The Vanishing Shadow Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		2.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

The Vanishing Shadow Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 19, 2019

The Vanishing Shadow may not register among many film historians as being anything other than just another largely silly and ultimately forgettable early thirties serial, but according to this kind of sweet wrap up of the history of ray guns, The Vanishing Shadow provided the first cinematic example of such a weapon. There are lots of gadgets at play in The Vanishing Shadow, some of them probably downright hilarious to modern eyes used to “actual” high tech items. The Vanishing Shadow came out in 1934 and continues Universal’s seeming obsession with crackling electricity filled labs, in this case one belonging to Carl Van Dorn (James Durkin), a scientist recruited by inventor Stanley Stanfield (Oslow Stevens) to help complete Stanfield’s work on what amounts to a cloak of invisibility, albeit a cloak that is actually a perhaps guffaw provoking metal garter like device.

What's kind of weirdly fascinating about this often odd serial is how it combines a science fiction aspect with decidedly more earthbound elements like stocks and bonds and the ownership of a newspaper. And just for good measure Stanley's romantic interest Gloria Grant (Ada Ince) is the daughter of his arch nemesis Ward Barnett (Walter Miller). There's also a fantastically goofy "robot" which is the early thirties incarnation of The Iron Giant, albeit without Vin Diesel's voice. It's all resolutely ridiculous almost all of the time, with some really badly composited archival footage inserted to supposedly show urban environments and the like, and with some patently absurd cliffhangers that, per longstanding serial tradition, have miraculous escapes in the next installment 100% of the time.

The Vanishing Shadow Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Vanishing Shadow is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Visual and VCI with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.38:1. The front cover of this release touts that it was "re-mastered in 2K from the original 35mm fine grain", but some curmudgeons (ahem) might be thinking extremely fine grain from the looks of what seems like some at least intermittent filtering here. There is grain that can be spotted, as can probably be readily made out in some of the screenshots accompanying this review, but it isn't always consistent and it rarely tends to spike as might be expected in any of the many opticals the serial employs. There are also kind of odd brightness and contrast fluctuations throughout. The entire serial looked too bright to me, with a resultant washing out of blacks and a lack of fine detail, but certain episodes, as in parts of the third, seem to offer this blanched, almost milky, appearance to an even greater degree. There's also still pretty abundant damage on hand throughout, with lots of nicks, scratches and some impossibly large clumps of something stuck in the gate, typically toward the top of the frame. On the plus side, there are none of the weird compression anomalies that have sometimes been seen on other VCI Blu-ray releases.

The Vanishing Shadow Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Vanishing Shadow features a Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack, and considering the kind of already overly bright sound this has, even some audiophiles may not be demanding lossless audio. Some of the sound effects still offer good energy, especially some of the crackling sounds that accompany the lab scenes or use of the ray gun, or even the electric hum that accompanies disappearing and reappearing again. Dialogue makes it through the gauntlet decently. There's background hiss and the occasional pop on hand, but nothing too distracting.

The Vanishing Shadow Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Poster and Photo Gallery (1080p; 4:54)


• Trailer (1080p; 3:14)

The inside of the insert also has a fun essay by Ralph Tribbey.

The Vanishing Shadow Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Vanishing Shadow is often wonderfully goofy fun, and it is certainly a remarkable combo platter of then trendy "utra modern" science fiction aspects with what is almost more of a Depression Era tale of a Capra-esque Everyman have been deprived of his rightful inheritance. It's all very overheated and at time just plain old laugh out loud funny, but for fans of this kind of "old timey" entertainment, it will probably suffice quite nicely. The Vanishing Shadow has evidently done a bit of a vanishing act itself, having never had a prior official home video release, but there's also some vanishing grain in this presentation which may bother some videophiles, who are encouraged to look at the screenshots accompanying this review to get at least some idea of what this looks like.