The Shadow Strikes (1937)

The Shadow Strikes is a 1937 B-movie based on the Shadow character featured in a series of pulp novels and radio dramas. The Shadow was typical of the pulp heroes of that era. They were not superheroes as such but characters like the Shadow and Doc Savage could be regarded as proto-superheroes. Masked crime-fighters were very popular.

Rod La Rocque plays the title character. For some unknown reason the Lamont Cranston of the pulps and radio dramas becomes Lamont Granston in this movie.

This was the first movie appearance of the Shadow. It was made by a small outfit called Grand National Pictures. They made a follow-up movie, International Crime, a year later (again with Rod La Rocque). There would be later Shadow movies from Monogram in the 40s.

The Shadow Strikes opens with a brief scene which gives us, in a perfunctory manner, the information that the wealthy Lamont Granston (Rod La Rocque) has a secret identity as the masked crime-fighter known as the Shadow.

The Shadow interrupts a burglary in the office of lawyer Chester Randall. The Shadow has given the police a tip-off but he is unable to make his getaway before they arrive. Luckily the cops, led by Captain Breen (Kenneth Harlan), are not too bright - at no point in the movie do they actually check any information given to them, they just take everything anybody says at face value. The Shadow, who has at least had time to shed his masked crime-fighter garb, is easily able to fool the police into believing that he is in fact Chester Randall.

Then there’s a telephone call for Chester Randall. Granston decides to continue his impersonation - he has a hunch that he will uncover something interesting by doing so. A wealthy old guy, Caleb Delthern, wants a new will draw up. It has to be done urgently. He thinks his life is in danger. He’s not wrong about that. Minutes later he is shot dead through a window by an unknown assassin who makes a successful escape.

Caleb’s heirs are a motley assortment of nieces and nephews and the terms of his will are such as to make them all possible suspects. They all behave rather suspiciously. The youngest of the nephews, Jasper, is a dissipated young man heavily in debt to gambling boss and presumed racketeer Brossett (Cy Kendall).

Most of this movie’s many problems stem from the fact that it’s a very low-budget production from a particularly low-rent Poverty Row outfit. Director Lynn Shores relies heavily on lengthy very static dialogue scenes, these being scenes that could be shot very quickly, easily and cheaply. There was obviously neither the time nor the money to attempt any worthwhile action scenes.

A bigger problem is that it’s played as a standard crime mystery B-movie. Lamont Granston spends almost the entire movie pretending to be Chester Randall. We see the briefest of glimpses of him in his Shadow guise. There is no mention of any of the Shadow’s special talents. He becomes just a stock-standard amateur detective.

The best thing about this movie is the almost complete absence of the irritating comic relief that ruined so many American B-movies of this era.

The Shadow Strikes is just too stilted and too talky and it lacks atmosphere. The plot is serviceable. The acting is at best adequate. It’s just a very unexciting routine mystery that takes no advantages of the possibilities afforded by the original version of the character. Maybe worth a look for its curiosity value if you’re a Shadow fan.

I found a copy of this film, which obviously had fallen into the public domain, in one of those Mill Creek 50-movie DVD sets (in this case their Mystery Classics set). The transfer is a bit rough but watchable.