Let’s take a look at one of those radio adventures of The Shadow that has not survived in recorded form. Today, you can listen to over 200 audio files of The Shadow radio program… recordings that have miraculously been found and preserved. But the one we’re about to discuss here is not one of those. No, this is a lost adventure of The Shadow.
Use your imagination. That’s what old radio was all about, you know. Imagination. So we’ll move backwards in time, and imagine you are sitting before your old Crosley radio on Sunday, Feb. 21, 1943. It’s the middle of winter, and snow is on the ground. You’ve just spent the last half hour listening to the war news, and now it’s time for a little escapist entertainment. Turn the dial slowly, tuning in your local Mutual station.
There! There’s the music you’ve been listening for… the organ playing Omphale‘s Spinning Wheel. And then that cold shivery voice of The Shadow. You may know that it’s actor William Johnstone… or maybe you don’t even recognize the name. But you recognize the voice. It’s the sibilant taunt of The Shadow! “Who knows… what evil…” Oh, boy, this is going to be good!
There’s a 55-second commercial for Blue Coal. It promises that even on the coldest day, you’ll have plenty of heat if you use Blue Coal. “America’s leading home fuel!” Well, you have to admit it is pretty cold out. And that promise of abundant heat sounds pretty good on a day like this. Maybe you should… Oh, the show’s starting. Today’s drama, “The Language of the Dead.”
The organ music swells up and after a moment, dies again. Margo Lane is speaking to her friend and companion Lamont Cranston. She reads him a letter she has just received from an old school chum, Florence Matthews. Margo must bring Cranston to Valley Junction as soon as possible. It’s a matter of life or death!
Hmmm. Valley Junction. It’s an old historic town buried in the mountains of northern Massachusetts. One of those places that hanged witches a few centuries back. Just the type of place to find adventure. So Cranston and Margo are off.
Thye arrive at night. The train lets them off, but there’s no station, no lights, and no one to meet them. Cranston lightly remarks that it’s the type of night when “churchyards yawn and graves give up their dead.” Margo fails to appreciate his sentiments.
You’re starting to feel shivers as you listen to the radio. A dog howls in the distance. And then Lamont and Margo witness a dim greenish light floating in the air. The moon breaks through the clouds revealing a woman dressed in white out in a graveyard floating between the headstones. Cranston wants to investigate… Margo, not so much. But then Florence Matthews drives up. They tell her what they saw. Instead of being skeptical, she believes them. “You have seen the vampire rising from its tomb!”
It seems that in the past two months, three young girls in the neighborhood have been found dead… the blood drained from their veins… the mark of the vampire upon their throats. That’s why she called for their help. Florence explains as she drives them back to the house.
The first to die was Louise Popescu, a young woman who lived with her uncle, the famous sculptor Pavel Popescu. It wasn’t robbery; a valuable diamond ring was still on her finger when they found her body. But there was a look of terrible horror on her bloodless face… and a tiny wound on her throat.
Then another death… and another. Both at night. Both young and pretty. One killed inside her home, the other on a lonely road. And both found with that awful mark on their throats.
The police are looking for a living murderer, but the townfolk have seen the ghostly figure in the old graveyard, just like Lamont and Margo did. They know the killer is a vampire.
Florence pulls up in front of her house. Again comes the mournful howl of a dog. It’s Louise Popescu’s dog. It howls when death strikes. It seems to know… There is a sudden scream from inside the house. They rush in to find Grace Matthews, sister of Florence, lying dead on the library floor… a strange little wound in her throat. And through the window, in the distance, a white figure floating away. The vampire has struck again!
The police investigate, but are baffled. The police surgeon says her larynx was fractured and a quart of blood was taken from her body. Not that he believes in vampires. No sirree. But still… it’s kinda hard to explain.
Approaching, stalking through the black of night, comes an old man. He’s chanting in a strange guttural voice, syllables rising and falling in a weird monotonnous cadence. The policeman explains that this is Pavel Popescu, chanting his Language of the Dead. Popescu, you’ll remember, was the uncle of the first girl to be killed by the vampire. Ever since his niece fell victim, he has tracked the vampire, chanting his meaningless words, carrying a long, sharp wooden stake. Just a bit batty, it appears.
The police call him inside the house. The sculptor Popescu meets Cranston. Cranston compliments the man’s art, then asks about the mysterious chant he was reciting outside. He explains he was born in Romania, but moved to America, and ceased to believe in the old ways. After he was punished by the death of his niece, Louise, he has gone back to the old beliefs. He now seeks demon vampires with a sharpened stake and with the Language of the Dead.
Before he leaves, he invites Lamont and Margo to visit his home studio. They make plans to visit tomorrow. He leaves, resuming his chanting of the strange language. And in the distance, the dog resumes its dismal baying.
