Synopsis:

The Shadow Knows celebrates the gorgeous sets and costumes (using the Shout Factory blu-ray as source) and Jerry Goldsmith's score (adding cues from the Intrada CDs). Ying-Ko's backstory is shown through three dreams, letting the film open in medias res on the bridge. The dreams build up in awfulness: recurring reminders of his ruthless past. One of the most influential and long-lived pulp characters, The Shadow has been a radio drama host/character, the hero of 325 novels, and has appeared in comics, TV shorts and films since 1930. Building on Walter Gibson's stories from 1939-1940, The Shadow fights his nemesis, Shiwan Khan, who plans to take over the world by holding New York City to ransom with an atom bomb. Using his power "to cloud men’s minds”, the Shadow comes to the city’s rescue with guns blazing.

Intentions:

The Shadow is a good movie that could have been a great movie, which would have been the start of a franchise. We could have had more stories of his agents, a guest-appearance by Doc Savage, an origin story showing how the WW1 flier ended up in Asia. Aah, if only! Some of the movie's flaws are beyond repair, e.g. the lack of more footage of the final "Mirror" battle, but others can be much improved. The over-long introduction can be removed (repurposed in three short flashbacks), the inconsistent humor can be tightened (apparently director Mulcahy had quite different ideas than writer Koepp and producer Bregman, resulting in an inconsistent tone). This edit is an effort to lift the movie, if not from good to great (I can't shoot new footage with the actors), then from good to better.

Change List:

- New opening credits, using images of the Shadow pulp covers and comics and different font (AR Bonnie). Poppy Fields is trimmed at the end to match the duration. It was fun to search through Shadow archives for the most relevant images. I had to discard many more than I ended up using. - Story opens on the NYC bridge: opening origin is cut here and used later in flash-back dreams. Location title card changed from "New York City, Seven Years Later" to "New York City, 1936" (the year isn't said in the movie, but one scene shows a movie theater marquee advertising "The Invisible Ray" with Karloff and Lugosi). - On bridge: mute "I hate heavy lifting" (lame). - On bridge: small trim to Duke's gunfire (too much). - On bridge: small trim to Shadow shooting at cement block (he looked comically excited: wrong tone). - In cab: cut Tam's "ask my wife" and Shadow's "NOOO!" response (wrong comedic tone). - Cut Tam waving goodbye to taxi. - Insert Dream #1 "I am your teacher" at fireplace. - In museum: cut "Why have I not heard of him" (made the museum employee appear ignorant). - In museum: trim the flapping sarcophagus hinges, so the guard holsters his gun once not twice (made him look dumb). - In museum: cut guard's "We're closed." and "Yes, my khan." Also cut Shiwan's repeat of "join me or die". - Message in vacuum pipe: trim some piping section (for pacing). - In Tam's lab: cut Tam's "Hey, that is catchy" to Cranston's "Atomic Bomb" (The term was known: H.G. Wells coined it in his 1914 book "The World Set Free"). - At Cobalt Club: cut commissioner Gordon's sputtering "Oh, waiter" during Margo's plea. The man may be dim but he's not (that) rude. - At Rheinhardt's lab: cut "I'm not asking you to eat a burger." from the food-choice exchange between the guards (the joke went on too long). - In Rheinhardt's lab: mute "next time you get to be on top", and trim battle for pacing. - Outside Rheinhardt's lab building: cut Shrevnitz "I sense someone is coming" (lame joke). - On street just before Chinatown: extend (muffled) street noises from Chinatown in the preceding shot on the street (smoother transition). - In Shiwan Khan's restaurant: cut Cranston's "That's the U.S. of A. you're talkin' about" (the Shadow saw so much wrong in society, I don't think he was a poster boy for American Exceptionalism in the 20th century). This, unfortunately, forced me to also cut Khan's eye-rolling "... ruling the world". - In restaurant: cut "oh that knife" (Khan's speech flows better this way). - Departing restaurant: cut 1/2 second of Khan going for the window (visual continuity). - add Dream #2 "battlefield" into "face-off" dream. - In Cranston's guest-room: cut 1 instance of Cranston saying "last night we agreed" (wrong comedic tone). - Wide shot of Empire State Building: erase the antenna from the top of the building (time period error: that was only added in 1953), and mute Cranston's pun when sailor jumps off building (wrong kind of funny). - Inside giant water tank: trim trapped Shadow (for pacing). - Outside water tank: cut Cranston's smile after Margo says "You called?" - Place Dream #3 "shoot through him" during fever sleep (replacing the "battlefield" dream which got moved into Dream #2). - In Hotel Monolith: cut Claymore's "Betcha wish you were nicer to me ...". - In the hotel: trim Claymore's fight with the Shadow (for pacing). - Disarming the bomb: cut most of bomb rolling around the hotel (wrong comedic tone: with different music this could be in a Chaplin movie). - The Lady from Shanghai-inspired mirrors climax. The final battle was shortened because Universal Studios suffered earthquake damage during filming and decided not to rebuild the mirror set. They used only the footage they already had. The result feels truncated. I would have loved to extend the final battle, with a longer build-up of suspense before the mirror-shattering action. Alas, the only thing I can do is to rebalance the build-up a little by shifting some shots so that the bomb story wraps up earlier to create a slightly longer continuous final battle. I mirrored one shot (pun intended) and removed one with poor SFX. No significant changes because there just isn't enough material! - Aftermath: tiny trim to the Commisioner looking up at the hotel (the actor looked too high up the second time). - Aftermath: add "Upstate New York" location title card to the mental hospital, as a nod to Doc Savage's "Crime College" (this Easter Egg really jumped out at me, I don't understand how reviewers didn't pick up on it). - Closing credits: Cut awful green-eyed Shadow drawing. I never liked that image they made for the movie poster. That's not my Shadow! Instead, I added the Shadow's laugh to transition into the credits. - Closing credits: Replace "Original Sin" with Goldsmith's unused version of "The Mirrors", followed by (slightly trimmed) Frontal Lobotomy. - Added FE logo. - Added English subtitles. - Not added: shot of Shadow on bridge w CGI cape (from Taylor Dayne music video), because picture quality is too low. - Not added: I tried Winifred Shaw's 1935 rendition of "Lullaby of Broadway" for the second half of the end credits (it's sung and whistled in the movie by both Shiwan Khan and the museum guard) but it wasn't the right fit. - Not cut: Khan and Cranston talking about the "nice tie". I like the dry wit.

Additional Notes:

Bionicbob's cutlist for The Shadow Strikes was my starting point. The goal isn't a shorter story, it's a more consistent story. So I cut as little as possible. I cut the jokes which I found inconsistent with the main tone of the movie. The movie opens in New York City because the whole Tibet story took too long and did not hold my attention. 2'40" of the 8'20" opening is re-used as later dreams (out of a total 8 minutes cut, almost 6 of those are from the opening sequence).

Other Sources:

Intrada's The Shadow double CD for unused Goldsmith cue "The Mirrors (Alternate Version)", and clean versions of Poppy Fields and Chest Pains. Pulp and comics art for scans in opening titles (thank you W.M Kaluta for introducing me to The Shadow through your work!). Universal Studios' logo from their 1931 The Shadow short "A Burglar To The Rescue".

Special Thanks:

Bionicbob for making his excellent black-and-white edit The Shadow Strikes and for his feedback on my interpretation.