Just about the most often repeated lines didn’t come from a political speech, a movie, or perhaps a rock song, but from an old time radio show. “Who knows what evil lurks within the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!” was from a show that began inside the 1930s.
The line was originally voiced by the narrator of a radio show called “Detective Story”. But the eerie character became so well-liked the show was the renamed “The Shadow”.
It was narrated by Frank Readick, Jr., and was accompanied by the musical theme, Camille Saint-Sa?ns’ Le Rouet d’Omphale (“Omphale’s Spinning Wheel”, composed in 1872). A sinister laugh was also heard from the ominous voice.
The sinister narrator was created to add interest within the Detective Hour radio show and enhance sales in the Detective Story Magazine. However, individuals located the eerie character so compelling that they started asking for the “The Shadow” magazine, despite the fact that it did not exist.
The Shadow was a vigilante who fought crime utilizing his psychic powers. On the radio show he had the energy to appear invisible by influencing the minds of his enemies. Some his far more well-liked nemeses had been Kings of Crime as well as the Red Menace.
The mysteriously cloaked figure using the sinister voice was always clad in black and worked largely at night. He had the energy to defy gravity, unravel codes, speak any language, and had super-human strength.
Some in the most popular of the Shadow radio shows where the ones voiced by Orson Welles.
The character in the Shadow was so nicely loved that he was eventually featured in motion images, comic books, tv shows, as well as video games. The magician Walter B. Gibson wrote much of the material that turned The Shadow into a pulp icon. He wrote under the pen name Maxwell Grant and other writers ultimately wrote the stories under the name, also.
At the end of each and every show The Shadow reminded listeners, “The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime doesn’t pay…. The Shadow knows!”
Though the lines with the Shadow have remained popular, at one time it was heard to track down episodes of the radio show. But which is no longer true. Thanks for the net you are able to now discover copies of this and many other radio shows.
The Shadow ran till 1954 and is nonetheless a favorite old time radio show.
