Review: "The Voice" (The Shadow)
John Olsen
Shadow Magazine. And just who or what is "The Voice?" That's what The
Shadow is out to discover. This bodiless voice controls a conspiracy
that defies exposure. When the Voice speaks, murder is done. But when
the final fray is over, it is the taunting, triumph laugh of The Shadow
that is heard above all!
This story had the potential to be a great Shadow pulp mystery.
Unfortunately, author Walter Gibson missed his opportunities and as a
result ended up with a pretty routine Shadow story. Instead of making
the Voice mysterious, he's just a guy talking on the telephone. As one
crook puts it, "He was just a voice -- yeah, a voice -- talkin' over the
telephone!" And even that happens only a couple times. Boring!
This story could have gone in other directions and been a much more
enjoyable tale. If the mysterious character of The Voice had been a
hidden mastermind whose voice appeared from nowhere � along the lines of
the radio version of The Shadow � now, that would have been pretty
interesting. But, no. That's not this story. Or if a criminal empire had
been ruled by some unknown villain whose minions met in an underground
cavern, accepting their orders from a hollow voice emanating from a
golden statue � now that would have made a terrific plot. But, again...
no. That's not this story, either.
A guy gives orders over the phone a couple times. There's nothing
special about the voice... it's just a voice. The character certainly
doesn't deserve to become the title of the story. In fact, Walter Gibson
entitled the story "The Missing Magnate." The whole thing was never
intended to revolve around the voice of the hidden mastermind. It was
the editors at Street & Smith who changed the title to "The Voice." Ah,
what they would do to sell magazines. In this case, it was probably the
cover that sold the magazine. This one was the famous cover in which The
Shadow hangs from a rope ladder with one hand and fires his famous .45
automatic with the other. Too bad the story wasn't as impressive as that
cover.
So what we have here is a straight-forward gangster tale. No frills. As
our story opens, there has been a lull in recent crime. The Shadow's
vigilance has been paying off! But crime is about to rear its ugly head
again. And it's a good thing, too, or there would have been no story to
tell in his pulp magazine issue.
Daniel Clume, president of Allied Airways, goes into his office. Hours
later, he is nowhere to be found. He's disappeared � kidnapped. Probably
because it would thwart his plans to acquire the Green Star Lines, and
permit a rival to acquire it. Zig Gurkel and a couple of his mob staged
the snatch. They put Clume away somewhere, so he'd be safe. But there
was a fellow who spotted them -- Tim Tiffan, "Old Tim," the guy with the
newsstand.
The Voice sent Gat Harreck to rub out Tiffan before he could tell what
he saw. And so he did, just moments before The Shadow arrived. That put
The Shadow on Gat's trail, but Gat was eliminated by sharp-shooter Ossie
Ludrig before The Shadow could capture him. Luckily, The Shadow glimpsed
Ludrig's face, and is now shadowing him. Of course that means that now
Mr. Big will have to eliminate Ludrig, too! And so he is, even though
The Shadow is hiding in the room at the time.
Marge Hotzlen, Ossie Ludrig's ex-girl, sees Ossie killed, and from her
angle, it seems The Shadow was the killer. So she helps Gypper Thelgo
and his mob track The Shadow, looking for retribution. She befriends
Irene Borion, Daniel Clume's secretary, at the mobs instruction, to keep
an eye on her. She'll be used as bait for The Shadow. Luckily, in the
end of the story, she comes around and sees the truth. And she even
assists The Shadow, working with him rather than against him. She was
never really bad to begin with, but she was on the fence. Now she's
definitely reformed.
Irene, the secretary, is duped into leading The Shadow into a death
trap, and I must admit this is the high-point of the entire story. It's
most effective. The Shadow is trapped in a small courtyard, high brick
walls on all four sides. The only door into the courtyard snaps securely
shut, locking him inside. From between the slats of metal shutters,
machine-gun muzzles point downward directly at our black-cloaked hero.
Hundreds of bullets rake every sector of the courtyard. How will The
Shadow survive? The solution, which I won't spoil here, is quite impressive.
The story has plenty of gun battles, I'll give it that. But other than
the one death-trap scene mentioned above, it really is just a series of
scenes where one by one, The Shadow trails a member of the gang only to
have him eliminated before the crook can squawk. It gets a little boring
after a while.
An interesting twist in this story, is that The Shadow uses a compact
short-wave radio hidden in a compartment behind a folding seat in his
limousine to contact Burbank. In other Shadow stories, he has Stanley
pull the limousine over to a convenient cigar store or drug store and he
uses the pay phone to make his call. But in this one, he has a
radiophone at his disposal. That's not often mentioned, so deserves
mention here.
A few other points of interest. The Shadow forgoes his rubber suction
cups and makes his way up the outside of a brick wall thanks to his
soft-tipped shoes that seem to miraculously grip even the slightest
indentation.
Once again, The Shadow's agents use flashlights with colored lenses to
signal to their chief. It's been seen before, but I figured it couldn't
hurt to bring it up again. This time, a green glimmer indicates that all
is safe.
We get a visit to The Pink Rat, that underworld dive were hardened
criminals go to slake their thirsts. It only appeared in thirteen
stories, this one being its next-to-last. We also see reference to Red
Mike's, another notorious hangout and ex-speakeasy. But, sadly, it's
only mentioned, not visited.'
Squatly. I just had to mention the appearance of my favorite Gibsonism,
"squatly." It was one of those words that author Walter Gibson made up,
but here it aptly describes a warehouse. It appeared in some three dozen
of Gibson's Shadow stories, and it's good to see it used again, here. It
always brings a smile to my face.
Appearing in this story are Clyde Burke, of the New York Classic,
Hawkeye, who "at present" works for The Shadow (referring to his actual
boss, Slade Farrow), Cliff Marsland, Hawkeye's partner in the
criminal-underworld activities, Harry Vincent, one of The Shadow's first
agents, and Moe Shrevnitz, the best cabbie in Manhattan. Oh, yeah, and
Stanley. Lamont Cranston's chauffeur appears a couple times, driving the
man he believes is Lamont Cranston. Poor fool, he never knew it was
often an interloper in disguise. As for the law, they are represented by
Inspector Joe Cardona and Police Commissioner Ralph Weston. Vic
Marquette of the F.B.I. even shows up, since this is a kidnapping case.
As for disguises, The Shadow appears in his most often used disguise as
millionaire world traveler Lamont Cranston. He also does a faultless
impersonation of Daniel Clume, the kidnapped industrialist. But most
often, he's skulking about in the shadows in his cloak and slouch hat.
This is a fair example of a 1938 Shadow story, but I mourn for its
ignored potential. It could have been so much more. Gibson was right; it
should have been entitled "The Missing Magnate" instead. Not a very
inspiring title, but at least it wasn't a slightly misleading one.
What we have here is a standard Shadow gangster story with a nice
death-trap escape to recommend it... and not much else. It gets my
luke-warm recommendation. I've read worse.
John
--
"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"
The wonderful old pulp mystery stories are all reviewed at:
http://www.spaceports.com/~deshadow/