"Silent Avenger" (Mar 13, 1938)

After the outdoor/country and exotic tones of the last two episodes, we are back in the cement jungle made of crowded streets, high buildings, and perfect shooting sites for a... sniper!!! When a convict is sentenced to the deathrow, he asks to his brother - a shell-shocked war sniper - to avenge him by killing the people who are responsible for his execution. Bodies start to fall under the precise shots of the sniper. Can the Shadow stop him before the killer accomplishes his deathly list?.

Shell-shocked war veterans who turn in killer has been the subject for many "recent" famous movies (Taxi Driver comes to mind) and have been, sadly, also on the real news not too long ago. So it's interesting to see that it was a subject for stories also back in the '30s.
Enjoy the show and have a great (pulp) Sunday!

Francesco

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"The Temple Bells of Neban" (Oct 24, 1937)

Beautiful exotic dancers, snake charmers, ancient Indian Mysticism, deadly cobras, telepathy: this episode has them all!
We get chance to glimpse at The Shadow's past as he finally meets someone who has been trained in the remote and mysterious area of India where he learned his power to control minds and make himself invisible. As matter of fact, the exotic woman knows how to pierce in that power and unveal the Shadow so to be an easy target for a gun or even a deadly cobra.

It's funny that in the very intro (the story then will play as a flashback that will bring the listeners to the point the episodes starts with) the woman is threatening the Shadow by saying this is the end of his carreer: and here I was thinking that fighting the crime was more a mission than a carreer ;)

The quality of the audio of this particular episode is not one of the best but we are talking of 70 years old recordings here, so we can't really complain, can we?

Enjoy the show and have a great (pulp) Sunday!

Francesco

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"Hounds in the Hills" (Feb 20, 1938)

I haven't gone through all the episodes yet but this is definitely one of my favorite so far. The reason is the somehow more horror vibe that you get from listening to this story.
We are in the outdoors, the boondock region of North Carolina. Some crazy lady and her hunchback son have been kidnapping kids for quite some time now, and they do it again while Lamont and Margo are in the area visiting a friend. The Shadow jumps on the case and soon finds the old (haunted?) mansion where the kids are segregated. The horror tones turn into the more familiar (to the Shadow) crime story when we find out that the old house is also the hideout of two crooks. These will hunt the Shadow down in the woods, with the help of the kidnappers' ferocious, cross-breed hounds.

Definitely the episode that inspired one of Mr Burns' (of the Simpsons fame) best tag lines: "Release the hounds!" :)
To find out how the Shadow will get out from this hillbilly/Deliverance situation, listen to the episode by clicking on the link below.

Enjoy the show and have a great (pulp) Sunday!

Francesco

Download from the Internet Archive

"Poison Death" (Jan 30, 1938)

"Crime does not pay...
The Shadow knows."

The Shadow knows and takes it very personal when a murderer is trying to poisoning the city water blackmailing the Mayor using the Shadow's name.
Our Lamont notices some peculiar type font in the blackmail letter left by the impostor and, with margo's help, will track the typewriter used for it and, subsequently, the killer.


The first rendezvous doesn't end good for The Shadow: will he be able to stop the killer before more innocent people die? You never know, when you deal with a "mad chemist"!!!

Enjoy the show (by clicking on the link below) and have a great (pulp) Sunday!

Francesco

Download from the Internet Archive

"Deathhouse Rescue" (Sept 26, 1937)

HAHAHAHAHAHA
"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?"
HAHAHAHAHAHA
"The Shadow knows."

With this laugh and with these words, exactly 70 years ago, the Shadow was introducing himself in the house of thousands of listeners.

This is known to be the very first radio episode of The Shadow. It was believed lost for a long time and the quality of the recording is not exceptional, but it represents the debut of this pulp hero (with the voice of Orson Welles) on a very popular medium of that time: the radio.


In this episode, the innocent Paul Gordon gets arrested, after a car chase, for bank robbery and murder and sent to the death raw. The Shadow knows Paul is innocent, but will be able to proof it in time by framing the real murderer before Paul sits on the "chair"?

Enjoy the show (by clicking on the link below).
Francesco

Download from the Internet Archive