SHADOW OF TERROR (1945)
Article #1055 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-3-2004
Posting Date: 7-2-2004
Directed by Lew Landers
Featuring Richard Fraser, Grace Gillern Albertson, Cy Kendall

A scientist develops amnesia after being thrown from a train, and tries to recover in a small western town. Unfortunately, crooks aren’t finished with him yet…

Could this be the first atomic bomb movie? It’s your basic poverty row thriller with the prize at stake being the possession of the secret to the atomic bomb. Historically, it’s pretty silly in concept, but if you take it on its own terms, it’s not too bad. It’s got some tense moments, a truly nasty villain, and something you don’t often find in movies in this series; an honest-to-goodness colorful toothless western sidekick played by Emmett Lynn. Now I know that the desert is a place where many A-bombs were tested, and it’s also a place where you’re apt to find colorful western sidekicks, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen them together in the same movie. At any rate, I will have to admit that I have an inordinate fondness for western sidekicks, and I would love to have been one. However, I do think I would have opted to keep my teeth.