The Shadow Without a Shadow, Part 3: Murder at Midnight!

For my final entry of "Shadow Without a Shadow," I'm visiting the Shadow episode "Death Keeps a Deadline" (November 1, 1942) by writer Max Ehrlich, which was re-written for Murder at Midnight as "Trigger Man" (May 17, 1946). As I indicated in my Radio Recap of Murder at Midnight, this is just one of several instances where Murder at Midnight repurposed an episode of the Shadow.

As with Wednesday episode of Suspense, this is a script where the Shadow's role had be written out for the revised script. So, let's examine how that was accomplished!

A massive difference between the two from the top is that while the Shadow has a brief bit of narration to set the stage, Murder at Midnight tells its story from the perspective of "Chicken" Charlie Nix, who narrates frequently through the drama. "Trigger Man" starts with Charlie telling us he's dying from a gunshot wound as he thinks back to how it all happened.

The Shadow opens with Lamont Cranston escorting Margo Lane to her apartment after a date night. As Lamont parts ways, a man asks him for a match, then draws a gun on him. It's mostly the same on Murder at Midnight, although the couple are simply walking together when the stick-up occurs. In both cases, Lamont and his counterpart - John Riley - startle the hold-up man by calling him by his nickname. On the Shadow, the gunman is dubbed "Rabbit" Eddie Burke; on Murder at Midnight, it's "Chicken" Charlie Nix. Lamont/Riley confidently asserts that Rabbit/Chicken doesn't have the nerve to use the gun. Lamont/Riley easily disarms and knocks out the hold-up man. Lamont/Riley explains to their female counterpart that they were aware of the hold-up man's psychological profile, knowing the man had never been able to use a gun (Riley is a plainclothes policeman).

After a musical transition, we learn a year has passed. Rabbit/Chicken meets up with the boss of his gang, Tony Morello/Angelo Dinelli. Rabbit/Chicken bears a deep grudge against Lamont/Riley and insists he'll get back at him. Tony/Angelo tells Rabbit/Chicken that he looks sick and tells him to see his own doctor, Dr. Bryan/Leonard. Amazingly, this scene plays out mostly word for word aside from the name changes!

In the next scene, Tony/Angelo accompanies Rabbit/Chicken on his visit to Dr. Bryan/Leonard. The doctor claims Rabbit/Chicken has a bad heart condition - a severe aneurysm; he gives Rabbit/Chicken six months to live. Another near-identical scene!

Next scene: Rabbit/Chicken meets again with Tony/Angelo and muses that he's like a man standing around in a death house "waiting for the hot seat." Tony/Angelo gives him a drink and suggests that if it were him, he'd use his last six months to paint the town red, do everything he'd always wanted to do before but never had the nerve. He observes that now Rabbit/Chicken has the chance to be a real trigger man and get revenge on Lamont/Riley. At that point, the scenes diverge; in the original script, Tony points out a policeman named Donovan, who was the first one to arrest Rabbit and suggests he start by killing him. Rabbit kills the man, then the Shadow cuts to a commercial. On Murder at Midnight, the scene changes as Angelo leads Chicken to where Riley is and convinces him to kill him (although the dialogue in which Angelo drives Chicken to kill is mostly the same). Afterward, Angelo calls him Charlie because he's not a chicken any more.

In other words, Murder at Midnight has just killed off their version of the Shadow! At this point the two shows become very different.

On the Shadow, Lamont and Commissioner Weston confront Tony, convinced the trigger man committing murders is one of his men but Tony plays dumb (there's no equivalent scene on Murder at Midnight since Riley is dead). In the next scene, Lamont's cab driver buddy Shrevvy shares some gossip with Lamont and Margo about Rabbit's heart condition. This leads Lamont to deduce Rabbit is the trigger man they're looking for. In the following scene, Rabbit meets with Tony and insists he be given the chance to kill Lamont now. When Tony refuses, Rabbit kills him.

In the next scene, the Shadow confronts Dr. Bryan and asks for the truth about Rabbit's condition. Dr. Bryan explains Tony ordered him to lie to Rabbit about his heart. Lamont returns to Shrevvy to find he's lost track of Margo. Rabbit telephones Lamont to inform him he's kidnapped Margo and he'll kill her in one hour, then he'll hunt down Lamont and kill him; Rabbit ends the phone call. In the next scene, Lamont telephones the police for information to help him find Rabbit. We then switch scenes to where Rabbit is holding Margo as his prisoner. Before he can kill her the Shadow enters the room and tells him the truth about his heart condition. The Shadow notes the police are coming and he'll be arrested but Rabbit turns his gun on himself, killing himself just six months after the doctor's fake diagnosis. The story then ends on a typical Shadow wrap-up scene where Lamont and Margo relax after the episode's drama, Lamont explaining how the police guided him to Rabbit's location.

Murder at Midnight continues through Chicken's narration guiding the story, including a scene where he kills a fellow mobster named Tommy Devine for calling him "Chicken." One night Charlie is robbing a warehouse with Mike when they're surprised by the police and flee in their car. Charlie is nicked by a bullet and Mike brings him to a doctor. The doctor fixes him up and remarks Charlie has a good heart; this surprises Charlie, who realizes Angelo's Dr. Leonard had lied to him. In the next scene, Charlie goes looking for Dr. Leonard but finds he moved his practice to another location. In the next scene, Charlie goes home and receives a call from Angelo, telling him he's got another job for him. In the following scene, Charlie goes to Angelo's apartment and reveals he knows the truth about his heart. Angelo and Charlie shoot at each other; Angelo dies immediately. A policeman arrives and calls him "Chicken Charlie," easily slapping him around and disarming him. It looks like he's a chicken again and going back to prison (or maybe the electric chair?).

The first halves of these scripts are nearly word-for-word the same but they certainly do diverge, what with the Shadow's counterpart being killed. It is strange, too, that the Murder at Midnight version ends with the killer surviving - it seemed more poetic for him to die six months after the false diagnosis, as in the original script.

Thanks for following this 3-part series, I hope it was diverting. The episodes are available for your listening pleasure below:

The Shadow Without a Shadow, Part 2: Suspense!

In today's "Shadow Without a Shadow," I'm looking at an episode of the Shadow titled "Nightmare at Gaelsbury" (February 2, 1941) by writer Jerry Devine. It was then retooled into the Suspense episode "the Kettler Method" (September 16, 1942), one of the earliest episodes of Suspense!

Now, the Lights Out episode we looked at was an instance where the Shadow was added to a script; this time he had to be eliminated from the script! So, let's analyze how that was accomplished:

Both scripts open in the office of the physician in charge of an insane asylum during a stormy night; in "Nightmare at Gaeslbury" it's Dr. Blair in Gaelsbury, in "the Kettler Method" it's Dr. Morriseey in Calston. The biggest difference with the Suspense version though is that it has a narrator who adds a lot of additional details at the start of each scene.

Dr. Blair is treating a difficult patient who believes he received secret knowledge from the sorcerer Cagliostro. He rants at Dr. Blair then is returned to his cell by the keeper McPherson. Dr. Blair tells his nurse that this man had been a scientist until a female patient died on the operating table. The nurse opines that Dr. Blair needs a rest and Blair mentions his friends Lamont Cranston and Margo Lane are coming for a visit. Suddenly there's a gunshot and Dr. Blair and the nurse discover they're locked inside his office. The insane patient (later named Griswold) can be heard laughing in the hall.

On Suspense, the keeper is named Caffrey and there's an added exchange where he brings the insane patient to see Dr. Morrissey. All the exposition about who the patient is (Kettler in this version) occurs between Morriseey and Caffrey instead of Morrissey and the nurse. Kettler enters and demands to see the male patient he had been operating on, a man named Benham. Kettler is convinced Benham is hidden somewhere in the asylum. Although the content of their exchange is very different, it leads to a conversation between Morrissey and his nurse that is mostly the same as the prior version. Morrissey mentions his friends Leslie and Claire Winton will be visiting him. The nurse also mentions she put some new bandage samples into his coat pocket (which become important later). Then there's a scream and a gunshot. Caffrey tries to get into the office but when Morrissey opens the door, Caffrey is near-dying and warns him Kettler is coming with the other patients. Kettler exclaims, "tables turn!"

