|
Post by frightengale on Feb 23, 2018 15:17:07 GMT
Since we've brought up THE NIGHT MASTER, THE SHADOW SCRAPBOOK and THE DUENDE HISTORY OF THE SHADOW MAGAZINE, it's worth noting that the first semi-scholarly treatise on The Shadow was a 1974 volume from Pulp Press titled GANGLAND'S DOOM: THE SHADOW OF THE PULPS by Frank Eisgruber Jr. It's a slim volume (only about 70 pages), but it's notable for being the jumping off point from which those later books originated. I just looked on Amazon, and both the original 1974 edition and the 2007 reprint are going for crazy money (in excess of $1000.00 each). www.amazon.com/Ganglands-Doom-Frank-Eisgruber-Jr/dp/1440456739/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519507021&sr=1-1&keywords=%22gangland%27s+doom%22+eisgruberIt's a decent little book, but I find it hard to believe that anyone would actually pay that kind of money for it.
|
|
|
Post by Michael Connolly on Feb 23, 2018 15:32:05 GMT
"The Bloody Pulps", chapter two of The Steranko History of Comics (Volume 1, 1970), has much material on the pulp-origins of comic books, with a focus on the Shadow.
|
|
|
Post by Jojo Lapin X on Feb 23, 2018 15:44:22 GMT
Sadly, I was a lowly file clerk at the time, and money was tight. You can probably still buy it. Very likely at a higher price, but now that you are a maharajah, this does not matter.
|
|
|
Post by frightengale on Feb 23, 2018 16:03:53 GMT
Thanks for the vote of confidence, but it's more like I went from lowly file clerk to moderately okay processing associate (and aspiring writer on the side).
|
|
|
Post by frightengale on Feb 23, 2018 19:02:28 GMT
|
|
|
Post by helrunar on Feb 24, 2018 3:25:28 GMT
That sounds like a cool book. I only ever heard a few of the SHADOW shows. I should see if the ones with Orson and Agnes are on archive dot org or youtube--it would be cool to hear more of them. As I think I've discussed with you in the past, Frightengale, my favorite of those I heard back in the 70s was "The Temple Bells of Neiban" which included a kind of flashback to the Shadow's origin story. Thinking about it now, I wonder if that version of the character was influenced by the original 1932-33 "Chandu the Magician" series. I remember your telling me that the original Shadow character in the magazine stories didn't have any occult powers or attributes (unless I'm misremembering that particular conversation--which, given my short-term memory these days, is always a possibility!).
H.
|
|
|
Post by Michael Connolly on Feb 24, 2018 14:12:32 GMT
This is never going to end. Here is a short history of The Shadow from The Shadow # 9 (DC comics, March 1975):
|
|
|
Post by frightengale on Feb 24, 2018 21:11:55 GMT
We definitely could keep this thread going indefinitely, Michael. The author of that "Shadow Dossier," Anthony Tollin was the editor (and I believe uncredited co-author) of THE SHADOW SCRAPBOOK. These days, he runs Sanctum Publications, which has been releasing reprints of the original Shadow novels for about a decade now. Here is a link to a YouTube video I cut together a few years back:
It's a collection of interviews and retrospectives about The Shadow, including a look inside Tony Tollin's massive collection of Shadow memorabilia. Tony's rather a nice guy, and let me & my wife crash at his house in New Jersey for a weekend back in the early '90s, so we could attend the Friends of Old-Time Radio convention celebrating The Shadow. Quite a treat to see some of that stuff up close and personal. Hey, Helrunar! You're correct in remembering that The Shadow in the pulps didn't have any mystical powers. it was only the character's radio incarnation that "had the power to cloud men's minds" and such. Some of the early episodes (the ones with Orson Welles) were intriguing, because they had not yet established the exact nature of The Shadow's powers, and occasionally pushed beyond just the invisibility thing. I particularly recall "The Three Ghosts," in which The Shadow exhibits the ability to plant images directly into other people's minds, causing the villains to see things that are not there. Martin Grams Jr.'s book on the radio series is interesting, and contains some good data for horror fans, too. He documents as much as is known about the work that Alonzo Deen Cole did on the series. Cole was the creator of The Witch's Tale, possibly the first radio anthology drama devoted entirely to horror / supernatural tales. In fact, Grams points out that some of Cole's Shadow scripts were blatantly recycled from The Witch's Tale (though certainly not all of them). Another horror-oriented episode of The Shadow which just popped to mind is "Spider Boy." Like most of the installments with weird elements, it winds up having a rational explanation in the end, but in this case it makes the story almost more disturbing. It's a tale about a troubled young man who is turning into a spider. It's probably on YouTube, if anyone has the inclination to go looking for it.
|
|
|
Post by helrunar on Feb 24, 2018 23:44:04 GMT
Thanks for all that info, Frightengale! I'm not sure why I never thought to seek out THE SHADOW from the Welles/Moorehead era online, but I am definitely going to do so now.
Best, Steve
|
|
|
Post by frightengale on Feb 25, 2018 0:13:26 GMT
There's plenty of them out there. "The Bride of Death" is a pretty good one (as I recall).
While not a Welles episode, I still highly recommend "The Ghost Wore a Silver Slipper" for its great juxtaposition of Lamont and Margo into the phantom hitchhiker urban legend.
Cheers, Curt
|
|
|
Post by jamesdoig on Feb 26, 2018 8:35:33 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Michael Connolly on Feb 26, 2018 14:09:59 GMT
I listened again to my tape of Radio Detectives: The Shadow Knows. It mentioned British reprints in The Thriller Library, which apparently had new cover art. This is the first issue that The Shadow appeared in:
|
|
|
Post by Michael Connolly on Feb 26, 2018 14:19:53 GMT
And there's this 2012 documentary on DVD, which I found here: www.dialbforblog.com/archives/112/Its ten chapters are on YouTube. It looks and sounds very cheap but might be of interest.
|
|
|
Post by frightengale on Feb 27, 2018 1:18:41 GMT
Okay, this pushes the boundaries of this thread just a bit, but ...
Listen to The Shadow's voice in any of the many episodes starring Bret Morrison, and then check out the original 1968 trailer for Night of the Living Dead:
Yep, that's The Shadow hyping George Romero's career-defining flick! Bret Morrison actually did a TON of dubbing and voice-over work in the 1960s. If you listen closely, you can hear his distinctive tones issuing from the mouths of many a character from the eurospy and spaghetti western genres. Off the top of my head, I know his voice featured in both the KOMMISAR X and SABATA franchises.
|
|
|
Post by frightengale on Feb 27, 2018 1:38:03 GMT
I'm unfamiliar with that documentary The Shadow Knows, but an excellent audio-documentary is Radiola's The Story of the Shadow. Running close to 3 hours, it features audio from Shadow creator Walter Gibson, interviews with performers involved with the radio series, and commentary from Shadow historian Anthony Tollin. I own the vinyl record set, but have just discovered that it was re-issued on CD some years back. Well worth the listen for anyone with even a casual interest in the character!
|
|