The look of the film somehow supports this foolishness. ') and then Cranston shares his dream ('I dreamed I tore all the skin off my face and was somebody else underneath.'). Love affairs involving super heroes are always faintly funny, because the protagonist's first responsibility is to his legend, not his romance 'The Shadow' has a funny exchange where Margo purringly describes a dream ('I was lying naked on the beach in the South Seas.

One mind that remains mostly unclouded belongs to Margo Lane ( Penelope Ann Miller), a slinky blonde who possesses unrealized mental powers of her own, falls in love with Cranston, and begins to pick up vibes on a wave length he thought was private. My task is to finish the job.' Shiwan shares most of the mystical powers which the old mystic gave to the Shadow, including, of course, 'the power to cloud men's minds.' In a plot which inevitably involves world domination, they are surrounded by many minds to cloud, including those of the police commissioner ( Jonathan Winters), a mad scientist ( Tim Curry) a merely goofy scientist (Ian McKellan), and gangsters who find themselves shooting at phantoms.

His nemesis is the last survivor of Genghis Khan, Shiwan Kahn ( John Lone), who says, 'Kahn conquered half the world. The sound of his voice seems to echo from inside a large, damp room, and is a counterpoint for Jerry Goldsmith's score, made out of sad brass sounds and tremulous strings.

Sleekly handsome, with a glint in his dark eyes, he remains utterly solemn while delivering lines like, 'The weed of crime bears bitter fruit' and 'Inside you beats a heart of darkness.' He wears a cape and a wide-brimmed hat, and stalks the night streets, fighting crime. The movie stars Alec Baldwin as Lamont Cranston, aka the Shadow, and he is a good choice for the role. The story itself may not be so mesmerizing, but who really cares? Style and tone are everything with a movie like this, which wants to bring to life a dark secret place in the lurid pulp imagination. If you respond to film noir, if you like dark streets and women with scarlet lips and big fast cars with running boards, the look of this movie will work some kind of magic. 'The Shadow' is the kind of movie that plays better, the more baggage you bring to it.

Wild at heart review roger ebert