Both scripts go to a musical transition as the scene changes. Both scripts open at a train station as the couples arrive in Gaelsbury/Calston. Mention should be made that the character of Leslie Winton will be the equivalent of Lamont Cranston in the Suspense version; he's played by John Gibson, who portrays Leslie as a very milquetoast type of character. Anyway, it's established that Margo/Claire has a headache that's bothering them. In the Shadow version, Lamont and Margo are pestered by a vendor and they agree to buy a jackknife for Margo's nephew (the jackknife is kind of a substitute for the bandages in Suspense). In both scripts, the couples are met by a man from the sanitarium - Tarfu/Kato, who speaks in a deep voice and limited vocabulary. Strangely, the descriptions of Tarfu and Kato are different - Lamont describes Tarfu as West Indian and 7 feet tall; Kato's nationality isn't given but he's guessed to be 8 feet tall!

Another musical transition as scenes change. The couples arrive at the sanitarium as Tarfu/Kato tells them to wait. They're visited by a man who warns them that the inmates are running the asylum; he's a famous musician (Sigmund Arnold on the Shadow, Arturo Alvarez on Suspense). The two scripts are much the same as the couples assume the musician is one of the patients. Dr. Griswold/Kettler then arrives and has Tarfu/Kato return the musician to his cell. Interestingly, in the first script he's called "patient number 8" but in the second he's "patient number 10." Dr. Griswold/Kettler introduces himself to the couples and claims that Dr. Blair/Morrissey is away on an emergency case, leaving him in charge of the sanitarium. When Margo/Claire mentions her headache that interests the doctor, who insists he can treat her case and invites Lamont/Leslie to enjoy some drinks or cigarettes in the office.

The Shadow then has a short scene that has no equivalent on Suspense in which supporting character Commissioner Weston receives a call from Dr. Blair who tries to inform Weston of the takeover that's going on at Gaelsbury. And that's the entirety of Weston's influence on this episode, which makes me wonder why this scene was even used.

Returning to the sanitarium, we have near-identical scenes in which Lamont/Leslie discover there are no drinks or cigarettes in the office. Turning on the radio they hear a broadcast mentioning Arnold/Alvarez's concert has been cancelled, causing Lamont/Leslie to realize the musician they met was the real person. Just as they try to confront the doctor they instead run into Tarfu/Kato, who informs them that Margo/Claire is going to receive a special operation. Lamont/Leslie object and the doctor enters and is quite put out when Lamont/Leslie "demands" to see her. Tarfu/Kato knocks out Lamont/Leslie from behind and the doctor gloats over his fallen body.

I should mention at this point that the Shadow episode is half-over and at the commercial break, yet the Suspense program, which has no commercials, is 2/3rds through their script!

Lamont/Leslie find themselves sealed in a room with Dr. Blair/Morrissey. There's some exposition as Blair/Morrissey explains what happened. We also learn Blair had his leg broken after being caught telephoning Commissioner Weston (no such injury was performed on Morrissey). It's after the big exposition scenes that the scripts diverge quite a bit. On the Shadow, Lamont remembers he still has a jackknife in his pocket. Lamont gives the knife to Dr. Blair and he waves it around at Tarfu, fascinating his simple mind as a diversion while Lamont escapes the basement.

Lamont escapes the sanitarium by climbing over the wall but is spotted by a pair of Irish cops who are passing by. Lamont tries to explain the situation to them but they assume he's an escaped mental patient and lead him back inside. Dr. Griswold even shows off Arnold to the policemen; when Lamont correctly identifies Arnold, the policemen believe the doctor's story, doubting a famous musician would be in the sanitarium. Griswold claims he doesn't want the responsibility of holding Lamont any longer and tells the police to take him away (apparently it's that easy! the police go along with this!). Fortunately, while leaving the facility they find Tarfu menacing Dr. Blair. The police drive off Tarfu with their bullets and apologize to Lamont for how they treated him.

Now, on Suspense Leslie gets the idea to masquerade as Benham, Kettler's deceased patient. Morrissey covers Leslie's face with bandages so that he won't be immediately recognized. In both scripts, Lamont/Leslie interrupt the procedures on Margo/Claire's headaches but the procedures and circumstances are quite different; Griswold wants to use insulin on Margo while Kettler wants to cut Claire's head open. Lamont appears to Griswold as the Shadow, claiming to be the ghost of Cagliostro to play on his mind, while Leslie enters the room in bandages claiming to be Benham.

On the Shadow, Griswold tries to flee the sanitarium and, in fear, shoots Tarfu with his gun; Tarfu stabs Griswold to death with the jackknife. On Suspense, Kettler realizes Leslie isn't Benham and is about to stab him when a sudden shot rings out; it turns out Claire stole Kettler's pistol and shot him with it.

Both close with Dr. Blair/Morrissey enjoying a quiet evening with Lamont/Leslie and Margo/Claire, listening to the music of Arnold/Alvarez while they recap how the plot was foiled thanks to their quick thinking. And as a closing line, Margo/Claire notes: "My headache-- it's completely gone!"

If you'd like to hear and compare these episodes for yourself, here you go:

Friday: Murderrrrr aaaat Midnight!

The Shadow Without a Shadow, Part 1: Lights Out!

This week I'm doing something instead of my usual Radio Recaps. I'm going to look at three radio plays that were heard on the radio adventure series the Shadow but were also heard on other programs without the Shadow - hence, the Shadow without a Shadow!

Our first examples are the Arch Oboler scripts "Nobody Died" (first heard on Lights Out December 9, 1936) and the Shadow version "Fountain of Death" (from November 27, 1938). Because the Shadow version came second it means that Oboler had to add the hero to his script from whole cloth - there was no hero in "Nobody Died."

In "Nobody Died" we open on an old woman calling for Dr. Miller. The two men attending to this 84-year old woman are soon joined by the female physician Dr. Miller who goes alone to see the woman, Adelina.

Whereas "Fountain of Death" begins in a motorcar as Lamont explains to Margo they're going to meet Dr. Anna Marla. It soon transitions to the two greeting the female physician Dr. Marla, who explains there's a 95-year old woman in the next room named Mrs. Cronin. Dr. Marla, Lamont and Margo go to see the woman together.

From there the two are very similar as Dr. Miller/Marla speaks to the old woman and promises to help her. Dr. Miller/Marla injects the woman with a serum which causes her to grow younger. While in the Lights Out version Dr. Miller created her formula while testing on mice to cure cancer, in the Shadow Dr. Marla was trying to cure aging itself - but the exposition is very similar. In both, the youthened woman makes the same exclamations as she realizes she's young again.

Both scripts then have a musical transition to indicate the passage of time. In Lights Out one of the two men from the opening scene is revealed to be the mayor and brings "His Excellency" (later named Joseph Brown) to meet with Dr. Miller. Brown investigates Dr. Miller's laboratory and when she refuses to explain how she youthened the old woman, Brown forces her to inject the mayor with her formula, despite her objections that she doesn't completely understand the formula yet. The mayor becomes a young man

In the Shadow, three days after the injection Dr. Marla is confronted by Gorlan, who is someone she recognizes from her home country.

Then the two reach a similar point as Brown/Gorlan muses how the formula could create an "invincible" army of young men. Dr. Miller/Marla objects "you cannot make men young to kill-- make them young to live!"

In the Lights Out version, Brown sends an underling to take the woman's notebook from her; a gunshot is heard, suggesting the underling has shot Dr. Miller to death. In the Shadow, Gorlan wants Dr. Marla to hand him a vial of the formula so that he can replicate it; when she refuses, he shoots her himself. In both versions, Brown/Gorlan declares the doctor has committed suicide.

But the Shadow has to add another scene before we continue -- after all, Lamont is the hero of this version! Lamont arrives at Dr. Marla's lab and finds her dying; she tells him Gorlan has the formula and he vows he'll track him down. After a commercial break, Lamont is trying to find Gorlan but none of his sources have ever heard of the man. Lamont gets so excited that he starts to flub a line but very quickly corrects himself! Fortunately for Lamont he's telephoned by Tom Brady, the foreign correspondent of the Examiner. Brady tells Lamont he saw Gorlan booking a trip at a travel agency. Lamont assumes Gorlan is going to skip the country aboard a boat but Margo notes that due to a strike there are no ships sailing. Lamont finally realizes Gorlan is going to take a clipper ship back to Europe.

After a musical transition, Margo and Lamont arrive at the clipper ship and Lamont boards the craft. A steward directs Lamont to Gorlan's cabin.

