Review of The Invisible Avenger (1958) by Curtis K — 12 Jun 2006

Invisible Avenger (aka Bourbon Street Shadow).

Starring: Richard Derr, Mark Daniel, and Helen Westcott.

Directors: James Wong Howe and Ben Parker.

When Lamont Cranston--aka the Shadow (Derr)-- receives a plea for help from a New Orleans band leader for help, he is too late to stop his murder. But, along with his mystical mentor Jorgendra (Daniels) he soon becomes involved with a sexy femme fetale (Westcott) who is part of a spy ring set on preventing the rightful president of a Central American nation from retaking his leadership position from the military junta that overthrew his government.

As far as movies based on the very cool The Shadow character goes, "Invisible Avenger" is probably one of the better ones that have been produced.

So why did I only give it Four Tomatoes?

Well, let's put it this way... there's nothing ambigiously gay about the duo of Lamont Cranston and his "long-time companion" Jorgendra.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, as it gives rise to some unintentional comedy when Cranston comments on his ways with the ladies in a way that comes across as jokingly, but in taking this step, they got rid of one of my favorite aspects of the Shadow... Lamont's relationship with Margo Lane; she's nowhere in the film, replaced instead by the effeminately Euro-trashy mystic. As with just about every other Shadow film, they instituted change for no reason other than the sake of change.

In fairness to "Invisible Avenger", it was originally intended as a TV series pilot, but the series never happened, Perhaps the producers figured they'd start in the early years of the Shadow, and then have him meet the lovely Ms. Lane as the series progressed... and she'd straighten him out with the love of a woman!

Okay, also in fairness, I doubt the filmmakers back in the day realized quite how much a pair of flaming love muffins that Cranston and Jorgenda come across as... but with a modern eye, I'm certain that anyone who loved "Brokeback Mountain" just for the gay sheepherder aspect will love "Invisible Avenger" equally.

And to be completely fair to the film, the creators did make some nice choices when it came to showing the Shadow's power to "cloud men's minds" given their plainly low budget, and the film also has a rather nice, fast-moving plot. The acting isn't stellar, but I've seen far worse.

And we should recognize the film for being 50 years ahead of its time! Lamont and Jorgenda were going where no mystery men had gone long before "Brokeback Mountain" was being hyped as wholly original. (Hmmm... I wonder how useful that whole "power to cloud men's minds" was when Lamont and Jorgenda were on the prowl for some man-meat....).

:D.