The Green Hornet opens this weekend. It’s a pulp superhero comedy about the relationship between a masked crimefighter and his sidekick. It sure seems like a novel approach… unless you’ve seen the old Shadow movies from the 1940’s. What’s that? You’ve never seen them? Well guess what: Nobody has. In our search for the most rare, esoteric or otherwise unavailable films on Netflix Instant Streaming we’ve stumbled across two of the most interesting superhero movies we’ve ever watched. Ahead of their time, hilarious and thoroughly bizarre, both Behind The Mask and The Missing Lady are “Must Watch” movies for fans of the superhero genre. After weeks of quirky lowbrow entertainment and troubled historical novelties, New Adventures In Netflix has finally struck gold.
These days most of us know The Shadow from the Alec Baldwin movie released in 1994. Baldwin starred as Lamont Cranston, an American playboy who became a tyrannical dictator in China before learning magic and returning to the U.S. to fight crime in a mask. It was a weird little film that focused on the more ridiculous elements of the character, and it wasn’t nearly as funny or exciting as it thought it was. But you have to remember that The Shadow came out a time when superhero movies were still reacting to the success of Tim Burton’s Batman or Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy, films with a lot of flash and style but lacking in complexity. Camp was still a part of the recipe for superhero success. Then again, camp was key to the success of Monogram’s three low-budget Shadow pictures from 1946: The Shadow Returns, Behind The Mask and The Missing Lady. Those last two are both available on Netflix Instant Streaming, and they’re a hoot.
Behind The Mask – which has nothing to do with Leslie Vernon (sorry) – is clearly the superior film. Lamont Cranston (Kane Richmond, who also played such powerfully-named heroes as Spy Smasher and Brick Bradford) is on the verge of marrying his girlfriend Margo Lane (Make Way For Tomorrow’s Barbara Reed) when his alter ego The Shadow (Kane Richmond, obviously) is framed for the murder of a news reporter. Apparently it’s very easy to frame The Shadow: If the witnesses see a shadow at the scene of the crime, it was obviously him. I mean, who else has a shadow?
Lamont obviously wants to investigate the crime and clear his good name, but to do so he’ll have to navigate treacherous waters. The Shadow fears no danger… but his fiancé? That’s another matter. Margo knows Kane Richmond’s secret identity and loves him anyway, but her fiancé uses his alter ego to indulge in activities unbecoming to men in a committed relationship. She doesn’t like that he traipses out into the night wearing a mask and beating up bad guys, but does he have to seduce every woman he meets? Margo’s incessant attempts to either prevent Lamont suiting up or at least sabotage his investigation lead to genuine hilarity: mistaken identities and fresh spankings all around. Seriously. The movie ends with spankings for all of the heroines. One gets the impression that they’re just playful enough to enjoy it, too.
In The Missing Lady, Lamont Cranston’s investigating a missing persons case with one serious hitch: Nobody’s been reported missing. Lamont gets mixed up in a ring of criminals operating out of his own apartment complex – also home to a pair of old biddies who like racing each other in the elevators (a running gag that goes nowhere but is, at least, kind of funny) – and for some reason neglects to tell anyone what both he and the audience know from the very first scene: That the “Missing Lady” is in fact a rare and valuable statue. I think he just gets off on being a know-it-all, because there’s no reason whatsoever why he couldn’t have told the cops about it from the very beginning unless he just wanted to brag about it later.
Both Behind The Mask and The Missing Lady begin breathlessly… or rather, breathlessly for films made in the mid-1940’s. The movies are each barely 60 minutes long but cram in a hell of a lot of plot, starting with opening scenes that introduce swaths of supporting characters in compelling situations. Behind The Mask introduces high-tech bookies, blackmailers and blackmailers blackmailing other blackmailers before the Shadow even shows up. And although neither film could be called “action-packed” with a straight face both movies do include at least one impressively choreographed fight scene. Kane Richmond swings around the set decking thug after thug and comes across like a genuine badass the entire time.
But the characters are what these Shadow movies are all about, and not just Lamont and Margo. In an amusing twist on the genre, both The Shadow and his girlfriend each get sidekicks. Lamont Cranston’s manservant Shrevvie (George Chandler of TV’s Lassie) and Margo’s ‘Girl Friday’ Jenny (Dorothea Kent, who doesn’t seem to have had another role this prominent) are each lovable goofs who get wrapped up in their employer’s schemes. They’re also dating each other, leading to more comic hijinks when they both suspect their lovers of infidelity. “A lady never hits a man in the street.” “Where are you going to hit Lamont?” “I’m going to hit him everywhere.”
Behind The Mask is a wonderful movie. Hilarious and well plotted, smartly acted and attractively shot. The Missing Lady is a trifle by comparison, but if nothing else it features the most wanton acts of hat abuse I’ve ever seen committed to celluloid. At one point Lamont Cranston is interrogated by the bad guys, who don’t lay a finger on him but do – repeatedly – punch his hat off his head. And then put it back. And then punch it off again. And then put it back. It goes on like this. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a very long time. Both movies deserve to be discovered by superhero fans everywhere, and thanks to Netflix these comedy classics – both unavailable on DVD – actually might. Our hats go off to them… and then back on… and then back off… and then back on…
Watch Behind The Mask right now via Netflix Instant Streaming!
Watch The Missing Lady right now via Netflix Instant Streaming!
