Death House Rescue , Sept. 26th, 1937

The first Shadow show, with Orsen Wells and Agnes Moorhead.

The traditional opening with ominous-sounding laughter and the announcer saying "Who knows what ever lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows."

The first thing that really dates the show is the ad for Blue Coal, "colored blue at the minds for your protection." This harks back to the days when houses were heated by coal and people had all that type of mess to deal with.

Paul Gordon hears a mysterious voice that identifies itself as "The Shadow." Gordon's due to be executed for murder. The Shadow knows he's innocent, though.

Margo Lane is working with Lamont Cranston (who is the Shadow). She know's he's the Shadow and she wants him to quit being the Shadow. He won't quit, though. He studied in Egypt, India and China and other places to learn the "old mysteries" and the "natural magic" that help him in his crime fighting.

Margo says the entire Underworld is bent on destroying him.

In a flashback, Paul Gordon is talking about a child and treatments that will be expensive. The guy talking to the woman is out of work. The next day he goes out looking for work, but is having trouble finding something. A couple of guys talk to him and say they need a car and driver.

They want him to meet them at a bank the next morning. Of course the two guys are bank robbers. They get in the car and tell Paul to drive away. They're being chased by the police. The car stops and the two crooks run away and the cops grab Paul Gordon. The crooks had killed a cop and left the gun and some money in the car.

He is tried, convicted and sentenced to death. Suddenly there's a strange laughter in the courtroom. Margo goes to Mrs. Gordon and gives her a message. It includes money to help them.

The crooks are talking to each other and then they hear a voice, that of the Shadow. He tells them they left a clue behind although they are sure they didn't. After that is when he goes to the jail where Paul Gordon is held.

The Governor has refused to stay Gordon's execution. There's an hour left to him. The guards escort him to a holding cell and one of the two knocks the other one out. The Shadow tells him he's going to think "with is mind." The Shadow says he will see the pictures that Gordon creates in his mind of what happened with the two crooks.

The Shadow recognizes one of the two crooks right off. One of the crooks had adjusted the rear view mirror; Gordon "told the truth he didn't know he knew."

The crooks go back to the bar where they met Gordon. The Shadow calls Lefty, one of the crooks, at the bar. He tells Lefty what happened in the car when they were being chased and he adjusted the rear-view mirror. Lefty tells Red, the other crook, that there might be fingerprints in the car.

Margo Lane talks to the Police Commissioner. She gets him to send police to the garage where the car is. Gordon, meanwhile, is walking to the electric chair. The Governor calls, though, and they stop the execution in time because they caught the guilty men in the garage.

"The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows."

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