When a woman (Peggy Lobbin) is murdered in her cotton kimono, smalltown
cop Harris (Norman Shelly) calls in police psychologist Lamont Cranston
(Tom Helmore) and his assistant Margot Lane (Paula Raymond) for assistance
after he has hit a wall in his investigations. At first, suspicion falls
upon the victim's boyfriend Alex (William Smithers), whom Harris has been
grilling for days now, but after questioning him, Cranston comes up with
another suspect, Grimmbauer (Alexander Scourby), the victim's singing
teacher who was madly but unsuccessfully in love with her. When an initial
interrogation leads to nowhere, Lamont revisits Grimmbauer in his secret
persona, the Shadow, an invisible being that can climb into the
mind of criminals. But just when Grimmbauer, who wasn't the killer after
all, confesses who has shot the woman - he himself is shot. Harris is now
quick to arrest Alex and trick him into a confession, but in the meantime,
Cranston finds out that Harris was actually in love with the victim as
well, and suddenly everything points to Harris as being the killer ... but
by then, Margot is alone with him, and foolishly enough, she tells Harris
about her suspicion's concerning him - and suddenly is at his mercy. Thank
God though the Shadow interferes just in time.
An ok TV-pilot for a proposed series based on radio's The
Shadow that never got made - and it's pretty apparent why The
Shadow did not become a TV-series: While Tom Helmore and Paula
Raymond make a pretty appealing lead couple, the whole concept of The
Shadow - a supernatual being able to telepathically enter the
minds of criminals - does not translate woo well to the screen. It might
work on radio show, but once translated into images, the whole concept
seems to be a bit of a cheat, storywise. Now that's not too bothering in
this pilot, but solving a crime using the same plot device week after week
seems to be dead boring. That all said, The Case of the Cotton Kimono
is still worth watching as an interesting one-off.
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