Back in the Lights Out original, Brown arranges for the military to begin receiving the formula. Brown intends to overthrow his country's true leader (strongly implied as Hitler) as he schemes with his top general. Having tested the formula on 50 of his men, Brown finally injects himself with the formula, becoming younger and stronger. Just then he's visited by the other villager from the opening who has brought Adelina with him. The man reveals the formula has caused Adelina's mind continue to grow younger, leaving her very simple-minded. Brown is agitated as he begins to realize the implications for him, given the extremely large dose he took.

In the Shadow, Lamont invisibly enters Gorlan's cabin and mentally tricks him into revealing where he's hidden the formula. The Shadow confronts Gorlan and demands he give him the formula. Although Gorlan can't see him, he feels certain he can shoot the Shadow with his gun, given the cabin isn't that large. The Shadow points out a stray bullet could hit the gasoline. Realizing the truth, Gorlan reveals he already analyzed the formula and memorized it. Gorlan offers an alliance with the Shadow and suggests they drink a toast of wine to celebrate their partnership. The Shadow refuses but Gorlan drinks his wine. The Shadow notes that Gorlan drugged his glass with the rejuvenation formula but he switched the two glasses, forcing Gorlan to drink the formula.

Now, in the Lights Out version, Brown is overwhelmed by the effects of the formula, growing younger and younger (replaced by younger actors) until he's an infant (and possibly youthens out of existence- hence the title, "Nobody Died").

Whereas in the Shadow, the Shadow suggests that Gorlan is growing younger. Gorlan goes insane with terror and jumps out of the clipper to his death. In a wrap-up scene, Lamont explains to Margo that he stole the sample of the formula and instead poured a stimulant into Gorlan's wine that caused him to think he was getting younger. Lamont decided to destroy the sample of the formula so that no one could use the formula for evil.

Here are the two episodes in case you'd like to compare them for yourself:

On Wednesday: The Shadow and Suspense!

OTR Detective Christmas, Day 10: The Shadow

Even the Shadow appeared in a few Christmas adventures over the years - in fact, Orson Welles and Agnes Moorehead starred in a Christmas adventure during the first year of Welles' tenure, which was usually more grim than his successors.

In "Cold Death" (December 19, 1937) we have a very familiar tale; Daniel Carver is the cold-hearted businessman who runs the company town Carverville. The Shadow identifies him as being just like Scrooge - so uses the methodology of A Christmas Carol in order to force a change of heart upon the man!

Another Christmas radio program tomorrow!

Halloween Week, Day 3: "Murder from the Grave"

The Shadow, of course, featured a hero with the hypnotic power to cloud men's minds so that they could not see him; although that's a pretty fantastic ability, most episodes of the Shadow pit the hero against normal men. Sometimes they were extremely dangerous men, men who were arsonists, poisoners or submarine commanders. But there are only a few episodes where the Shadow is pit against an enemy who is, like himself, something paranormal.

An exception is "Murder from the Grave." In this episode, a doctor at a morgue gets the bright idea (in retrospect, very poorly-thought out idea) of resurrecting a dead mobster with his secret formula. Before long, the mobster has control of the formula and is using it to raise recently-killed criminals from the grave, building an army of dead men to go on a crime spree!

This episode is from the era of the Shadow where the hero was portrayed by the excellent Bill Johnstone, with Marjorie Anderson as his faithful companion Margo Lane.

"Murder from the Grave" aired on the Shadow on April 6, 1941. You can hear this episode on YouTube.

Tomorrow: "Somebody's done a perfect job of framing me. Either that -- or I'm a murderer."

Suspese: The Kettler Method (and the Shadow)

One of the first purchases I ever made for my old-time radio collection was a four-cassette tape set of episodes of Suspense that I found in a Cole's bookstore. The set contains 8 episodes, mostly from the first year of the show's history. Among them was an episode titled "The Kettler Method" which had first aired on September 16, 1942.

The episode concerns a madman named Kettler, a former brain specialist who went insane after a patient died on the operating table. Kettler seizes control of the asylum where he'd been kept and imprisons the head doctor. When a married couple come to visit the doctor, Kettler poses as the head of the asylum. Hearing that the wife has a headache, Kettler decides this is his opportunity to prove the validity of the "Kettler method." To save his wife, the husband masquerades as Kettler's dead patient, wearing bandages to disguise himself.

From the first time I heard the program, it didn't seem quite like what I expected from Suspense. Certainly, the series was only a few months old at the time and hadn't really found its footing... but the plot felt like it belonged to an adventure program. It seemed most like an episode of the Shadow and the more I meditated on that, the more I wondered whether it were related to that program (perhaps a recycled script? or a script rejected by the Shadow?). I suspected that the scene where the husband donned bandages to impersonate the dead man had originally been a scene where Lamont Cranston assumed his ghostly guise as the Shadow. But at the time, I didn't even know who wrote "The Kettler Method" and none of the old-time radio fan sites of the 1990s knew anything about the episode's origins. As recently as 2020, I still couldn't pin this episode down.

I owe it to the terrific Suspense fan site the Suspense Collector's Companion for finally resolving my questions about "The Kettler Method." It turns out the author was Peter Barry, who was indeed a writer for the Shadow. In addition to the Suspense version, this script was used twice on the Shadow!

The first time was as "Nightmare at Gaelsbury" (February 2, 1941) a year before the Suspense broadcast. It's from the era where Lamont Cranston was portrayed by Bill Johnstone and Margo Lane was portrayed by Marjoie Anderson. The script is reasonably the same, with many passages reused in the Suspense version. This time the mad doctor believes he's a follower of Cagliostro and Lamont exploits that by claiming to be Cagliostro when he confronts the doctor as the Shadow. However, there are some interesting differences; in this version, there's a scene where Lamont buys a jacknife as souvenir; this later helps him escape the sanitarium. Further, when Lamont escapes the sanitarium, he climbs over the wall and is promptly arrested by some passing policemen who assume he's an escaped patient (if only Lamont had the power to cloud men's minds so they couldn't see him!).

Six years after the Suspense broadcast, the script was reworked considerably into the Shadow episode "Terror at Wolf's Head Knoll," broadcast February 15, 1948. This is from the era of Bret Morrison as Lamont Cranston and Grace Matthews as Margo Lane. In this version, the mad doctor (with pet bird) and an ally have already escaped imprisonment by the start of the drama; they take over a country house then set up a mirror to cause traffic accidents. Lamont and Margo's car crashes thanks to that stunt and the mad doctor threatens to use his procedures to "cure" Margo's injured foot. It's certainly a major departure from the two earlier versions and replaces one popular Shadow template (Lamont and Margo go to visit a friend) with another (Lamont and Margo's car breaks down, forcing them to visit a spooky mansion). Only a few lines of dialogue recur from the original script but if you follow closely, they are indeed kindred scripts.

Listen to them for yourself on YouTube! The Shadow: "Nightmare at Galesbury"; Suspense: "The Kettler Method"; The Shadow: Terror at Wolf's Head Knoll"

OTR Halloween Day 23: The Shadow

Unlike other shows I've featured this Halloween, The Shadow was not a horror anthology. It was simply a detective-mystery show featuring the titular Shadow in his adventures against crime. But unlike most radio adventure heroes, the Shadow had a decidedly supernatural bend to his adventures. It helped that he possessed "the power to cloud men's minds so that they cannot see him," which opened the door to all sorts of shenanigans.

Take for instance "Death Coils to Strike." It first aired March 21, 1948 during the era of Bret Morrison, who portrayed the Shadow in more episodes than any other performer. This drama involves a man who is afraid of his wife; he thinks she's transforming into a snake. Could it be true? Either way, it's a chilling episode.

You can check out "Death Coils to Strike" on the Internet Archive.

Linking the Shadow to Lights Out!

Recently I was listening to a few episodes of the old-time radio series The Shadow which I hadn't heard before. The earliest episode I hadn't heard was called "Fountain of Death" and first aired in 1938, pretty early in the series! The early Shadow episodes have always been my favourites and this one, with Bill Johnstone in the lead, was a very good one with an unusual science fiction plot. You can hear the episode on the Internet Archive here.

The strange thing is, this episode of the Shadow is partially recycled from the horror program Lights Out! "Fountain of Death" concerns a female scientist who has created a formula to restore people's youth. She demonstrates its power by restoring youth to a dying woman. Thereafter, an agent from a foreign power kills the scientist and takes the formula, but while returning to his homeland by plane, the Shadow catches up to him. The Shadow makes the agent think he's consumed the youth formula; afraid to die by regressing into nothingness, he jumps from the plane to his doom. As it turns out, the Shadow merely bluffed the agent into thinking he'd taken the formula; he didn't even have to use his mental powers! His hard and relentless fight against the forces of evil is certainly aided by the credulity of those evil forces.

