An interview with Bret Morrison (LaMont Cranston) & Grace Matthews (Margo Lane)

From 1966, an interview with Bret Morrison and Grace Matthews as they recall their days on The Shadow.

(((HEAR)))  Brett Morrison and Grace Matthews

The Shadow = bizarre

He knew what The Shadow knew

Click to enlarge

An interterview with Barry about Welles-era 'The Shadow'

The Shadow was an exciting show.  I've always enjoyed the Orson Welles - Agnes Moorehead teaming, the best.

I asked Barry ( Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride blog) back to talk about this era of the show and he came through with some terrific insight!

OTR BUFFET - Thanks Barry, for doing yet another interview with me. You are one of the few to do two interviews on the OTRr Buffet...

Barry - I'm very honored. There have been some very interesting and knowledgeable people interviewed here. I'm happy to be among them.
OTR BUFFET - You and I agreed in advance to talk about The Shadow and more generally, the Orson Welles years as the Shadow. Talk about how Welles carried out the characters of Lamont Cranston/The Shadow and how you feel it was different than the others who played the part.

Barry - Welles embodied the wealthy young man about town role better than anyone who came after. He had a patrician voice, slightly bored, and he simply sounded like the kind of disaffected playboy who would have traveled the world and studied strange secrets in the Orient. Bill Johnstone, who followed him, sounded more like the average man. Later Lamont Cranstons were sometimes henpecked by Margot. She'd drag Lamont to the opera or he'd follow her around on shopping trips, carrying her bags. Orson Welles' Lamont was too good for that.

His Lamont usually sounded like he knew more than he was telling. There was something in Orson's voice that simply sounded mysterious. And that carried over to the Shadow. A lot of the time the story would open and Lamont was already embroiled in the case, as in The Mine Hunters. Other times, like when a madman was disrupting shipping by torpedoing ships from a secret submarine (Death from the Deep) the authorities were powerless but The Shadow simply announced that he was on the job and went to work.

OTR BUFFET - I have only just come to the conclusion that listeners have taken for granted how lucky we were to have the Welles-Agnes Moorehead (as Margo Lane) team doing The Shadow in the late 1930's. If you think about what kind of careers both had and how noted each are for their acting abilities it's quite rare to have them teamed up in a production where we really got to hear them stretch themselves in something that wasn't serious acting. Can you talk about that team and the advantages they had working together as opposed to the other Cranston/Lane teams?

Barry - I think you have to appreciate Agnes Moorehead. She starred in one of the most famous OTR stories, Sorry, Wrong Number by Suspense. It was a one-woman tour de force. And while there were many talented actresses to play Margot Lane, Agnes Moorehead may have gone on to the most acclaim.

Orson Welles’ career is noted for the ownership he took over his roles and his productions, but The Shadow was just a job for him. He was such a busy man that often he'd rush into the studio a few minutes before the broadcast and the first time he'd see the script was when he was reading it. He had the great ability to scan only a couple of lines ahead on the page but still imbue the lines with the proper inflection, depth, and meaning. Playing opposite someone as talented as Agnes Moorehead must have made it that much easier for him.

It is no surprise that they both went on to the Mercury Theater on the Air. Orson assembled some great talent there, like Joseph Cotton, Hans Conreid, and Vincent Price, among others.

OTR BUFFET - Is there a favorite episode you have and why?

Barry - I have a few from Orson's era. They are all very different and each has a very unique feel.

Aboard The Steamship Amazon. The Shadow stops explosive smugglers aboard a luxury liner.

The White God. A madman enslaves the natives of a Pacific island and sets himself up as a god. He uses a giant magnet inside a volcano to cause airplanes to crash.

The Tenor with the Broken Voice. A crazed opera singer who lost his voice kills the singers who replaced him while they sing onstage.

Just by coincidence, these are all from the syndicated Goodrich-sponsored 1938 summer season. The Shadow would get involved in the commercials, intoning how Goodrich tires kept you from swerving off the road in bad weather. The Shadow almost never got involved in other commercials.

OTR BUFFET - There are many episodes in the series that are very hard to listen to because of horrible sound. Do you skip those or do you try and listen to them anyway?

Barry - It takes a lot to make me skip an episode of any show, but I'll put up with more for a show I really enjoy like The Shadow. I prefer it when OTR is not pristine. A little hiss and some crackle add to the enjoyment. In my mind, especially the farther back you go, a great many people heard OTR that way. The technology just wasn’t that good yet. It may or may not be true, but I feel it is more authentic that way. Perfectly crisp and clean OTR sounds too new for my taste. The only way I give up on an episode is if it is simply unlistenable.

