Aidan Day reviews The Shadow, directed by "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men" is the poser the film sets out for us. Once upon a time it captured the imagination of a generation. But that was 50 years ago.
Russell Mulcahy's film is proof that audiences have moved on - it is not enough for Hollywood to keep rehashing old heroes, turning over old plots and dragging up well worn lines.
That they have to go back to the 1930s for inspiration is an indication of real artistic impoverishment in the present generation.
Even the best of the bunch, Quentin Tarantino, has made his reputation on pastiche and parody - lurid reflection and cruel repetition seems to be as good as it gets. Perhaps the postmodernists have got it right after all - this is the end of history.
Disguising his identity underneath his cloak of invisibility Alec Baldwin is the Shadow, a crime fighting loner who takes on the criminals of New York. It's a familiar theme.
But, as the makers assure us, the Shadow was around along time before Batman or Superman: "before there ever was the Dark Knight there was the Knight of Darkness".
The fedora-topped avenger zooms around the city in his supercharged yellow cab, righting wrongs and knocking seven bells out of baddies.
Using his mystic powers to trick the enemies of good order and the American Way, he fights evil and saves the world — from, would you believe, a reincarnated Genghis Khan who has got hold of an atom bomb.
Somehow during all this he manages to make time for an amorous encounter with the obligatory enchantress -played by Penelope Ann Miller.
She swans around aimlessly in a variety of silken garments for the duration of the film, with nothing to see her through the ninety minutes but a couple of second rate doubleentendres. Given that Miller is an actor of some talent, the flatness of her role is a waste.
Dredged up
So why has Hollywood dredged this one out of the murky depths of 1930s radio?
First and foremost, they've run out of classic superheroes - this was the only one left. But there may be more to it than this.
The Shadow was a product of his time. His time was that of the Great Depression. It was the unemployment and misery of America that created him.
This superhero was a conscious attempt by Hollywood to take people's minds off the world around them. Along with Saturday movie serials and radio drama the "pulp" novel was a vital part of the American ideological fiction factory.
Whereas previous heroes had been rock-jawed paragons the Shadow is an Old Testament avenger - a ruthless slayer of the wicked.
It is instructive then that the film opens with the Shadow terrorising a mafioso guilty of killing a policeman. about the revolution, and beThis type of story plays a duel role of intimidating the potential wrongdoer and reassuring the populace that there is some justice out there some"But now they saw a tall, black-clad figure at the other side of the room. The sable form stood motionless. It looked like a spectre from the world beyond. It had come like a messenger of vengetion. ance."
Living by night, the Shadow inverts the traditional white-hat black-hat opposition of Hollywood.
It's the baddies who scamper for daylight. He is a tortured soul capable of acts of tremendous barbarism, terrified of the menacing violence that he fears lurks inside.
Metaphor
It is just what was called for in the Depression - a metaphor for the times.
And that is why it does not work now. Things are different. There is no longer the possibility of re-assurance. We all: know capitalism is corrupt to its core - from arms to Iraq to guns to the Contras the Western elite has blown it.
The moral cement of the anglophile Protestant North Atlantic democracies has crumbled beyond repair. We're no longer convinced.
Things have gone too far, the price for redemption is higher than a single individual can muster - that's why caped avengers are definitely out.
Without a shadow of a doubt.
The message of the film is