Much of this is quite similar to Arch Oboler's Lights Out episode "Nobody Died", which debuted two years earlier in 1936. Again, the plot is about a female scientist who creates a youth potion and restores a dying woman to life. Then a dictator comes for the formula and kills the scientist. He schemes to youthen his entire army so he has an unstoppable force forever in their prime, but the formula keeps rejuvenating people and because the dictator took the most, he regresses into infancy and then, apparent nothingness. You can hear it on Youtube here.

"Fountain of Death" does not credit it's author, but I'm pretty sure it must have been Arch Oboler. He had been writing scripts for the Shadow around that time and, according to the Library of Congress, their Arch Oboler Collection contains a script titled "Fountain of Death" (the library listing doesn't indicate what series the script belongs to). The scenes in which the female scientist saves the dying woman and where the foreigner kills the scientist are virtually identical to those in "Nobody Died". They differ primarily where the Shadow himself is concerned and especially in how the villain is defeated not by consuming the formula but by being made to think he had. Certainly that has something to do with the differences between Lights Out and the Shadow; Lights Out was a late night program for adults, while the Shadow was an afternoon program for juveniles. If the villain in the Shadow had regressed into nothingness it would have been a bit too disturbing for children. Much better that the villain jumps to his death from an airplane, that's not disturbing at all!

OTR Holiday Month Day 31: The Shadow

Here we are - the end of 2018 and the end of my OTR holiday theme month. What better way to end the year than with our friend The Shadow! In the January 1, 1939 episode "The Man Who Murdered Time", Lamong (Bill Johnstone) and Margo (Agnes Moorehead) are taught in a temporal loop as New Year's Eve repeats itself again and again. Lamont's great mental powers allow him to avoid repeating the same events over and over, but it's a strain on his mind; can he find the person responsible for replaying the day's events before his resolve fades?

You can hear "The Man Who Murdered Time" on archive.org here.

I hope you enjoy your New Year's Eve celebrations today and I look forward to interactions on the blog in the New Year. 2019 will definitely see some changes in how this blog functions...

Iron Fist, Shangri-La, Amazing-Man, Kung Fu and the Mighty Whitey

With the debut of Netflix's Iron Fist television show nearly upon us, many people in and about the internet have been commenting on matters of race in the Iron Fist saga - that is, that the hero is, in the comics and on the show, a white guy who gained his powers from an Asian culture.

So, let's begin our history lesson - but first, we'll have to step way back and do some pop culture history.

#1: The Fabled Lost City

There is a tradition in fiction of lost civilizations, places which are kept out of reach of modern man. These places may be hidden in a distant jungle, in an underground cavern, atop a high mountain, on the bottom of the ocean or the surface of the moon. Iron Fist's homeland, K'un-Lun, is such a place; it is a city which lies within an alternate dimension and can only be accessed through a portal found in the Himalayan mountains. And so, before we can start talking about K'un-Lun as an appropriation of Asian culture, we have to acknowledge it's actually an appropriation of western culture which could be said to have been appropriated from Asian culture. Er... or something like that.

British author James Hilton wrote Lost Horizon in 1933. It tells of a fantastic city called Shangri-La which is virtually hidden in the Himalayas and unknown to the world at large. Shangri-La is a paradise of knowledge and is used in the novel (and 1937 film adaptation) as an escape from the punishing realities of contemporary times - the idea that even if western civilization perished in World War II, humanity's knowledge would be maintained in the yet-peaceful land of Shangri-La. The only truly fantastical element in the novel is that people in Shangri-La have extraordinarily-long lifespans but outside the city's borders age rapidly. And so, K'un-Lun is likewise a remote Himalayan retreat which, nevertheless, boasts a surprising understanding of the western world - Lost Horizon was an extremely popular book in its day and was remade as a (terrible) film in 1973, a year before Iron Fist's debut. Yet Hilton had himself based Shangri-La upon a pre-existing city in Asian lore: Shambhala, a Tibetan kingdom which was likewise a repository of knowledge ruled by the wise and just. But K'un-Lun owes a debt to more than simply James Hilton and Shambhala.

I suppose we also have to talk about the 1947 musical Brigadoon by the American Alan Jay Lerner. It's the story of a Scottish village which appears for only one day every 100 years. Similarly, K'un-Lun appears on Earth only once every 10 years. It feels as though one of the reasons K'un-Lun had that restriction was because the initial creators (Roy Thomas & Gil Kane) didn't believe Iron Fist would ever be returning there after his origin. Besides Brigadoon, you can see many ideas from Scottish/Irish/English folktales about fairies in the concept of a place which is sometimes there, sometimes not and where time does not necessarily pass at the same rate.

#2: The Hero Who Journeys to the East

The super hero genre owes a tremendous debt to the pulp magazine hero the Shadow, who directly inspired many of the earliest comic book heroes. In the radio version of the Shadow, he bore "the hypnotic power to cloud men's minds so that they cannot see him," which was a secret he learned "many years ago in the Orient." Well, that set off a mawkish band of imitators. According to the resources of my friend Jess Nevins, some early comic book heroes whose origins consisted of brushing up against the mysticism of "the Orient" (usually Tibet) includes: Thin Man, the Vision, Howard Thurston, the Green Lama, Wonder Man, Thun Dohr, the Human Meteor, Illuso, the Flame, Gun Master and Commando Ranger. But, most significantly, there was Amazing-Man.

Amazing-Man was created by Bill Everett and published by Centaur starting in 1939's Amazing-Man Comics #5. In that comic, we were first introduced to John Aman, an orphan who was selected for his "superb physical structure" and brought to the Council of Seven in Tibet. Said Council was comprised of men in hoods not unlike those of Iron Fist's uncle Yu-Ti (and one of the Council is a heavy, much like Yu-Ti). The Council gifted Aman with "kindness, tolerance and bravery" and set him through a barrage of tests where he had to be strong as an elephant, quick as a cobra, survive being stabbed with throwing knives and prove himself adept at various languages. Following this, one council member injected Aman with a serum which permitted him to become invisible while generating a green mist around his body (hence his other alias, "The Green Mist").

Roy Thomas, being quite the fanboy, deliberately cribbed many details from Amazing-Man's origin for Iron Fist. At the time, the old hero-goes-to-the-mysterious-east origin was mostly neglected, although the 1960s had included a few notable heroes in that mould such as Doctor Strange, Doctor Droom (later Doctor Druid) and Deadman. You might be surprised to hear that Batman was not one of these heroes at the time; it wasn't until a fill-in story written in 1989 by Christopher Priest that Batman's origin was altered to include a trip to Tibet - a detail which would subsequently become quite visible in the 2005 film Batman Begins.

#3: The Martial Arts

Next up, we have to talk about the martial arts film phenomenon. By 1974 it was a big business, coming one year after Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon, which became a major point of reference for martial arts films in popular culture. More than that, there was the television program Kung Fu starring the not-at-all-Asian actor David Carradine. Kung Fu brought the martial arts craze into living rooms across the USA, including those of Marvel Comics' creators. Steve Englehart & Jim Starlin lobbied Roy Thomas to obtain the license for Kung Fu but Thomas noted the series was owned by Warner Bros., owners of their rivals DC Comics; instead, in late 1973 they debuted the new Marvel series Master of Kung Fu featuring as protagonist Shang-Chi, whose personality and ethos were roughly based on that of Kung Fu's Kwai Chang Caine.

Gil Kane said that Iron Fist came about after he saw his first kung fu movie. He was instantly jazzed about creating a kung fu comic book series himself and this led to him joining with Roy Thomas. Therefore, we can trace the lineage of Iron Fist thusly: Kung fu movies -> Amazing-Man -> Lost Horizon -> Shambhala.

However, Iron Fist faltered somewhat shortly out of the gate. Kane was interested enough in the martial arts to draw the first issue, then he jumped off. Larry Hama stepped in for four issues as the new artist, while Len Wein and Doug Moench became the writers. Tony Isabella & Arvell Jones covered only three issues, then after two issues by Chris Claremont & Pat Broderick, John Byrne took Broderick's place and the Claremont-Byrne team became the longest-lasting Iron Fist creative by a country mile.

Due to the immense upheaval, Iron Fist didn't quite gel as a series until the Claremont-Byrne days. The initial storyline dealt with Iron Fist's origin, then his quest for vengeance against his father's killer. Isabella & Jones shook up the concept a little by introducing the idea that K'un-Lun could be reached at other intervals through magic, setting the stage for many of Iron Fist's return visits to the extent that K'un-Lun's supposed disconnection from Earth would become largely forgotten.