OTR BUFFET - Can you think of any performances on radio, TV or film that seem to have been inspired by Welles' portrayal of the Cranston/The Shadow combo?

Barry - The Avenger was a very thinly disguised knock-off of The Shadow, virtually a copy. It only ran for 26 episodes. It wasn’t a bad show, but because it sounds so much like The Shadow it just comes across like a poor imitation.

The Green Hornet is similar to The Shadow in that Britt Reid was cut from the same cloth as Cranston, a kind of wealthy playboy. The only difference was that he had a job running a newspaper, but even so, he was the young, single, rich owner. Even Batman, with his dark cape and penchant for staying the shadows owes a debt here as well. There is an issue of Batman from the 1970’s (#253) when DC owned the rights to The Shadow where the two characters met. Batman and said that The Shadow was one of his inspirations to become a crime fighter. Batman comics from the 1970’s are very much like the mysterious Shadow of the Orson Welles era, very dark and mysterious, often with a gothic feel and a seemingly supernatural menace.

 

I'm sure there are a whole slew of slouch hat-wearing mystery men who owe something to The Shadow.

OTR BUFFET - How do you rank Welles and Moorehead as far as radio/film actors go?

Barry - I believe that one of the problems with actors today is that they didn't work in radio. Radio forces actors to emote and use their voices in ways that they don't need to in movies or television. I think that working in radio helps you understand acting differently. Of course that doesn't mean that radio actors make the best movie stars. Visually, there are tons of non-verbal acting dynamics to master as well. And of course in radio you get to hold the script while you work!

Take Agnes Moorehead in The Twilight Zone episode The Invaders. Now take everything I said about radio acting and forget it. She is entirely silent throughout the episode. Clearly she has mastered the art of acting from every angle.  People who only know her as Endora in Bewitched need to see her in The Magnificent Ambersons or Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte. She had four Oscar nominations in her career.

And as for Orson Welles, better people than I have written about his talent. Simply imagine Citizen Kane if Welles had stayed behind the camera and let someone else star.

 
OTR BUFFET - Why do you think the Shadow is so often categorized as "horror?" And what genre would you put it in? Superhero? Detective?

Barry - I tend to put it in horror too, but it is hard show to categorize because while it would often do straight detective stories with gangsters or bank robbers, try to imagine Sam Spade in The Curse of Shiva, or Phillip Marlowe freeing mind-controlled slaves. Johnny Dollar never fought werewolves.

Many horror writers worked on the show, like Alonzo Dean Cole of The Witch's Tale and Arch Obler. Sci-fi writer Alfred Bester wrote for The Shadow.

Superhero doesn't quite fit either, because that genre is, in my mind, defined by over-the-top do-gooders like Superman or Spider-Man. The Shadow is more of an old-fashioned mystery man, a guy who is relatively powerless and more likely to punch-out the bad guy than use X-ray vision, True, Lamont Cranston had mental powers, but as every show opening pointed out, we could have them too if we'd travel to the Orient and study under a mystic for a good part of our lives.

OTR BUFFET - Thanks again Barry for your time and knowledge spent in answering these for the OTRr Buffet!

Barry - Thanks for asking me! I enjoyed doing this and I hope the readers enjoy it too.

©Jimbo 2010/2011

Interview with Barry about Orson Welles as the Shadow coming soon

Hey everybody!

I haven't posted here in a while and that's just because I really haven't had a lot of anything to post.  I have been listening to a L O T of OTR in the past month, anywhere from 5 to 9 hours a day, believe it or not.  I'm getting deep into some series and hearing things I never knew existed inside of them.

Hopefully soon, I will start writing again about some of the things I have learned during all of this extra time spent listening.

I estimate I have listened to about 10,000 shows the last 2 years.  That's a lot of listening!

Still working hard on The Crazy World of Vic and Sade site. I'm more than half way done with the series now and I am hoping by June or July I can do a very similar website with the Fibber McGee and Molly show.  I know you folks are shy about commenting on the blog (or for that matter, voting even) but I am asking you, would you like to see a Fibber McGee and Molly blog where I go through all the episodes, characters, jokes, soundbites, etc?  I think it would be fun.

PLEASE COMMENT ON IT!

See you real soon (hopefully) with the Shadow interview I promised and more fun stuff...

©Jimbo 2010/2011

Surprise! Who wrote the theme to 'The Shadow?'

Here's something a lot of you will find very interesting... This from Bill Stern's Sports Newsreel, May 20, 1949:

Ida Lupino

©Jimbo 2010/2011

The Shadow's shadow

Newspaper Promo Dump [#11]

Double trouble: 'The Shadow' with 2 guns

Again - if he's invisible, how can we see this ad?

