THE STRAIGHT DOPE:
A real shame about our current moviegoing experience is that we get nothing resembling the old Hollywood serials, pulpy tales doled out in installments week after week. In order to know what happens, the devoted viewer would have to return to the theater for each new episode. TV pretty much takes care of that need, but it's not really the same (no one wants to throw popcorn at their own TV) Whirlwind Media has released a 2 disc set containing every episode of one of the longest running serials, 1936's 15 part Shadow of Chinatown, starring the great Bela Lugosi. During the course of its 5 hours (!) Shadow of Chinatown, tells the appropriately daffy tale of an attempt by Eurasian scientist Victor Poten (Lugosi) and European business representative Sonya Rokoff (Luana Walters) to shut down San Fransisco's Chinatown to the tourist trade, thereby drive up sales at Rokoff's businesses. Herman Brix plays crime author Martin Andrews who, along with reporter Joan Whiting (Joan Barclay) and faithful man-servant Willy Fu (the charismatic Maurice Liu), attempts to foil this hackneyed scheme. Brix and Barclay are bland but Lugosi and Walters are great (Walters even gets to have a conscience) and Liu, underutilized, of course, has some nice moments.

The story and the characters are ridiculous and much of the material is, shall we say, culturally insensitive. Still, judging the series by today's standards would be unfair and as a piece that has to stand on its own Shadow of Chinatown is rather entertaining. Particularly fun are Lugosi's daft plans, which would work a lot better if he would spend more time locking the door to his "secret" lair and less time devising murders like death-by-telephone-needle.

Sharp viewers will also enjoy the way each episode bleeds into the next, with great suspense-building titles like "What will happen next???" A couple of these transitions suffer from "He didn't get out of the cockadoodie car!" syndrome (which is, as Kathy Bates' character in Misery pointed out, when the writers cheat from the end of one episode to the beginning of the next) but overall Shadow of Chinatown makes a great diversion on a rainy afternoon or over the course of 15 rainy afternoons.

VIDEO:
As would be expected the video is very rough: Blurry, dark, muddy, uneven, flickery, the works. There are a large number of missing frames, tears, and cuts. There isn't much that is unexpected, however. The fact that all 15 episodes are available it exciting enough. The compression, however, seems to have been handled well.

AUDIO:
The audio, like the video, is compromised severely by age. It took me a couple of episodes to get to the point where I could understand what everybody was saying. It is Dolby Digital Mono. No subtitles are included, which is a real shame.

EXTRAS:
There are no extras.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Even though it shows its age, Shadow of Chinatown makes a terrific set. Real fans of old time cinema should have no trouble getting caught up in the naive twists and turns of the plot and some of the acting is really fun. The ability of DVD to hold longer programs is really used well here and more complete serials sets would definitely be a welcome addition to the marketplace.

Gil Jawetz is a graphic designer, video director, and t-shirt designer. He lives in Brooklyn.