#4: Iron Fist's Race

"But Mike," you say, "this is all very interesting and well-researched but you're dancing around the real issue: Iron Fist is just another Mighty Whitey." I appreciate the compliment, but I do prefer "Michael." I won't argue the point of Iron Fist being a Mighty Whitey; like many of those to whom the trope applies, he's a white guy who travels to some remote place inhabited by non-whites, then proceeds to be better at whatever it is the locals specialize in than any of them. Sure enough, Daniel Rand is raised in K'un-Lun from approximately ages 9-19 and succeeds at every trial placed before him (just like Amazing-Man), claiming the power of Iron Fist.

Yet if you had asked me about Danny's race 10 years ago, I would have told you he's half-Asian. And 10 years ago I wrote for The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, so that would have been a rather authoritative declaration.

Here, let's go back to Danny's origin again; what is often overlooked in the origin story is that Danny's father originated in K'un-Lun. As narration in Marvel Premiere #15 puts it: " Even as a child, you knew your father had always been an enigma to everyone! Appearing out of nowhere, nearly a decade before -- becoming an instant entrepreneur, with mysterious funds" Then in Marvel Premiere #16, K'un-Lun's ruler Yu-Ti, the August Personage of Jade, reveals Danny's father Wendell was his brother - making Yu-Ti Danny's uncle. Therefore, Danny's lineage is half-K'un-Lun! That seems pretty conclusive, huh? Danny's 50% Asian, which mitigates all that 'Mighty Whitey' stuff. Danny's full name would even be given as "Daniel Rand-K'ai" on occcasion (usually in the OHOTMU). It seems as though Iron Fist's creators intended for Danny Rand to be half-Asian!

Of course, Gil Kane didn't drawn Wendell Rand to look Asian. You could chalk that up to an art error if you really wanted to. Later, in Power Man & Iron Fist #75 (1981), Jo Duffy suggested Wendell had been adopted into Yu-Ti's family but it didn't catch on, nor did it make sense based on anything previously established about Yu-Ti. But, unfortunately, Ed Brubaker & Matt Fraction's Immortal Iron Fist undid these little-explored fine details. Immortal Iron Fist kinda makes the 'Mighty Whitey' thing even worse by introducing Orson Randall, the previous Iron Fist, who was also a white guy who wound up in K'un-Lun. For a character who died within six issues he's actually got a backstory which is just as convoluted as Danny's. Brubaker & Fraction did at least introduce the idea of K'un-Lun possessing various sister cities which each had their own champion or "immortal weapon;" most of those immortal weapons were Asian guys (one of them was Amazing-Man, who had fallen into the public domain).

So it was that in Immortal Iron Fist Annual #1 (2007), Brubaker & Fraction established Wendell Rand as an All-American orphan kid who met Orson Randall and through him, eventually went to K'un-Lun and became a citizen. So, there was a perfectly acceptable means to firmly establish Iron Fist as one of Marvel's most prominent Asian heroes, but they went the opposite direction. Thanks for ruining it, white guys.

Book review: The Sinister Shadow by Will Murray

Earlier I wrote about Michael Uslan's underwhelming Justice, Inc. comic book. Quite by accident, I later stumbled upon a recent Doc Savage novel by Will Murray (under the usual pen name "Kenneth Robeson") in which - much like Justice, Inc. - Doc Savage meets the Shadow. But oh, what a difference!

The novel, The Sinister Shadow, finds Savage with three of his operatives involved in the case of a criminal called the Funeral Director. The Funeral Director is capturing wealthy men and ransoming them, killing his victims with a gas which induces a heart attack. The Funeral Director's most recent hostage is Lamont Cranston, which complicates matters considerably because Cranston is very important to the mysterious personage called the Shadow; moreover, the Funeral Director is an old enemy of the Shadow and is determined to learn his foe's true identity.

Perhaps because Doc Savage and the Shadow both originated in prose fiction this is the medium to which they are best suited. Murray writes The Sinister Shadow as though it were being published in the 1930s - not in the manner of pastiche, but simply obeying the narrative conventions which Savage and the Shadow belong to. The story is full of familiar faces from the pulps, most notably in the Shadow's supporting cast.

To some extent, this book is actually a Shadow novel; it takes a while for the Shadow to come to the fore, but when he does the novel is all but his - it tends to follow he and his agents rather than Savage, particularly as the villain and his intended victim are both Shadow characters. For much of Savage's investigation the Shadow is a complicating factor as Savage doesn't understand how the Shadow is connected to Cranston, nor if the Shadow truly exists. When Savage and the Shadow finally meet up the duo are forced to compromise in order to work together as neither approves of the other's methods - the Shadow kills his foes while Savage brainwashes his and gives them new identities.

Considering so much of Doc Savage's DNA was used to create Superman and the Shadow to create Batman, it's interesting that Savage and the Shadow have a complicated relationship much like their comic book inspirations, but there is no homage to Superman & Batman found in this book - Doc Savage and the Shadow are icons in their own right.

This is the first Doc Savage novel I've read; I can't speak to whether Doc Savage fans will enjoy it, but Shadow fans - wow, get this one now!

Who Knew? Two Shadow comic book reviews (900th post)

I kinda like the Shadow. I came to the character through the old radio show; it could be campy and juvenile at times, but had a number of very good episodes. Further, I really liked the 1994 motion picture - and not only because I was compared to Alec Baldwin in that film (I wish!). I've read the first Shadow novel the Living Shadow and many of the comic book interpretations of him; the 1970s DC comic was pretty good; the Archie comic was a travesty, but I found it morbidly fascinating enough to explore in-depth in my series of "Bitter Fruit" posts; and of late he's been published by Dynamite Entertainment.

Dynamite Entertainment is one of those publisher names chosen by publishers who don't really want to be known for making comics (see: Boom! Studios, DC Entertainment). Many of the titles in their output are licensed from various sources. To me, it seems as though Dynamite is always trying to get in on some of the sweet Hollywood-friendly projects in comics; I have to imagine part of the reason they're making comics about Doc Savage, the Phantom and Miss Fury is they know someone in Hollywood is shopping scripts around. And yet, if they are seeking some Hollywood synergy, it has not happened: the Green Hornet; the Lone Ranger; John Carter. All had Dynamite titles, all had disappointing films. Who would watch the farcical film version of the Lone Ranger and decide they'd like to read Dynamite's comic version - which is played straight?

Earlier I posted a negative review of Dynamite's Shadow #1 and have read a few of their Shadow books since. With a recent sale going on at Comixology, I elected to try the first issues of two recent Shadow comics: Justice, Inc. #1 and Twilight Zone: The Shadow #1.

Justice, Inc. teams up the Shadow with Doc Savage and the Avenger, two other pulp heroes published by Street & Smith (I've blogged before about the Avenger's comic by Jack Kirby). Team-ups are another thing Dynamite rather likes - they keep trying high-concepts like "Gold Key shared universe," "Jack Kirby shared universe," "King Features shared universe," "public domain shared universe," and so forth. This season: "Street & Smith shared universe."

The cover of Justice, Inc. #1 by Alex Ross prompts another digression (I promise, we'll get to the comic eventually): Dynamite made their name through the use of variant covers. You could say they're the company Alex Ross built, given the ubiquity of his covers. But then, Ross seldom does interior work art for them. Indeed, while they often snap up great cover artists (John Cassaday, Darwyn Cooke, Francesco Francavilla) and have hired a pretty good crop of big name writers (Garth Ennis, Matt Wagner, Roger Langridge) the interior art is usually made by someone you've never heard of before; pointing again to my review of the Shadow #1, that's a problem when the storytelling goes wrong. Dynamite seldom seems to hire proven talent, talent who many previous successes. Indeed, few even seem to go on to wider acclaim. There's always a chance that Dynamite may discover a major new talent, but they tend to lack the combination of established names and up-and-coming names found at the likes of Boom!, Valiant or IDW.

Justice, Inc. #1 is written by Michael Uslan and drawn by Giovanni Timpano (many Dynamite artists seem to be from Italy). Michael Uslan is famous for being the man who snapped up the film rights to Batman and Swamp Thing back when they were going for a song and has been linked the Batman films ever since. He's also written the Shadow before and seems to have a lot of affection for heroes of the 30s & 40s. He was also, unfortunately, responsible for the 1990s revival of Terry and the Pirates which transformed Terry Lee into a totally radical 90s teen. It was drawn by the Brothers Hildebrandt which absolutely guaranteed beautitful art, but - seriously - don't look it up. You will cringe.