Stuff I'd buy if I was a millionaire [#46]

The Shadow = Dunninger

Below, from Wikipedia:

Boy Wonder: Orson Welles (1938)

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of man?

More on "The Shadow"

Richard Lamparski, who did the 1960's-1970's series called, "Whatever Became of.." claims that Arch Oboler wrote most of The Shadow scripts under various pen names.

Hodge-podging about The Shadow and other stuff

Do you ever wonder what interested Margot Lane in Lamont Cranston? Once he turns into The Shadow, he kind of gets creepy.

For one thing, Margot has no idea where he is unless he reveals himself to her. Just how many times do you think he visited her in her bedroom or shower at her house without her knowledge? And I'm sure since he had the ability to be invisible, he was probably tomcatting around at other girl's houses not named Margot Lane.

That aside, Lamont was pretty weird as it was. He often took her to places like crypts, prisons and subjected her to spiritualists of all sorts, murderers, hyptnotists, rogue law officials, kidnappers, etc. What was he thinking?

And Margo never protested. Never. Maybe she was hypnotized? Now your imagination can really run wild.

Okay, here's something for you think about: the internet is blessed with a whole lot of The Shadow magazine covers; you can find them readily.  What I want to know is this:  if he's "THE SHADOW" on the magazine cover, how are we able to see him on the magazine cover?  And did he wear the hat and scarf all the time?  Why wear a scarf (to obviously hide your identity) when you are invisible to begin with?

Of course you know Orson Welles was the second (not the first) Shadow and of course you SHOULD know that it wasn't his laugh they used, it was a recording of Frank Readick's laugh (he was the first Shadow.)
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I mentioned in my lists the other day how I can't stand it when announcer Jackson Beck (Adventures of Superman) always tells the listener that "Dick Grayson, who is secretly Robin" or "Bruce Wayne, who is secretly Batman" - hey Jackson, WE KNOW THIS. We're not stupid. Tell us once, if you have to. But don't tell us this everytime you have a chance to talk.

Nothing against Jackson Beck - who had the greatest announcing voice ever. The script writers deserve a large raspberry, though.

Speaking of Robin, I got a chance to meet Burt Ward (who was secretly Robin on the TV version in the 1960's) when I was 5 or 6 years old. I also got his autograph on an 8x10. I wonder where that went to?

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I would be doing a podcast (rather Podgecast) right now, but since no one even breathed a "oh that was horrible" or "oh that was cool", I just figure you guys hate that sort of thing and have gone back to the old-fashioned way of doing things.

It's too bad. I had a bunch of cool bloopers lined up to let you hear in the middle the the Podgecast...

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I think out of all the stuff I do on the internet that is OTR-related, I get the biggest kick out of finding old advertisements in newspapers. My new blog, OTR Advertisements is the most fun to put together.

All of the blogs are a lot of work and time-consuming. What you don't see is the hours and hours and hours of time I spend just looking for stuff.

I've been up more than 24 hours straight right now because I found some new ads in some newspapers and I am downloading them. I have to cut them out, sort them and then post them.

Frankly, I have way too much to do!

I'm very sure you guys tire of reading about me pouting about, "I have too much to do." Hahaha too bad.

--

I really enjoy comments on the blog. You can comment "off-topic" whenever you like. You can say anything you want as long as it's not some crazy stuff - because I'll delete that.

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If anyone has a suggestion about something they'd like to see me tackle or search for - some particular series I haven't covered or whatever, leave me a comment. I am most accomodating.

The Shadow in late 1940

Billboard vs Jimbo: The Shadow

Looking at The Shadow is a lot like looking at a prism. It all depends on the angle (years.)

The Shadow in the early years (as in the Billboard review) has Orson Welles playing Lamont Cranston and Agnes Moorehead playing Margo Lane. It essentially got no better than this as far as the radio adaptation. The other Lamont characters were not near as good and the show suffered even further with the loss of Moorehead as different Margo Lanes are evident.

No matter what Welles touched turned to gold during this time period and you can certainly say that about the early episodes of The Shadow, where the show is thick with tremendous atmosphere. However, the sound quality of this show suffers badly, especially in the years that Welles appeared in, making listening a trial rather than a treasure.

I'm not sure this show will ever get it's due, do to sheer unluckiness. However, it remains one of the favorites and most everyone knows the The Shadow knows, hoo hoo haa haa haa haawwwww.

Bill Johnstone as the Shadow

Origin of article is unknown.

Bad advertising

Maybe this is really an ad for The Black Museum?:

Or, maybe that's a "shadow."  Hoo hoo hoo haw haw haw haw!