The Shadow was one of the many super heroes that lived on the radio in the 1930's and 40's. In the show today a convict is released from prison and is bent on getting his revenge. No matter what the cost.
I never knew much about the Shadow for a long time. Occasionally, while growing up someone would make an ominous comment like, "only the Shadow knows..." or "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men..." I always figured these were some quotations from some classic piece of literature from centuries ago. In the 1980's a movie of the Shadow was made. I never saw it and still haven't. At some point I came to understand that the Shadow was an old time radio show.
It wasn't until within the past two years or so that I actually listened to the Shadow. Today's episode is one of the first I heard, in fact. Appointment With Death.
The episodes weren't meant to be realistic as much as adventurous. The Shadow was a superhero whose special power was invisibility. Actually his invisibility came from mystical arts that he learned while he was in the orient. He could perform a kind of mass hypnosis that convinced anybody around him that nobody was present. He also had a few other stray tricks that he learned in addition to his invisibility that would aid him in getting out of scrapes. The bad guy would only hear a disembodied voice. Like other superheros, he had a secret identity, Lamont Cranston. Only his sidekick and secretary knew his real identity.
A point or two in regards to being nonrealistic. The bad guy in today's story only spent five years in prison, probably for some infraction like theft, yet he has harbored such a grudge that he is willing to return to prison and face the death penalty if he is caught in his attempt to kill the Shadow. He does have a good idea in the plan he devised. Ruthless, but a good way to get the Shadow.
Once the bad guy is out, his first crime is against a gas station owner. The scene has the gas station man topping of a customer's tank with five gallons of gas. It only cost 95 cents. Wow, that's only 19 cents per gallon. My how times have changed since 1938.
Just a little trivia and tidbits. You may recognize the voice of the bad guy in today's episode, Alan Reed, aka Fred Flinstone. Through the run of the show, a few different people played the Shadow, including Orson Wells. Nobody else could reproduce that famous laugh the original actor put into those opening lines. The show's producers reused that sound bite for all the rest of the shows to come.
best regards and happy listening.
Keith H.
PS: At the end of April I should have
CD's ready for our first season. I'll post a link at that time for anyone who may be interested in ordering one. It will cost $10 and include shipping. Secure payments will be through PayPal. The plan is to burn off the shows as they appeared here on podomatic.com. Files will be in mp3 format. If it would be more preferable, I could include the shows without the robot hosts and music. Just let me know.
--kh