Although the series is titled after the Avenger's organization, he's not quite in the comic - in fact, the story, set primarily iin 1939, is before he's become the Avenger and it appears his origin is being set up through this series. Thus, there are none of his operatives appearing. For that matter, Doc Savage's operatives (the Fabulous Five) are absent, with him instead dallying with H.G. Wells, Albert Einstein & Howard Hughes (the League of Fair Use Gentlemen?). Also strange is that although all three men operated in the same time frame in the pulps, the story concerns the Doc Savage of contemporary times time-travelling to 1939. Perhaps the plan is for there to be two Doc Savages in this story? In fact, '39 Savage doesn't even have the Man of Bronze's distinctive appearance; of them all, only the Shadow is fully developed in 1939 and his pulp foe the Voodoo Master is the antagonist.

Like so many comic books of the 21st century, the cover(s) promises something which does not happen (the Avenger, Shadow & Doc Savage do not meet. It seems frequently that what you see on the cover of #1 won't appear in the interiors 'til #6. In fact, the story seems instead to be getting the drop on Twilight Zone: The Shadow with what have to be intentional references to Twilight Zone episodes "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (something on the wing of an airplane) and "The Odyssey of Flight 33" (time-travelling airplane passengers see dinosaurs).

Even if you've never read the Avenger, you'd never guess his wife and daughter were about to die, would you?

I understood the events of Justice, Inc. #1, but there simply isn't much of a plot; it's primarily set up, teasing the Avenger's origin, establishing the Shadow, establishing the Shadow's "other self" Lamont Cranston; establishing the Voodoo Master, introducing two Doc Savages, sending one Doc Savage back in time... it simply runs out of pages. People who love these characters and have faith in Uslan will not doubt follow it to the end. As a casual Shadow fan and a non-fan of the Avenger and Doc Savage, I won't finish this series.

Twilight Zone: The Shadow #1 comes with a beautiful cover by Francesco Francavilla, one of my favourite artists. How can you possibly tell a Twilight Zone crossover with the Shadow when said program was an anthology series with no recurring elements? The cover begins to hint this can be done as Francavilla has essentially dropped the Shadow into the TV show's opening credits. The story itself is by David Avallone (writer) and Dave Acosta (artist). I am not familiar with either man, but Avallone's IMDB page credits him with all kinds of film & television work from VR Troopers to what appears to be a series of softcore porn video work. And nothing say "good writing" like porn! Dynamite brought him into comics which seems like validation to my Dynamite-wants-to-be-in-pictures theory. Dave Acosta seems to have made his entire professional career drawing for Dynamite. Can anything good come from this concept by these creators? Let us see!

Even people who may not have ever seen the Twilight Zone may use it in conversation, say when a strange coincidence occurs ("you've just entered the Twilight Zone!"). The Twilight Zone's stories are best-recalled as nightmarish scenes of people having inexplicable encounters with the paranormal, losing their identity and their very control over reality. This is much of what occurs in Twilight Zone: the Shadow. The story opens with the Shadow attacking a Nazi rally in the US, then having a car accident. When he wakes up, he's Lamont Cranston, the man who the Shadow often poses as (on the radio Lamont & the Shadow were the same person, but in the pulps they were separate). A fight with a very pulpy-looking Shiwan Khan occurs, Lamont seems to die - then finds himself transformed into Orson Welles, about to perform the radio episode "The Temple Bells of Neban"! What a great cliffhanger!

Amazingly, this odd concept delivers where the seemingly-straightforward concept of Justice, Inc. faltered. By the end of the issue, the reader has seen the Shadow's reality collapse around him and seen the character confronted with his own fictional nature. It works! We have a weird mystery with the hero's sanity on the line and we have the Shadow leaping into action and fighting familiar foes. It is a legitimate Twlight Zone comic and a legitimate Shadow comic. Author Avallone's past history didn't give me confidence, but this was ultimately a fun read and one I intend to follow up and complete.

Winners: David Avallone; the Twilight Zone; the Shadow
Losers: Alex Ross; the Avenger; the Fabulous Five

Where the werewolves were in old-time radio

I was recently reading Guy Endore's 1933 novel the Werewolf of Paris and I began to reflect on how werewolves were portrayed in popular culture of the time, as I spent a lot of time enjoying literature, films and radio programs of the past. Although Universal's the Wolfman is one of the giants of classic monster movies, there really weren't very many werewolves on screen in those days. Similarly, while Dracula and Frankenstein are two of the great classic horror novels, there's no werewolf book whose reputation permits it to stand alongside them.

And what of radio? What I find interesting about werewolves on radio is that while they were frequently spoken of (say, in Raymond the host's jokes on Inner Sanctum Mysteries), they only infrequently figured in plots on the radio and even less often appeared in the fur & flesh - most radio werewolves involve a hoax of some sort. I can only go by what episodes still exist today, but going from that I've composed a list of werewolves on the radio, grouped together for your convenience into "name only," "hoaxes," and "the real deal."

PART 1: WEREWOLVES IN-NAME-ONLY

There are two 1949 radio police drama shows featuring criminals who terrorize women and are referred to as a "werewolf," but only in allusion to the supernatural beast, not because anyone believes they are such. The two are so similar, I wonder if they were both inspired by the same real life event? First, an audition show for a series called Prowl Car presented "the Wilshire Werewolf," then a very early episode of Dragnet delved into its own werewolf.

Click here to listen to Prowl Car's "the Wilshire Werewolf" at myoldradio.com

Right-click here to download Dragnet's "the Werewolf" from archive.org

PART 2: THE GREAT WEREWOLF HOAXES

The earliest "hoax" program I've found is 1935's Front Page Drama, which presented an episode entitled "the Werewolf" which seems to be based on true events where people's superstitions about werewolves nearly leads to an innocent girl's death. The ending is a bit muddled but the most interesting thing about it is that this show uses the standard rules about vampires for werewolves! At one point the term "werewolf vampire" is uttered as though they were the same thing! Yes, vampires often change shape too, but since the supposed werewolves in this story are said to be corpses by day who can only be destroyed with a stake through the heart, it sure sounds like vampires, huh?

Right-click here to download Front Page Drama's "the Werewolf" from Radio Echoes.

I've found two episodes of the Shadow where he tangles with suspected werewolves. The first one, 1941's "Death Prowls at Night" is actually very good, involving a madman who can hypnotize people into thinking they're werewolves; but maybe he really is a werewolf? It ends on an ambiguous note. The second, 1947's "the Werewolf of Hamilton Mansion" involves a wealthy man who thinks his son is a werewolf and has kept him locked up, but it's all a trick.

Right-click here to download the Shadow's "Death Prowls at Night" from archive.org

Click here to listen to the Shadow's "the Werewolf of Hamilton Mansion" at youtube.com

I Love a Mystery has (barely) two surviving storylines involving werewolves: "Bride of the Werewolf" and "Bury Your Dead, Arizona." The former exists in only two parts out of fifteen, one produced in 1944, the other from 1952! The latter's 1949 version is complete and involves a supposed mystic whose assistant can become a wolf, but as I Love a Mystery is the program which inspired Scooby-Doo, you may not be surprised to hear it's all a fake.

Right-click here to download I Love a Mystery's "Bride of the Werewolf" part 3 from archive.org; part 12

Right-click here to download I Love a Mystery's "Bury Your Dead, Arizona" part 1 from archive.org; part two; part 3; part 4; part 5; part 6; part 7; part 8; part 9; part 10; part 11; part 12; part 13; part 14; part 15

A 1946 episode of the Adventures of Dick Cole entitled "The Werewolf of Farr" has a plot so slight it should have been an episode of Five-Minute Mysteries, yet drags itself out to a half-hour. People are convinced there's a werewolf loose, yet since the episode mentions early on that a real wolf has escaped you really shouldn't expect to be surprised by the climax.

Right-click here to download the Adventures of Dick Cole's "the Werewolf of Farr" from archive.org

Sherlok Holmes occasionally tangles with the supernatural, but by the very nature of his character - a man who make sense of the seeming insensible - the supernatural is thoroughly debunked each time. Such an instance is found in the 1946 episode of the New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes entitled "the Adventure of the Black Angus," in which a Scotsman believes he's inherited the family curse of lycanthropy. Weirdly, when Sherlock first says "werewolf," Watson responds "A vampire!" which is either exposing the cursory research of the creators or represents yet another "dumb Watson" moment.

