The Kent Allard Mystery
Guy Hoyle
was Kent Allard, not Lamont Cranston. He was confused, because there was a
real WWI aviator named Kent Allard. I didn't know much more than that, so I
thought I'd appeal to the erudite enthusiasts of alt.pulp (including the
Kent Allard of this newsgroup) to dispel the mists from this mystery.
1) What is the connection between the fictional character Kent Allard and
the real Kent Allard, if any?
2) How and when did "Kent Allard" (aka the Shadow) come to assume and be
identified with Lamont Cranston?
Thanks!
The Ineffable Guy Hoyle
LLWatts
books.
>2) How and when did "Kent Allard" (aka the Shadow) come to assume and be
>identified with Lamont Cranston?
It was one of the very early stories, IIRC. I don't have that one downloaded,
but if memory serves the Shadow took on Cranston's identity a book or two
before we met the real Cranston, who gave the Shadow permission to continue
using his name (and all that went with it, like bank accounts).
One would think there had been some connection between Cranston and the Shadow
at some point for the Shadow to be able to pull off the identity theft and
Cranston to approve of it, but I don't recall hearing anything about that.
Leah
DomDawes
Shadow at some point for the Shadow to be able to pull off the identity theft
and
Cranston to approve of it, but I don't recall hearing anything about that. >>
Most fans tend to think the Elliott-authored Shadows are about Cranston,
himself, as The Shadow while Allard is somewhere else...
The 1980s Howard Chaykin comics mini-series dealt with Cranston and Allard's
first meeting.
(Ducking to avoid flames...)
-D
Kent Allard
<3FC03F90656996CD.BF55E2FD...@lp.airnews.net>,
"Guy Hoyle" <gho...@airmail.net> wrote:
> Recently I was explaining to someone that the true identity of The Shadow
> was Kent Allard, not Lamont Cranston. He was confused, because there was a
> real WWI aviator named Kent Allard. I didn't know much more than that, so I
> thought I'd appeal to the erudite enthusiasts of alt.pulp (including the
> Kent Allard of this newsgroup) to dispel the mists from this mystery.
I don't know of any "Kent" Allard who was a real WWI Aviator. There were
many Allards that fought in the Great War and died. A quick search of
the web will show names from war memorials. I haven't found a Kent among
them
> 1) What is the connection between the fictional character Kent Allard and
> the real Kent Allard, if any?
Don't think there is one. The fictional Kent Allard was to have been a
famous aviator lost in the jungles of South America when in fact he was
impersonating Lamont Cranston in New York
> 2) How and when did "Kent Allard" (aka the Shadow) come to assume and be
> identified with Lamont Cranston?
Right from the beginning, Lamont Cranston was one of The Shadow's
alternate identities. I think it got used the most by Gibson because the
criminals of his pulps were always victimizing poor little rich folk and
this identity gave the Shadow an 'in' with the crowd.
The only real Allard I found wrote a book...
The Mad Chopper by Kent Allard
(I think its a pen name though...)
Kent
Alan D Glick
Shadow's alias. But the 3rd book, "The Shadow Laughs" explains things fully
when it shows The Shadow "borrowing" Lamont Cranston's identity, with
Cranston's permission.
Alan Glick
"Guy Hoyle" <gho...@airmail.net> wrote in message
news:3FC03F90656996CD.BF55E2FD...@lp.airnews.net...
Spider9137
way that Howard Chaykin handled it. Gibson's method was kinda strange.
Basically, Walter Gibson introduced THE SHADOW as Lamont Cranston (in Eyes of
The Shadow, I believe). Then he apparently decided that a mysterious SHADOW
was more interesting. The Shadow introduces himself to Cranston in the third
story, and off the old boy goes to Africa of wherever.
That probably would have been the end of the real Lamont Cranston. Pulp
readers, it was believed, didn't remember anything beyond the first few issues.
I wouldn't be surprised if readers sent letters asking what happened to the
real Cranston.
"Damn!" I imagine Gibson saying. "They weren't supposed to remember him!"
I have long suspected that the Cranston/Allard thing was never meant to be a
subplot. It probably wouldn't have continued past the third issue, if readers
hadn't asked about Lamont. Gisbon worked some interesting novels with it, all
things considered.
HHopk15447
Chaykin never wrote The Shadow. He wrote some perverted manifestation of his
ego and passed on his evil legacy to his ghoulish little trolls, Baker and
Helfner...;)
That aside, Gibson states in The Shadow Scrapbook he wanted readers to think
they knew all there was to know about The Shadow being Cranston in Eyes of The
Shadow then in the third book, The Shadow Laughs, show them they didn't by
introducing the real Cranston. (I'm paraphrashing) I think he pretty much
wanted to keep it mysterious right fromt he start. I think by the eighth novel,
The Black Master, we are getting the hint of either no lower face or a
mutilated one. The Shadow many times in early books appeared nearly as often as
Henry Arnaud. Was there a real Arnaud?
By the time of The Shadow Unmasks (a pretty flat tale for a revelation story)
the sudden pulling of Allard out of a hat and revisionist history really took
the air out of the Shadow's sails. Probably a common problem when the editor
decides it is time to reveal and not the author. We can only wonder what or who
the Shadow might have really been had Gibson been left to tie the hints up in
his own time and not been forced to come up with that sudden entry(though,
honestly, with all he had built up one wonders if he simply forgot most of it
and that's why we got Allard. He had to concoct some pretty convoluted logic to
explain--or re-explain--the girasol because of it.)
