Murder By the Dead - Lost Show Found

Terry · Post by **Terry** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 9:56 pm

Jeff's Shadow page lists this episode as lost, but I seem to have it.

If only I had Stroheim's Devil's Passkey.

Harvey Chartrand · Post by **Harvey Chartrand** » Tue Sep 10, 2002 9:34 am

The Devil's Passkey (1920) sounds like one of those decadent marriage-go-round farces that von Stroheim specialized in, before they kicked him out of Hollywood.
I don't see what connection The Devil's Passkey has with The Shadow. Do you not mean The Devil Doll, Tod Browning's 1936 horror movie with a screenplay by von Stroheim?

To tie this in with Welles, von Stroheim co-starred with Maria Montez in an excellent 1949 French thriller — Portrait d'un Assassin (Portrait of an Assassin), which Welles was set to direct before being replaced by Bernard-Roland (whoever he was). Welles and von Stroheim also had cameos in Sacha Guitry's 1954 epic Napoléon.

Terry · Post by **Terry** » Thu Sep 12, 2002 9:48 pm

The Devil's Passkey was Stroheim's second film as director-writer-producer for Hollywood, after his prestigious debut with the acclaimed Blind Husbands. Unfortunately, and more disastrously even than with Ambersons, all the prints of Devil's Passkey are lost, decayed in the vaults when the studio thought to check upon them decades later. That's why finding a 'lost' Shadow episode is better.

However, upon dubbing a cassette of this broadcast for Jeff, I've found that it's not the original at all, but is instead a recent performance of, I believe, the original script, presented in a nearly perfect pastiche of the original show, and featuring Mercury veteran Arthur Anderson, who appeared on the air as Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island and set off the Mercury sprinkler system during a live performance of the fascist-dress Ceasar, among other things.

So, I'm either an incurable ignoramus or an optimist, but the idea of Welles directing Stroheim, or particularly the inverse, is particulary intriguing.