And it’s time for the middle commercial. Announcer Ken Roberts reminds listeners that they may have difficulty securing certain sizes of Blue Coal because of the wartime shortages, but “most of the domestic sizes are interchangeable” so speak to your neighborhood Blue Coal dealer. But most of this is just white noise running in the background while you ponder the vampire killings. And before you know it, the story has resumed.
It’s the next day, now, and Lamont and Margo are visiting the home of Pavel Popescu. He shows them his studio. The floor sags under the weight of latest sculpture: Diana, Goddess of the Chase. He has mixed a pigment with the plaster to give it a reddish brown warmth. Hmmm. Is it just me, or does that sound a bit suspicious? And he admits the Diana sculpture bears the likeness of his dead niece Louise. She posed for the statue. And again, hmmm. Something strange is going on, here. And then the dog starts howling again. It was Louise’s dog, you know. Hmmm…
Pavel Popescu goes out to quiet the dog, and in his absence Lamont and Margo uncover three plaster busts of young women, and the most recent… the clay still wet… is in the image of the recently-deceased Grace Matthews. The two investigators cover up the busts just as old Popescu returns. They say their goodbyes and beat a hasty retreat.
Cranston decides that Pavel Popescu needs to receive a visit from The Shadow. It’s getting dark now, and Popescu prepares to go out on his nightly hunt for the vile undead. He grabs up his wooden stake and starts up chanting in his Language of the Dead. Shortly, he accosted by the unseen form of The Shadow.
The Shadow listens to the chanting, and proclaims it a fake. The Shadow knows how the true Language of the Dead is learned: by listening to, and remembering, each sound of the death rattles of the dying. It is learned only by the very old after many years of gruesome study in Romania. Old Popescu is just spouting a counterfeit chant to avert suspicion from himself.
The Shadow also accuses Popescu of wandering through the old cemetery at night with a greenish flashlight, wearing a long white sculptor’s coat, so that if there is moonlight, people will think they see a ghost. Popescu denies all this. Why would he want to kill innocent young women? The Shadow vows to find the answer to that, and to return.
Not much later, Popescu shows up at the home of Florence Matthews. He kidnaps Margo Lane… hey, this guy’s a lot stronger than he would appear! He takes her back to his studio, tied up securely. He is about to start on his greatest masterpiece of sculpture, and Margo will be his model. And to give his new sculpture just the right color… human blood! Margo’s blood!
He’s a madman! He’s been killing young women, and mixing their blood into the plaster. “Blood is the life! Blood is the soul! The blood of the model must merge with the statue!” Yeah, this guy is nutsy-cuckoo!
Thank goodness The Shadow shows up in time! But Popescu is prepared. He has a gun, and will shoot Margo if The Shadow tries to stop him. The sagging wooden floor beneath the Diana statue gives way, with a little help from the invisible Shadow. Popescu rushes forward to save his masterpiece, but is killed as the statue falls forward, and he is impaled up on the spear of Diana… driven through his heart. A fake vampire hunter with a wooden spear driven through his heart. Ah, poetic justice!
And one last commercial. Ken Roberts introduces John Barlcay who explains how to make your coal-heated steam heating work better. He makes it sound so easy.
The Shadow returns for his famous closing lines, and that ends this week’s episode of The Shadow. Whew, another squeaker for poor Margo. I think we’ve all lost track of how many times she has been tied up by a madman, and has been saved juuuussst in the nick of time, by The Shadow.
Now, what you probably didn’t know, when you listened to this radio show, was that the script was written by Alonzo Deen Cole. This is the same guy who wrote for other radio shows like The Witch’s Tale, Casey, Crime Photographer, Gangbusters, The Hour of Charm, and The Kate Smith Hour. He wrote eight Shadow scripts during the 1943-44 time period. This was his first.
The plot of this radio show was one reused by the scriptwriter. He had used it for an episode of The Witches Tale that he wrote back in 1936, titled “Vampire Village.” Reusing old scripts was quite common back in those days before reruns.
Oh, and that dead girl in the story — Grace Matthews, sister of Margo’s school chum Florence. Doesn’t that name sound familiar? It should. Grace Matthews is the name of the radio actress who played the part of Margo Lane beginning in fall 1946. And the name of her very first Shadow episode was, interestingly enough, “Vampires Prowl by Night.”
Now there was no possible way the scriptwriter, Alonzo Deen Cole, could have looked three years into the future, and foreseen that a future Margo Lane actress would be named Grace Matthews. Was there? So was this coincidence? Or was it a strange case of prescience? We may never know for sure. Perhaps, only The Shadow knows!