Right-click here to download the New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' "The Adventure of the Black Angus."

Easily the best werewolf hoax on this list, Escape presented an adaptation of Geoffrey Household's "Taboo" in 1947. Never mind that the suspected werewolf is only a man - it's a suitably terrifying story about hunting a monster at night - or being hunted by a monster! It also hints at some very dark, grisly affairs.

Right-click here to download Ecape's "Taboo" from archive.org

The New Adventures of Michael Shayne being set in New Orleans seemed contractually obliged to tell a "loup-garou" story and they got it over with early in 1948. It has lively performances by Jeff Chandler & Jack Webb, but the plot is nuts.

Right-click here to download the New Adventures of Michael Shayne's "the Case of the Bayou Monster" from archive.org

There are two western programs involving werewolf hoaxes: the Challenge of the Yukon's "Trail of the Werewolf" from 1949 and Wild Bill Hickok's "The Wolf of Ghost Mountain" from 1952. Both are juvenile westerns with simple hoax plots.

Right-click here to download the Challenge of the Yukon's "Trail of the Werewolf" from archive.org

Right-click here to download Wild Bill Hickok's "the Wolf of Ghost Mountain" from archive.org

Finally, Escape ventured into the bayou with their 1952 episode "Loup-Garou," wherein a man is accused of being a werewolf by a hateful mob; the play was performed again as a 1956 episode of Romance which is in much better condition than the earlier version.

Right-click here to download Escape's "Loup-Garou" from archive.org

Right-click here to download Romance's "the Loup-Garou" from archive.org

PART 3: THE REAL DEAL - WEREWOLVES IN THE FUR, FLESH & FANG

Appropriately, we begin with the Witch's Tale; unlike many of the later horror programs (such as Inner Sanctum Mysteries or the Mysterious Traveler), the Witch's Tale never shied from the supernatural. Unfortunately, surviving episodes tend to be of very poor sound quality, sound effects are minimal, performances are flat and there's very little tension. Placing only that aside, we have the 1935 rendition of "the Werewolf" (earlier versions are lost) in which the course of true love never did run smoothly; two young lovers are torn apart by the fact that the young man tears people apart at night when he becomes a wolf.

Click here to listen to the Witch's Tale's "the Werewolf" at youtube.com

Much later we have 1942's Dark Fantasy and "W is for Werewolf." Dark Fantasy is not a very distinguished program but it told its rather pulpy stories well. Like the Shadow episode I described above, this involves a man locking up his supposed-werewolf son - only this time, it's the real thing!

Right-click here to download Dark Fantasy's "W is for Werewolf" from archive.org

Sadly, very few episodes of Creeps by Night have survived and their audio quality tends to be very poor; considering the show used both Bela Lugosi & Boris Karloff it's quite a loss to classic horror fans! However, we still have 1944's "the Hunt," a story where people toss around the "w" word at each other - but who is the werewolf who's been terrorizing the area?

Right-click here to download Creeps by Night's "the Hunt" from archive.org

The Weird Circle didn't have the best actors in radio, but they adapted their material from some of the best classic horror fiction so it's a show of interest to all fans of radio horror. Their 1944 episode "the Werewolf" is adapted from a passage in Frederick Marryat novel the Phantom Ship, involving a woodsman who takes a new wife whose hobbies include hunting at night in the form of a wolf. Should've had a pre-nup.

Right-click here to download the Weird Circle's "the Werewolf" from archive.org

Special thanks to Ian Griev for pointing out this quick story from 1945's Strange Adventure; in "Werewolf Island," a wolf has been devouring sheep and the beast appears so intelligent that people suspect it's a werewolf!

Right-click here to download Strange Adventure's "Werewolf Island" from archive.org

Werewolf fans frequently cite the 1946 Suspense episode "The House in Cypress Canyon" as a werewolf program, even though the term never appears. It's actually to the show's benefit to not explain too much about what exactly the horror is - but if you like werewolf stories, this one delivers big time!

Right-click here to download Suspense's "the House in Cypress Canyon" from archive.org

Finally, in 1957 comedian Stan Freberg threw the films I Was a Teenage Werewolf and The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit into a blender and came up with an episode of the Stan Freberg Show with the hilarious skit "A Gray Flannel Hat Full of Teenage Werewolves." It concerns a werewolf who is cursed to become an advertising executive by day!

Right-click here to download the Stan Freberg Show's "A Gray Flannel Hat Full of Teenage Werewolves" from archive.org

Thank you for checking out this list!

Review: Shadow: Year One#1

So far I've examined the Shadow's career in comic books through the legendarily bad Archie Comics, a surprisingly decent team-up with the Ghost and the recent Dynamite relaunch. Although the rewards have been minimal, here I find myself plunging again into the world of Lamont Cranston via Dynamite's the Shadow: Year One by writer Matt Wagner and artist Wilfredo Torres.

Although the term "Year One" carries a faint reminder of Frank Miller & David Mazzucchelli's Batman: Year One, it's only by accident; "Year One" has been cashed in often enough by comic book culture to the point where such stories as "Black Lightning: Year One" and "Metamorpho: Year One" actually exist. "Year One" has become a different way of saying "origin story," rather than necessarily indicating an effort to emulate the Miller/Mazzucchelli opus.

While the true-blue Shadow aficionados insist the pulp novels are the truest version of the character, his radio, film and comic book adventures are almost definitely better-known (speaking as one who has never read a Shadow pulp novel). I believe the Shadow's origin story was told in the pulps and would therefore have inspired the comic book at hand.

However, the Shadow: Year One#1 doesn't begin with the Shadow's origin. Instead, we open in 1929 on a figure called "the Shadow of Judgment" who burns down a village in Cambodia while searching for a white man called "the White Tiger." The rampaging figure is probably intended as the Shadow, given his black garb, red scarf, handgun and ring along with various quotes from the Shadow's radio dialogue, but the issue never makes this clear who he or "the White Tiger" is. Since the next scene features Lamont Cranston arriving in New York City, one might wonder if Lamont is the White Tiger and is fleeing from "the Shadow of Judgment." Regardless, we soon realize Lamont is returning from his time in the east and thus has already experienced his origin. Assuming he is "the Shadow of Judgment," this then would be the "prototype costume" which turns up in many reimagined versions of super hero origins, as in the movie Batman Begins. However, with Lamont's origin out of the way, what sets this Shadow comic book apart from the other series, aside from the creative team? This Lamont Cranston has yet to don a black coat & hat and develop a network of operatives, but I'm not clear why it would be interesting to see the storytelling engine tuned-up when I might simply pick up Dynamite's other Shadow comic book and read a tale where the storytelling engine is already running? The only possible reason would be to sample the particular style of this comic.

Lamont returns to New York City just as the Great Depression has begun and Prohibition is still a concern. In short order, we meet the series' version of Margo Lane, who is, we're told "A real class number, dat one!" In this version, Margo is sleeping with mobster Giuseppe Massaretti, who slaps her in the face for making a disparaging reference to the size of his "gun." Seeing Margo in this role is akin to hearing a sweet 90-year old lady curse like a sailor.

Later, at an unidentified locale (helpfully identified as long-time Shadow setting the Cobalt Club in the next issue blurb, but nowhere else in these pages) where Commissioner Ralph Weston and Lamont Cranston hobknob, Margo arrives and briefly interacts with Lamont, then confronts Massaretti, claiming to be pregnant with his child. It's possible she's lying in an attempt to regain his good graces.

Massaretti reacts badly to the news and decides he'd rather throw Margo from the roof of the building than make nice with her. This leads to Margo receiving another slap in the face and some cruel profanity (translated into Italian for our delicate sensibilities). However, Lamont has tied a red tablecloth around his face (a second prototype costume?) and comes to Margo's rescue as the issue closes.

After the failure to properly identify the Cobalt Club setting, this comic's greatest failing has to be the transition from the opening sequence to Lamont's arrival in New York City. I feel certain the character in the former scene is supposed to be Lamont and I have to assume the creators didn't intend it to be a mystery. The creators have not given enough thought to translating their clever plot to us, the audience.

No one would mistake this story for one of the Shadow's 1930s adventures; then again, when it comes to gender roles it's not exactly welcome in the 21st century either. In the radio program, Margo Lane was often little more than a "damsel in distress;" here, she's a "damsel in distress" plus a "whore with a heart of gold?" Margo as an unlikeable tramp who gets beaten twice per issue? Who thought this was a good idea in 2013?

