[Sca-cooks]Was poppyseeds? now "The Shadow"

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Elaine Koogler:
>Yeah, I know...it could have been so much 
>better. They had so much to work with. But I 
>still watch it on occasion just for "grins and 
>giggles".

They needed to get rid of the whole 
John-Lone-with-an-A-Bomb storyline and go back to 
the white-collar criminals of the pulps, which 
may seem too common today, but which fed into 
some very basic fears of Depression-era America, 
and not without its topicality today (being a 
proper Shadow villain now qualifies one for a 
Cabinet position, apparently). The music was 
perfect, though, and it had a truly unique 
perspective, and managed to maintain, if not 
completely intact, the incredible cynicism of the 
pulps, wherein the title character is a ruthless 
but basically good person who steals the identity 
of a slimeball to make his job easier. I actually 
liked the concept of the movie, which posits a 
title character who is basically evil, but who is 
torn, forcibly, from the forces of darkness and 
compelled to see things differently. Essentially 
(and Anthony Burgess explores this similarly in 
"Earthly Powers", too), you can get a lot farther 
with a kind word and a big guy ready to dislocate 
your victim's arm than you can with a kind word...

Probably, when I watch "The Shadow", I replay in 
my head Burgess's scene where Don Carlo, the 
little village priest (later Pope Urban the 
Something-Or-Other), kidnaps the local SS 
commander and has a couple of friends from the 
local Sicilian Benevolent Association and Social 
Club employ a bit of toughlove, thereby filling 
him with the love of Christ...

Adamantius

>
>Kiri
>
>Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:
>
>>Yes. I want Moe Schrevnitz' taxi cab... but 
>>just imagine, say, Daniel Day Lewis in the 
>>title role...
>>
>>Adamantius
>>
>--
>Learning is a lifetime journeyŠgrowing older 
>merely adds experience to knowledge and wisdom 
>to curiosity.
>					-- C.E. Lawrence
>
>
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