THE BUTLER DID IT?!? AGAIN??? DAMMIT MOVIE!!!
Sigh. After dragging this story out for about 40 minutes? The remaining 20 is told in a series of fast cuts and fades.
So try to keep up because the great and brilliant Lamont Cranston’s plans are about to fall apart. Yet he’s the main character so… He still gets out of this ok.
Pa Bell sends a man to fix the mansion phones. Remember when the Shadow’s butler pulled the line? His “fix” was to stick it back in with chewing gum. Instant fail.
Captain is there to learn this. He goes right to the Attorney’s office, talks to the secretary, and finds out that she didn’t talk to Cranston after all. Suddenly they know he’s not the attorney.
The monster finds out his men were arrested. Again. This time for murder. He sends the mob lawyer to free them. They tell him about the murder spree going on at the mansion.
Our lovely niece refused to tell the Captain that she has a direct line to Lamont. She instead grabs him off the street to earn him that the cops know if his decepgion.
He won’t stop though. Determined to see this through to the end. We suddenly have a touching Alfred to Bruce talk between Lamont and his aide. And we find out something you might already know.
The Shadow was born to help Cranston solve the murder of his own father, a brilliant attorney. Well… Golden Age so everyone lost one of two parents before becoming a vigilante. That the Golden Age.
As opposed to the Rule34 Age, which involves the character’s mother… OWW!!… ??… Oh. Sorry. My Guardian Wolf wants me to shut up now… Anyway nobody likes the Rule34 Age. Right?
Our monster finally puts it all together, and the mischief going on at the mansion of the guy who owes him big. He decides to tempt fate, and the present killer already at the mansion, to steal the will.
Remember the re-written will? He figured if he sells it to the gambler he can get more than 11K from the transaction. Forgetting that the house is already stalked by a killer.
Doesn’t matter. The Shadow bugged his office. And he easily stops the gangsters attempt to steal the will. Suddenly realizing that the fix is in? The monster uncovers the bugging device in his office. If course. It’s about the size of a thick box of matches!
Suddenly the mobsters knows that he’s been in contact with The Shadow all this time. Probably because he did the drop in and visit one too many times. That makes sense. The rest? Not so much.
Suddenly the Niece no longer wants to marry her fiancee. He lets get go, and this leaves the butler with the wrong impression that she loves Cranston. Does she? Probably not.
So despite the fact both the butler and monster know him as the attorney? They both show up at the Cranston place! Butler first, then mobster. Cranston tricks them into shooting each other.
Since the mobsters knows Cranston is The Shafow? He probably died… So butler can stop holding a gun on a dead guy. Also? Suddenly everyone in this movie can shoot a gun and NOT kill anyone! Cop disarmed by crook in will theft attempt, and here.
So why did the butler kill two people? All so that his secret son… The guy trying to marry lovely niece only to be dumped… Would inherit money from his boss’s estate. Anyway that’s that.
Newspapers report that the crime is solved, and illegal gambling operations crash… After the probable death of the mobsters leading it all. Cranston meets the attorney he played as and explains everything off camera. He’s awfully chill about it.
The end. A disappointingly dry average murder mystery for the pulp hero icon The Shadow. Find slow for 40 minutes, then rushed to the end in the last 20. Not my cup of Golden Age. Pass.
Still I got cut for $3 from Amazon Prime. Maybe you might like it more than me? The choice is yours. Anyway it’s time to start April Madness off with the first Case Closed movie. The Bomb Something Skyscraper.
Oh joy. Another incident where Conan gets his John McClaine on. Like that Shop Hard incident at the high box shopping store in a previous review I did. Anyway that starts tomorrow. See you.