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On the behest of his girlfriend Margo (Barbara Read), Lamont Cranston (Kane Richmond) was almost ready to give up his secret identity as mysterious crimefighter the Shadow and marry her - when he receives an invitation to the opening of a grave that's supposed to contain diamonds. Now this is an opportunity not to be missed as a crime's pretty sure to happen, and pretty much as soon as Cranston, Margo and their driver Shrevvie (Tom Dugan) arrive at the graveyard, they witness someone making off with the diamonds and entering a nearby mansion - only in the mansion that man cannot be found. That said, same mansion belongs to Hasdon (Frank Reicher), the rightful owner of the diamonds, and is peopled by his business partners who want to buy the diamonds from him. Police inspector Cardona (Joseph Crehan) and commissioner Weston (Pierre Watkin) are of course keen on talking to Hasdon, but before they can he falls off a balcony. The Shadow soon finds out Hasdon's personal assistant seems to have his hands in the affair, but he too falls off a balcony. In his Cranston identity, the Shadow finds out it must be Frobay (Robert Emmett Keane), one of Hasdon's business partners, who has the diamonds, but again, that man falls off a balcony to his death. When Cranston and Margo investigate Frobay's warehouse, they find a secret lab, investigate the diamonds and find out they are plastic - but not mere plastic but the hardest plastic at all, an invention worth a fortune or two - which is plenty of motive for whoever-it-is to kill all these people. And ultimately, the Shadow congregates all the suspects in the Hasdon mansion and pretty much forces the culprit's hand, and it turns out to be Breck (Emmett Vogan), another one of Hasdon's associates but one that hasn't featured in the story all that prominently yet.

There's no two ways about it, as a mere murder mystery, The Shadow Returns is an utter train wreck, it crams way too much into its one hour of running time, is over-convoluted as well as over-populated, riddled with plotholes, and the story seems to stand in its own ways with more and more rather pointless plottwists - including the fact that the story would have worked just as well without the "hardest plastic" mumbo jumbo. But that said, Kane Richmond is a rather charming leading man in this one, and Barbara Read and Tom Dugan complete a pretty hilarious trio, with Joseph Crehan as the somewhat antagonistic inspector giving them able support. So no, by no means a masterpiece - but great low budget fun nevertheless.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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