As the years go on, the Cranston identity reaserts itself and if I recall some
hints were dropped near the end of the series that Allard may not have been all
he was revealed to be, possibly just another disguise.(Of course the radio show
had so ingrained in the public mind Cranston was The Shadow by this time it
might have just been easier for Gibson to drop Allard.)
Howard
BANDOLERO by Lance Howard (Howard Hopkins)
Vengeance is a deadly game...
Hardcover from http:// www.amazon.co.uk
Homepage: http://members.aol.com/Hhopk15447/page1.htm
In Dark Harbor the night is filled with demons...
www.atlanticbridge.net
Lamont Cranston
Trying to avoid the con-artists that worked the ships, I had the
charming acquaintance of a slightly ditzy charmer named Margo Lane. On
arrival in Gotham, she ta-ta'd away, and then somehow got mixed up with
that would be crime fighter, Allard. Fearing for
her well being, I had to make a deal with the scoundrel, to lend him
*my* identity in exchange for his promise to protect her.
Gads, what could I do? Not only was there hordes of gangsters about,
but there was that lunatic Wentworth fellow swinging about like a
deranged Tarzan. I even
considered moving to Cleveland! Thank Crom, for the quiet
of the Cobalt Club. - lamont
Catts4
Allard/Cranston/G-6/whatever, we never learn who he is or why he does what he
does. One of the amazing things about THE SHADOW to me is the popularity of a
character who has no apparent personality or motivation.
Dave
Kent Allard
cat...@aol.com (Catts4) wrote:
One of the motivations that comes across in at least one of the Shadow
stories is that he hunts men instead of jungle beasts. This kinda
explains why he follows the big villains for a while before he finally
shoots them.
HHopk15447
But does he mount their heads on plagues in his study?:)
Mikel Midnight
<domd...@aol.com> wrote:
> Most fans tend to think the Elliott-authored Shadows are about Cranston,
> himself, as The Shadow while Allard is somewhere else...
Heh. That was blatantly obvious to me as soon as I first came across
them. Is that the most common theory? It ought to be, as it fits the
character so well.
Interestingly, the DC Comics Doc Savage series had Doc replaced by an
imitator while he went off on a secret mission. Wouldn't it be
fascinating if these events were tied together? The two greatest
crimefighters engaged in a battle the nature of which is still
mysterious to us, from which they never expected to return, to the
degree that they hired fill-ins to carry on in their names?
--
_______________________________________________________________________________
"She always had a terrific sense of humor" Mikel Midnight
(Valerie Solonas, as described by her mother)
blak...@best.com
______________________________________http://www.best.com/~blaklion/comics.html
Kent Allard
hhopk...@aol.comnojunk (HHopk15447) wrote:
> But does he mount their heads on plagues in his study?:)
Why do you think his sanctum is always dark? It's not like the guy has
time to do a proper job of Taxidermy...
(ewwwww!)
Kent
Bill Jackson
Cranston as being something like "I've been using your identity. I
still need to use your identity. Either let me or I'll expose YOU as
an imposter. I know things about you that YOU don't even know
(grandmother's maiden names? great-grandmother's maiden names), so
you'd better cooperate".
Cranston, no fool, despite what some might think, agrees to let The
Shadow pretend to be him.
Bill
Guy Hoyle
was a historical character after all; he never actually claimed that.
Thanks for all the discussion of the fictional Kent Allard, though!
Guy
gho...@airmail.net (Guy Hoyle) wrote in
<3FC03F90656996CD.BF55E2FD...@lp.airnews.net>:
Alan D Glick
Shadow being a spy in the war who was wounded in the face. I love this
angle and wish Gibson would have kept it longer.
Hey, I know what!! We can say that the stories that occured after the
"mutilated face" episodes occured on an alternate Earth, or were just
"imaginary stories"
Sorry, guess I've been reading too many comics.
Alan Glick
"HHopk15447" <hhopk...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
news:20011214001843...@mb-dh.aol.com...
>... I think by the eighth novel,
Kent Allard
"Alan D Glick" <a.g...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> Hey, I know what!! We can say that the stories that occured after the
> "mutilated face" episodes occured on an alternate Earth, or were just
> "imaginary stories"
In most of the stories, any character the Shadow impersonates has a
'masklike' face. My impression is that the Shadow has no face and so the
Allard identity isn't any more valid that any of the others.
If you look back someone on this list had a very good theory about his
being the victim of a mustard gas attack in WWI.
HHopk15447
through. I think the line went "The man of many faces has none of his
own"?(Might have been The Black Master) Not sure I am quoting that right but
something close, I think.
Something else odd I was noticing while reading The London Crimes this week.
The Shadow comes upon some vicious dogs and can instantly control them with
only a whisper and what are describing as "burning eyes". There are times in
the series, especially early on, that the Shadow seems to possess almost
supernatural powers. He can pretty much make himself unseen even in lit rooms
and that "ability to blend into the shadows" doesn't always cut it as an
excuse. I think other novels say something about his uncanny ability over dogs
as well.
Catts4
Or would this be another instance of the pulp drawing in a radio concept ..
'the power to cloud dogs' minds?"
Dave
LLWatts
>
>Or would this be another instance of the pulp drawing in a radio concept ..
>'the power to cloud dogs' minds?"
I doubt it -- the story was published in 1935, and IIRC the radio version
wasn't out that early.
Leah