User Reviews

i enjoyed this 25 minute pilot TV episode for the proposed The Shadow TV series that never materialized.it's well paced,well written.unfortunately they never made the series this pilot episode was based on.however,judging by this episode the TV series might have been pretty good.Tom Helmore plays Lamont Cranston/The Shadow,and does a pretty good job,though for a few minutes,his accent kinda distracted me.but once you get past that,everything else works pretty good.Paula Raymond plays Margot Lane and is good in her portrayal.they packed quite a bit into the short 25 minute running time,and i wish they had continued on with the series,as it would have been interesting to see where it went from there.oh,well.anyway,for me,The Case of the Cotton Kimono is a 7/10

I just watched this on the Critics' Choice DVD on which it was double-billed with the 1958 film "Invisible Avenger," also a failed attempt to sell a "Shadow" series to TV. Though the "mystery" killer is all too easy to guess and Tom Helmore (best known as Kim Novak's husband in "Vertigo") is a bit too old and avuncular to be a credible Shadow, the plot is engaging and well done overall. At least Helmore is better than roughneck Richard Derr was in "Invisible Avenger," and there are some nice bits from the two women in the cast: Paula Raymond as an appealingly sultry Margot Lane and Peggy Lobbin killed all too soon as the victim in the titular garment. The source for this disc was a rather splicey print (though it may be the only one that exists) but the technical quality was otherwise good, and the effect of the Shadow hypnotizing the people he confronts into not being able to see him was very neatly done simply by shining a bright key light on them — though the Shadow's macabre laugh somehow doesn't work as well on TV as it did on radio and it's not surprising that "The Shadow" was one popular radio show that never made it on TV.

Lamont Cranston and his girlfriend, Margot, are not sure that the police have the right man when Detective Harris arrests the murdered woman's boyfriend for the crime. Eventually, they solve the case and all is well with the world.

Although there have been pulp, movie, radio and television versions of The Shadow, this early TV pilot was never picked up by any of the networks...and after viewing it on YouTube, I think I can see why. The show is very dull, a bit static and the leading characters amazingly uninteresting. This should NOT be the case, as Lamont Cranston (the Shadow) should have had a much more interesting and almost hypnotic voice since he supposedly has great mental powers*. Instead, you've got uninteresting Tom Helmore playing the great crime fighter...a bit of a letdown.

*One of the radio actors who played The Shadow was Orson Welles and his melodious voice was PERFECT for the character.