Right up front, I'm not a big fan of the serial format. However when I saw a three DVD set of John Wayne's serials from the early 1930's, picking them up was a no brainer, especially for the price - under ten dollars. I watched "The Shadow Of The Eagle" today in a couple of sessions, and it was with a lot of patience and deliberation that I made it all the way through, no mean feat for the run time of 218 minutes. I say all that having now seen most of John Wayne's early Westerns from the Lone Star and Republic days; those movies run the gamut from poor to fairly entertaining given the era and Wayne's own early appearances in them. The serials predate those by at least a couple of years, so you can't fault The Duke himself for the product as much as the writing, directing and technology of an earlier time.
Still, there's so much goofy stuff going on in 'Shadow' that it's easy to understand why they were shown in twenty minute sessions a week apart. The story involves Wayne's character Craig McCoy, who intervenes on behalf of carnival owner Nathan Gregory (Edward Hearn), a former World War I flier nicknamed 'The Eagle'. Presumed dead after being shot down in the war, five of his remaining buddies team up to form an aircraft company, reaping huge profits from an invention Gregory designed. The story follows McCoy's attempt to retrieve the original design plans, while a new 'Eagle' attempts to turn the former partners against each other, presumably to become the sole survivor and beneficiary of the lucrative invention.
What's unique about the story is that the 'Eagle' uses a remote control airplane to sky write cryptic messages and warnings meant to intimidate the principals of the Evans Aero Corp. By the time it's all over, every member of the group has been fingered at least once as the primary villain. Not only that, but 'The Eagle' uses a pair of agents to further confound the plot by virtue of kidnapping, theft and other general mayhem. One of them is Wayne's long time collaborator, stunt man and buddy, Yakima Canutt, as an Eagle henchman named Boyle. This might be the only time you'll ever get to see Yak in a suit and tie!
In addition to the standard cliffhanger endings for each chapter play, you also have Wayne engaging in fisticuffs with one villain or another in each segment. Sometimes he's aided by the carnival strongman (Ivan Linow), or as he's called by carny midget Billy (Little Billy Rhodes), the big palooka. Oddly, the carnival atmosphere doesn't figure much in the proceedings, although one of the chapter endings takes place on a ferris wheel, with McCoy about to fall to his demise. He makes the comeback the next time around with a trapeze like save.
I should also mention that a pretty female was also at the center of the action most of the time, Colonel Gregory's daughter Jean (Dorothy Gulliver). In virtually every one of Wayne's early Westerns, the female lead wound up as a romantic interest for his character, but not here. I found that kind of odd actually, especially since he had twelve chances. One of the more exciting and innovative sequences involved Wayne and his co-star in a 'North by Northwest' style airplane chase to close out the first chapter, it made me wonder if Hitchcock might have seen it!
So what was the goofiest scene in the movie? There's a sequence in Chapter Nine when Wayne's character and sidekick Henry, a ventriloquist (James Bradbury Jr.) take off in a car chase, and shortly into it, the Eagle's henchmen Moore and Boyle (Bud Osborne and Canutt) suddenly just appear on the vehicle in motion - how'd they do that?
The movie was directed by Ford Beebe, whose name I've heard before, but I'm not familiar with his work, though it looks like he did a fair number of serials. Fortunately for John Wayne's career, he managed to hook up with another director named Ford starting with his 1939 break out film "Stagecoach". Wayne's overnight success came after roughly fifty movies!
Still, there's so much goofy stuff going on in 'Shadow' that it's easy to understand why they were shown in twenty minute sessions a week apart. The story involves Wayne's character Craig McCoy, who intervenes on behalf of carnival owner Nathan Gregory (Edward Hearn), a former World War I flier nicknamed 'The Eagle'. Presumed dead after being shot down in the war, five of his remaining buddies team up to form an aircraft company, reaping huge profits from an invention Gregory designed. The story follows McCoy's attempt to retrieve the original design plans, while a new 'Eagle' attempts to turn the former partners against each other, presumably to become the sole survivor and beneficiary of the lucrative invention.
What's unique about the story is that the 'Eagle' uses a remote control airplane to sky write cryptic messages and warnings meant to intimidate the principals of the Evans Aero Corp. By the time it's all over, every member of the group has been fingered at least once as the primary villain. Not only that, but 'The Eagle' uses a pair of agents to further confound the plot by virtue of kidnapping, theft and other general mayhem. One of them is Wayne's long time collaborator, stunt man and buddy, Yakima Canutt, as an Eagle henchman named Boyle. This might be the only time you'll ever get to see Yak in a suit and tie!
In addition to the standard cliffhanger endings for each chapter play, you also have Wayne engaging in fisticuffs with one villain or another in each segment. Sometimes he's aided by the carnival strongman (Ivan Linow), or as he's called by carny midget Billy (Little Billy Rhodes), the big palooka. Oddly, the carnival atmosphere doesn't figure much in the proceedings, although one of the chapter endings takes place on a ferris wheel, with McCoy about to fall to his demise. He makes the comeback the next time around with a trapeze like save.
I should also mention that a pretty female was also at the center of the action most of the time, Colonel Gregory's daughter Jean (Dorothy Gulliver). In virtually every one of Wayne's early Westerns, the female lead wound up as a romantic interest for his character, but not here. I found that kind of odd actually, especially since he had twelve chances. One of the more exciting and innovative sequences involved Wayne and his co-star in a 'North by Northwest' style airplane chase to close out the first chapter, it made me wonder if Hitchcock might have seen it!
So what was the goofiest scene in the movie? There's a sequence in Chapter Nine when Wayne's character and sidekick Henry, a ventriloquist (James Bradbury Jr.) take off in a car chase, and shortly into it, the Eagle's henchmen Moore and Boyle (Bud Osborne and Canutt) suddenly just appear on the vehicle in motion - how'd they do that?
The movie was directed by Ford Beebe, whose name I've heard before, but I'm not familiar with his work, though it looks like he did a fair number of serials. Fortunately for John Wayne's career, he managed to hook up with another director named Ford starting with his 1939 break out film "Stagecoach". Wayne's overnight success came after roughly fifty movies!