Golden Oldies Week (July 27 – August 3) Something Weird Video have released such a wide range of movies over the last 30 years that trying to categorize them can be tricky. They started out as a gray market mail order distributor (aka a bootlegger) not unlike the Cape Copy Center or Sinister Cinema and eventually moved into the niche se ploit titles that would set them apart. The movies on this list are the kind of cult genre titles that were the bread and butter of many of the bootleg companies of the 90s and most were not exclusive to SWV. If you look in the catalogs or on the website these would be under categories like “Nightmare Theatre’s Late Night Chill-O-Rama Horror Show,” “Jaws of the Jungle,” “Sci-fi Late Night Creature Feature Show,” or “Spies, Thighs & Private Eyes.” Many of these are currently available as downloads from the SWV site (until the end of 2024)!

The Invisible Avenger is a compilation of two television pilot episodes of a planned Republic Pictures TV show called The Shadow. Yes, the very same hero whose radio show had just ended in 1954. The TV show didn’t get picked up and this movie was released, which. is kind of curious as none of the advertizing — or the name — lets you know this is about Lamont Cranston and his alter ego. It had new footage added and was released again as Bourbon Street Shadows, again barely letting you know that this was a movie about The Shadow.

Some of this movie was directed by cinematographer James Wong Howe, whose only other directing credit is for the Harlem Globetrotters movies Go Man Go. He had a strange life in the Hollywood system, as his marriage to Sanora Babb was not recognized by the state of California until 1948, as they banned interracial marriage (she was white). It was the first time he could admit that he was with his wife, as the morals clause prohibited him from saying he was with a white woman. They also lived in separate apartments due to his traditional Chinese views before she moved to Mexico City to protect him from the blacklist. He would go on to be one of the most recognized cinematographers of all time.

Along with Ben Parker (Teen-Age Strangler) and John Sledge, he directed the episodes that make up this TV pilot. It’s very much torn from the headlines, as Pablo Ramirez (Dan Mullins), an expatriate to New Orleans from the Caribbean nation of Santa Cruz, is planning a coup against that country’s leader, the Generalissimo. The secret police of that country are trying to kill him and trumpet player Tony Alcalde (Steve Dano) summons Lamont Cranston (Richard Derr) and his mentor Jogendra (Mark Daniels) to help. They don’t get there in time, as Tony is killed, so they decide to help Ramirez as The Shadow.

Written by George Bellak and Ruth Jeffries, this is the sixth film that features this character. Again, it’s so odd that this is a superhero movie that wants to be sold as horror or anything but The Shadow.

You can watch this on Tubi.