" . . . but the cat still laughs!" If you substitute the word "actors" for "Bohemians" and switch up "the fat man" for "the cat," this title card written by THE WHITE SHADOW assistant director Alfred Hitchcock could be taken as a summary of his future 50-year career in making movies. Certainly, Vera Miles--who slaved under Hitch in THE WRONG MAN--would say so. The first three reels of this 1924 silent feature are watchable enough, though the premise about souls (or "shadows") flitting from body to body (at least when one of the bodies in question is born soul-less) sounds at least as far-fetched as the more recent 21 GRAMS (the title refers to the supposed weight of souls, though I can think of several people who may be a few grams short). The four title cards summarizing the assumed content of the final three "missing" reels of THE WHITE SHADOW sound so preposterous, it likely is no accident they went "missing." It's possible that if these ludicrous-sounding scenes were not conveniently "lost," their more widely-circulated content could have nipped short the career of the self-styled "Master of Suspense" before it truly began.
Review of White Shadows
