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So much average

Please don't spend money on this.

Good movie but grossly overrated

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Entertaining serial about a diabolical criminal mastermind known as the Shadow who uses his scientific genius to rob and kill while looking for stolen jewels. Notable for being Bela Lugosi's first serial. It's a fun, silly bunch of nonsense. Some cool action scenes, early sci-fi gadgetry, and Bela hamming it up are just some of the reasons to check this out. If you have a few hours to kill on the weekend, it's worth a look. Some chapters move along faster than others, but I was never really bored during any of them.

All fingers point to Bela Lugosi as the mastermind behind a series of truck robberies where the perpetrator is only known through their voice, nicknamed the whispering shadow for the way they identify themselves to the people only intend to rob. Obviously, the voice sounds nothing like Lugosi but that has not stopped him before or after this. In most of those cases, the films were much better than this one which other than the slapstick fight scenes is painfully dull.Lugosi overacts, showing that at times, he deserved the wretched reviews that he got. However, he really is the only thing of interest in this which can be seen in several variations. I don't recommend the entire 12-part serial, as it comes out to be over 4 hours in length. The much edited feature version that I saw was just painful to get through, so I can't imagine the full length serial being any easier with all of its repetition.

I enjoyed this old serial, the older they are usually the better they are. Its always fun watching Bela do his thing. I felt like this afternoon epic had a bit more plot than most and the action is there like you expect. There are some annoying bits like the overuse of flashbacks in the later episodes. On the other hand the repeat footage does help the viewer to make sense out of all the craziness. There seemed to be an excess of rad old cars...that's always cool. The leading lady was very pretty also which was good because there were only two women in the entire thing! There are lots of gunfights but almost no one ever got hit except for those nasty "flesh wounds". I really enjoyed the look of Whispering Shadow, the old clothes, pencil thin mustaches, and the motorcycle scenes were all wonderful. There were lots of truly dangerous stunts too and a few effects (like a helicopter crashing into a radio tower).Overall this is a very vintage but rather cool old serial. I got a kick out of it and it managed to build some real suspense in the last three or four chapters despite all the money saving flashbacks. Fun stuff for serial or Lugosi fans. Bela looked great and his expressions were a riot like always.

Here is another wonderful movie serial from the factory that perfected the genre at the dawn of sound... MASCOT PICTURES. There is such a superb story yet to be told in the life of both this studio and its young founder Nat Levine. It only existed from 1927 until 1935 but was the template for REPUBLIC PICTURES, both as a studio and as a serial factory. It was closed by ruthless Republic Founder Herbert J Yates when he foreclosed on them via his film lab Consolidated Film Laboratories to which MASCOT owed big film processing debts..... along with other small studios like MONOGRAM and LIBERTY. However in those early 30s, MASCOT created a genre .. the talkie action serial with sci fi effects and incredible miniatures by Howard and Theodore Lydecker. Yates lusted after it all to become a mini-Mayer type mogul and won the day by financial default to lump all his debtees together to make his studio in 1935. As a result REPUBLIC PICTURES was created and lasted until 1960 but clever little MASCOT was steamrolled, its talent poached and its style and film library stolen. Nat Levine was discarded in 1937 and bankrupt in 1939. Nobody from these other studios could work under Yates and even Monogram management escaped to GRAND NATIONAL and UNIVERSAL before re-forming in 1937. Levine was not yet 40 years old. He then went to manage cinemas... showing Monogram and Republic Pictures. How awful for him... and what a great biopic there is in this man's exciting young life. (Spielberg? Scorscese? HBO, hello?).....THE WHISPERING SHADOW is one of many spooky and elaborate labyrinth serials now turning up on Alpha Video DVD, a poverty row specialist that is releasing dvds made from old TV prints filmed directly off TV monitors and onto a DVD master. It seems to work well enough but I do believe there is a market for genuinely releasing these great 30s films properly from existing negs. Sometimes the movie version is available and this one is seen as MURDER BY TELEVISION. In the mean time, we can savor what is possible this way. As with HURRICANE EXPRESS or THE THREE MUSKETEERS especially the underworld sci fi cowboy movie serial epic (!) .....THE PHANTOM EMPIRE......... remade in 1936 as Republic's first serial UNDERSEA KINGDOM.THE WHISPERING SHADOW is a convoluted chase with eerie visuals and wonderful atmosphere. It also interestingly uses Television as a title and as a device which shows us in 2008 how advanced and aware the movie-going public was of TV itself, because to include it in a film so prominently in 1933 as realistic and exciting possibility is a surprise to most viewers today. From the same period is THE RETURN OF CHANDU and in 1937 THE SECRET OF TREASURE ISLAND (Columbia)... but the most absurd obscene and fully wacky is THE LOST CITY (1935). Enjoy! These ancient sci fi serials make great TV wallpaper at your next party.