I just finished reading Message in a Bottle: Comic Book Stories by B. Krigstein, a collection of Bernie Krigstein's work from the 1940s to 50s. In one instance, Krigstein drew a story with 75 panels in just four pages! By way of comparison, Shadow: Year One#1 runs 91 panels across 22 pages. It's unfair to compare the two, but it's like going from a steak dinner to a bologna sandwich.

The Shadow: Year One#1 came with 14 variant covers. Welcome to 21st century economics.

Review: Ghost and the Shadow#1

Having recently concluded Bitter Fruit, my series of posts about Archie's deservedly-maligned 1960s Shadow comic books, I felt I needed something to balance the scales concerning the Shadow. Thus, I purchased a copy of Dark Horse's 1995 one-shot Ghost & the Shadow by Doug Moench & H.M Baker. William Goldman was nowhere to be found.

I consider myself a big fan of Moench's work and an amateur fan of the Shadow, but I knew nothing about Ghost. Great, I'm able to approach this book with only slight prejudices. After the cover by Matt Haley & Tom Simmons (strangely, depicting the Shadow armed with uzis), our story begins:

We open at a Tibetan lamasery where three monks guard an old jade statue. Suddenly, five men bearing machine guns burst in and kill the monks, then load the statue into an aircraft. The other monks of the lamasery fear a great evil is about to be unleashed, so they send a message: "Tulpa Arcadia." This message is received in New York by Harry Vincent, an old man. I'm aware Vincent was a major supporting character in the Shadow's pulp exploits. In contemporary times, he's been charged with watching over Lamont Cranston, whose body resides in a suspended animation chamber. Vincent awakens Lamont, who is stunned to see how old Harry has become. Harry confirms Lamont has been sleeping for decades; during this time, his allies Clyde Burke, Jericho Druke and Margo Lane have died; Lamont is startled to hear of Margo's death. Harry gives Lamont the "Tulpa Arcadia" message and explains Arcadia is "a strange city, with a large population of paranormals." I'm going to assume this is something from Dark Horse's 1990s super hero universe. Donning the garb of the Shadow, Lamont heads out to Arcadia, pleasing Harry, who waited decades to see his old friend in action again.

Two days later in Arcadia, the men who stole the statue are loading its crate aboard a ship. Suddenly, an autogyro bears down, trying to latch its hook on the crate. One of the thieves fires a rocket launcher at the autogyro, destroying it, but the pilot bails out just in time. In fact, the pilot is... the Shadow! He faces three of the thieves with his twin pistols. The man with the rocket launcher tries to fire it at the Shadow, but he empties his guns into the launcher's barrel, causing it to explode in the man's hands, killing him and (at the very least) stunning the other two. The Shadow confronts one of the surviving men and forces him to stare into his fire opal ring, mesmerizing him; the Shadow demands to know where the ship is bringing the jade statue.

We finally turn our attention to Ghost, who's in the midst of an argument with her sister Margo. It seems Ghost has the power to phase through objects, rendering her difficult to harm, but she fears her enemies will go after Margo instead. Margo resents being treated as a mere potential hostage, when suddenly the jade statue bears burst into the apartment to make Margo their hostage. Instant karma! Ghost kills one of the men by phasing through a wall and dropping him into the street below. One of the kidnappers wields a rope dart whose dart is made from jade. He's able to wound Ghost with this weapon, revealing to us (the audience) Ghost's one weakness. However, she quickly grabs her attacker and solidifies her hand inside his head. In the midst of this fight, the other kidnappers escape with Margo, leaving a note which reads: "Go to Hell at midnight!"

Margo and the jade statue have been brought together in a sewer, where the thieves' leader Mr. Skinner conspires with Songpa, a man with horrible scars covering his body from being burned in a fire. Songpa explains the jade statute conceals something called Tulpa, which Songpa created. If they break the statue open, the creature will simply be left in pieces; they need another means of setting the creature free and intend to exploit Ghost's phasing power now that Margo is their prisoner.

Elsewhere, Ghost heads to Club Hell to find a lead. We learn from her narration how she feels about men: "So whether they're the same ones who murdered me or some new creeps, they want to use me... just like all men." She demonstrates she has the power of invisibility as she scouts the building, but Skinner's men are waiting and drop a net made of jade on her. Ghost is trapped, but suddenly the Shadow appears, guns blazing. Ghost recognizes his weapons as the same caliber as hers; the Shadow is supposed to wield .45 automatics. I wonder if the similarity in firearms between Ghost and Shadow was an intentional creative decision when Ghost was created? The Shadow kills Skinner's men then releases Ghost from the net. Introducing himself as "a Shadow," he explains Skinner's men want her to release the Tulpa from jade. He helpfully explains the Tulpa is "A demonic spirit created fifty years ago -- an entity of evil so powerful that it can form a bridge to hell, letting demons ride its spine straight to our plane." Ghost is impressed at how the Shadow doesn't seem surprised at her powers, nor is he interested in ogling her (despite her provocative clothing).

In the sewers, Songpa explains how he was set on fire by the Shadow at the same time his Tulpa was sealed within the statue. He hopes to force Ghost into animating the statue; he could animate it himself by projecting his astral form into the statue, but explains to Skinner, "only by becoming the evil one... and trust me, it is more rewarding by far to control evil." At Club Hell, Ghost wonders how the Shadow could have fought Songpa 50 years ago and still be so young; he quickly explains how technology and "techniques of the mind" have kept him alive. Ghost explains how jade is her weakness and wonders how she would be able to help them with the statue. She explains how she can teleport inside any space and assumes Skinner & Songpa want her to teleport within the statue; however, the Shadow warns her that her soul would be bound to the statue and she'd become a creature of evil.

As Ghost & the Shadow head into the sewers, Ghost happens to mention her sister's name is Margo, startling the Shadow. "Synchronicity... is strange." This is the second coincidence about Ghost and the Shadow's back stories. Or is it all a coincidence? Was Ghost's creator a massive Shadow fan? Soon, Ghost confronts Skinner & Songpa, who demand she teleport inside the statue, but the Shadow surprises them and quickly rescues Margo.

Ghost suggests they simply exit, but the Shadow explains friends of his died protecting the statue in Tibet and he can't let their sacrifice be in vain: he must complete their mission. Ghost still insists on leaving, but the Shadow notes she owes him for saving her and Margo sides with the Shadow. The Shadow tells Ghost to teleport inside the statue, but Skinner forces Songpa to enter the statue first. The animated statue attacks Ghost, able to strike her because of its jade form, so Ghost starts to teleport inside, warring with the evil Tulpa which lies within. The Shadow takes some machine guns from Skinner's men and starts blasting away at the ceiling to cause a collapse. Ghost succeeds in overwhelming and destroying the statue with her superior willpower; the entire Club Hell is brought down by the Shadow's actions.

As Ghost & Margo leave the site, wondering where the Shadow is, Margo says of the Shadow, "maybe all men ain't so bad, huh?" Ghost refuses to rescind her man-hating ways: "Except he wasn't a man... he was nothing more and nothing less than what he said... a Shadow." And from the darkness, the Shadow's laugh can be heard.

I'm not certain how popular Ghost was at her heyday, but presumably she was the "draw" of this comic, being a native Dark Horse property. Circa 1995, the Shadow was best known as an under-performing movie starring Alec Baldwin (and may still be). However, based on this comic book, I wouldn't be interested in reading more stories about Ghost. She kills enemies violently and without remorse, seems to only care about her sister's welfare (as opposed to conquering evil) and doesn't like men. By both not hating men and for wanting to stop the villains of the story, I actually preferred Margo over her super-powered sister.

By 1995 standards, Baker's artwork is tremendous. Actually, it's rather good by 2012 standards too. It isn't flashy or even terribly creative, but every action, reaction, character and setting is recognizable and consistent, which is more than can be said for many comic book professionals. I don't know what he's done since the 1990s, but if he's still active, I imagine his skills are even sharper.

So far as I know, this is the only time Moench wrote Ghost or the Shadow. If his characterization of Ghost is representative of how she's normally written, then I don't think I would want to read more stories about her. However, he writes a decent Shadow - all the powers and resourcefulness are present; by underplaying moments such as when the Shadow blows up the rocket launcher and giving the hero a straightforward set of principles he adheres to, he made a tight, easy to enjoy story. More, please! I'd buy additional issues of Dynamite's Shadow if only Moench were writing them!