Title: Cold Death
Air Date: December 19, 1937
Plot summary:
Lamont Cranston belongs to a gentlemen's club which also counts among its members one Daniel Carver. Carver is a industrial magnate who owns a mill and also owns the factory town next to it, "Carverville". Carverville is a nightmarish slum where desperately poor workers, wage slaves to Carver, live in drafty firetraps. As the episode opens, Carver and one of his minions are discussing an Intrepid Reporter who was sniffing around Carverville. Carver tells his minion without spelling it out explicitly that next time, he'd like more violent means of dissuasion against anyone who investigates his town.
The word is still out, however, and Lamont and the other members of his club discuss Carver and his horrible slum town. Carver angrily resigns from the club before he can be kicked out, but Lamont and his sidekick Margo Lane go to Carverville to investigate. It's worse than they imagined, with sick, hungry people living in tumbledown shacks. It happens to be Christmastime, so Lamont decides that The Shadow needs to teach Carver a lesson about decency and respect for his fellow man—a lesson inspired by A Christmas Carol.
Notes: After the show, the program received the "Pilot Radio Award of Merit" on the air.
Tropes:
- Christmas Episode: It's Christmas. A child that may be dying of pneumonia wonders what presents Santa will give her. The Shadow shows Daniel Carver the squalor and misery of Carverville, leading him to turn over a new leaf and make Carverville a decent place to live.
- Company Town: Carver owns Carverville, which houses the workers for his mill. It lives down to the worst stereotype of a company town, being filled with drafty, tumbledown shacks where workers sicken and die.
- Everybody Lives: Despite the fact that the episode is titled "Cold Death"! Carver lives, his goons are chased away, the ill girl is going to get medical care...it's a Lighter and Softer Christmas Episode.
- Lighter and Softer: It's a heartwarming Christmas Episode, so, unlike most episodes of The Shadow, no one dies. Even Carver's thugs who beat up one of the villagers are allowed to get away.
- Shout-Out: The Shadow takes his inspiration from A Christmas Carol and at one point asks Carver, "Do you know the story of Scrooge?".
- Smoky Gentlemen's Club: Lamont Cranston and Carver belong to the same club. Carver's horrible slum has become enough of an embarrassment that he is on the verge of being kicked out of the club when he resigns instead.
