Is Another… Skywal… I Mean Shadow!
Excuse me. Anyway yes. There is more than one Shadow. In this case Twickenham Film Studio’s The Shadow. UK film based on… The Shadow. A UK stage play by Gerard Verner (pen alias Donald Stuart).
Released by a classic movie group called Film Hub, you have a feeling that Film Hub… Just did all this for cheap easy money. Why? Because they didn’t bother spending any money on film restoration! That’s why!
And no. Telling me they wanted it yo feel authentic won’t cut it. They wanted it yo feel authentic they would have restored the film to visually look like how it was released in 1933!!
Worse yet, this version sold by Amazon Prime? 70 minutes. While this means you are watching the original uncut version? (The United States 1933 release was edited down to 64 minutes) It also means 6 minutes of the original version is lost!
…eh… No. Six minutes of decayed in restored footage is not enough to stick the whole of this movie into Lost Media Resistance over at Facebook. Its just poor restoration work.
But, alternatively, Im guessing this is the best copy found. This is a over 90 year old film reel we are talking about here. And remember, proper authentic film archiving and storage won’t be invented until the 60s thanks to Desilu Productions!
So yes. This is The Shadow. But the source material is a London West End stage play about a blackmailer named The Shadow. Not the crime fighting vigilante The Shadow. Heck, if the movie ends with The Shadow being defeated by The Shadow? Meta!!
So keep its stage play history in mind as we roll into London 1933, and The Shadow. The movie opens with The Shadow, A rather posh arrogant sounding guy, blackmailing the London District Attorney.
He might be a criminal, but he wouldn’t be here unless the targets he’s after had some dark skeletons in their black and white closets. What is it exactly this district attorney has? Whatever it is means prison time if his secrets are revealed.
Unable to come up with the 10K British Pound that The Shadow wants, he decides to commit suicide… Which is exactly the way we see past victims of The Shadow have ended their lives. Blackmailed into suicide.
So… Either The Shadow is the UKs worst blackmailer? Or he has a hidden vendetta past the supposed monetary gains by blackmail. After all… You can’t get blackmail from dead people!
Enter… Then quickly exit Scotland Yard Inspector… Jeffrey? He does seemingly fast so who cares. Before committing suicide, the DA called in to Scotland Yard. Reporting that he was visited by The Shadow… But not why he was visited.
Once he was dead? They found the blackmail note. They might have even deduced why he wad blackmailed. But we don’t find out anymore about his blackmail. The movie is moving on.
Despite hid superior’s warnings, our Inspector decides to try and entrap The Shadow. How? For the past so many weeks he’s been milling about the dark underbelly of London, under the guise of an information peddler.
Turns out he’s struck gold. He was approached by The Shadow for info he has. Letters implicating a rich woman of having an extramarital affair. However he decides to arrest him alone.
Under said Info peddler guise, he goes to a remote location and sells The Shadow the info for 200 Pounds. Then… He makes the mistake of trying to arrest him. Revealing his identity only to himself. Which… Shocks him.
Who is The Shadow? I’m guessing he’s a rich influential individual with an axe to grind against the six men he blackmailed to death in the past eight months. Why? Only the movie kbows… For now.
They end up fighting (all in the shadows), and the Inspector is shot dead. But not before wrenching a vital clue as to The Shadow’s identity off of him. A piece of jewelry that might be a family crest or indicate his motive for killing these powerful men.
It doesn’t take long for Scotland Yard to recover the body of their fallen comrade, and that sends the whole Yard into a tailspin. Only this time, after the death of one of their own, they have a lead.
As one of the Inspectors who worked on the case the longest hunts down clues to the one piece of evidence that cost an Inspector his life? We find out that the head of Scotland Yard… Is suddenly a potential next target.
Why? Well its the weekend. His posh estate is filling up with potential suspects as The Shadow (all people that said head knows as family or close friends). And we seem to be focusing on his mild House Party over the weekend.
You think we would follow the Inspector as he chases The Shadow. Nope. Looks like the Shadow has been working his way through the powerful of 1933 London. With the head of the Yard being his next victim? Maybe?
So we start the trip to Evil Mirror Universe Downton Abbey Estate by listening to a posh guest complain about how the UK is so foggy! Really! Next he’ll complain about how Egypt is sandy!!
So which one of these guests is The Shadow? What is the significance of the item that cost that Inspector his life? Who is the target st this remote manor? And why all this blackmail?
These are the questions we will slowly unpack from our British Steamer Trunk as we continue with The Shadow. Tomorrow. See you.
Pop Goes the Darke Raven 