User reviews

The good guys never seem to catch a break. It added to the plot and my frustration. What a roller coaster of a movie. It was a good movie and keeps you on the edge of your seat rooting for the good guys to get one thing to go their way. Common John Wayne where, as the hero, he never gives up hope.

Didn't realize that it was almost 3 hours till it got close to the end and I looked up at the clock.

If you like b/w old movies, it's a good show to watch. I like John Wayne but have watched most of his older movies. It's a lot of fun to see a young John Wayne running around to save the day. If you don't like the older John Wayne movies, give some of is younger stuff a chance.

While this is not John Wayne's finest movie, or even his finest serial, for fans of the cliffhanger it delivers plenty of action and pretty good acting.

The main point of this review is to caution you about differences in the two DVD releases, both essentially from the same starting print. Decisions taken by the two different DVD production companies make all the difference in whether you enjoy this film or feel cheated. The two companies are Marengo Films and Platinum Disc.

I first purchased the Marengo print and was so wholly unsatisfied with the editing and production that I went looking for another. I finally found it from a company named Platinum Discs.

The Marengo release chops 5 seconds off the end of the film, leaving out completely John Wayne's closing scene. Also, the text that Marengo substituted for the studio's "The End" text is huge, blocky and computer generated. In short, Marengo has butchered the film for the sake of reducing the total number of VOBs needed to hold the DVD film image.

The Platinum Disc release is the entire original film, not a single frame, more or less. My only disappointment with this version is they appear to have made no effort to clean up dust and scratches.

The irony is that the Marengo print does have slightly more detail and better scratch and dust cleanup, however not enough, IMHO, to compensate for altering the original edit.

Review written May 22, 2011 based on latest available releases from Marengo and Platinum.

Unless you consider Gene Autry a major mainstream film star, I can't think of another major star besides John Wayne who did movie serials. The Duke did three of them and back then I'm sure he was grateful for the work. The first of them was The Shadow of the Eagle.

Wayne is a stunt flier for a carnival owned by former World War I ace Edward Hearn and daughter Dorothy Gulliver. Back in the war he was shot down and presumed killed. His fellow squadron members where Hearn was known as the Eagle, took the plans for something called an Aero Stabilizer and are building a factory, wouldn't you know it across the street.

But one of these dudes is looking to cut the others out and starts sending threatening messages to the others with sky writing of all things in the name of the Eagle. Talk about telegraphing your punches.

In the manner of serials, Wayne, the daughter, the Eagle, all get in trouble and rescued over and over until the real culprit and the gimmick with the sky writing is unmasked.

I'm told by the way the technology the bad guy uses for his sky writing is certainly available now, but wasn't quite perfected in 1932. What was it, that you have to sit through the serial to find out.

Serials were so frighteningly dumb back in the day. John Wayne must have shuddered if you ever mentioned this one at least.

Well what d'ya know? Just stumbled across this little caper which brings back happy memories of a childhood long long departed. The year was 1950 and I recall SHADOW OF THE EAGLE, the first time I ever clapped eyes on a very young up and coming John Wayne. (He had fully upped and comed by 1950!) Interestingly, this action-fest was considered somewhat of a "relic" even then!

Shown as a weekly 20 minute serial at our local Saturday Morning Flicks...itself, the major regular event in our home town, I recall Wayne as square-jawed pilot Craig McCoy out to discover the truth behind the disappearance of a fairground owner whose livelihood had been threatened by the nefarious "Eagle." Each episode left a young boy barely able to wait for the following Saturday to catch Craig's latest revelations and discoveries in the dastardly plot. Actually, I can't ever recall the concluding episode.....maybe I had a sleepover the previous night? Maybe I'd finally cracked a date in her pedal-car with the five year old blonde tease next door, in which case poor old Duke was never a chance!

Others have mentioned the old movie serials. The cover on my Alpha Video DVD claims that "The Shadow of the Eagle" is "The Complete Serial." But one part is missing in the early series, and it ends with episode 11 -- but not the end of the story. So, I have no idea how it comes out.

"The Shadow of the Eagle" is an early John Wayne series. It was a stunt man's show, with lots of action and running about. The Duke's acting is OK and very good in places. We can't say that for most of the rest of the cast – especially not Dorothy Gulliver. She has several close-ups in which she has hammy glares at the camera. Was she still acting for silent films?

The attempt to show sky-writing is pathetic. An airplane in the sky making 90-degree and 180-degree turns in just a few feet? It looked exactly like what it was – a toy model. I'm sure they could have done something to seem a little more real. By 1932, many people would have seen skywriting at daredevil shows, air shows, county fairs and other events held around the country. So, this probably would have looked just as hokey to audiences then, as it does today.

Although the plot was interesting, with just enough intrigue to keep one watching – hoping to see the end, it soon reached the point of tedium. The action scenes were repeated car chases, repeated climbing up and down outside buildings, and repeated breaking into the same offices. John Wayne must have had a permanent concussion from this one – I think he got conked out at least once in each segment.

The segments were of varied lengths. The shortest was less than 10 minutes and a couple early ones were half an hour or more. Each one ran the full credits at the beginning. But there was very little continuity between episodes. They tended to skip some details where the next episode would open somewhere off from where the previous one ended.

This Mascot production clearly shows its poverty row origins. It has very poor writing, editing and other production values; and the film quality relegates this one to the dust bin.

This serial film is fun to watch, if you can put yourself in the mind of a kid in 1932 chomping popcorn & watching this on the big screen in his local theater.

The real value of the film to me is the scene in which an airplane attacks Wayne & his girlfriend as they stand on a deserted road. Compare it to the crop dusting scene in Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" and there is little doubt in my mind that Hitch stole the scene from Beebe.

It's unfair to review a 1930s serial by today's entertainment standards; expectations were different and the formula is an alien one. That caveat out of the way, man, does "The Shadow Of The Eagle" stink.

Craig McCoy (John Wayne) is a stunt pilot at a struggling carnival who gets $100 for a skywriting job just when carnival owner Nathan Gregory (Edward Hearn) finds himself $97 short of paying off a debt collector. McCoy is happy to keep his boss in business, but both soon find themselves under suspicion when McCoy's skywriting turns out to be a threat to a group of factory owners who used Gregory's stolen invention to build a fortune.

"You stand in the shadow of the Eagle," a voice in the darkness tells the owners shortly before one of them turns up dead.

Seeing Wayne star in a serial gives you a chance to see the future star work his on-screen charisma in its fledgling form. Unfortunately there's not much to see here; not from Wayne, who does little more than work his smile between stunts; not from the film, which hits you with a succession of half-baked cliffhangers.

I know I can't really complain about logic gaps, character inconsistencies, and tone shifts in a film designed to entertain eight-year-olds in an era long before Nintendo or "Game Of Thrones." But if the film is going to throw so much nonsense up in the air, the least it could do is make it move. "Shadow Of The Eagle" features long sections of wooden dialogue and endless cycles of captures and recaptures.

A lot of the film is spent with various characters watching the Eagle's skywriting, as slow as skywriting tends to be.

"Why...it's a question mark!"

"Why...it means that Clark's been wiped out, and they're asking who's next!"

Adding to the underbaked effect is the way director Ford Beebe cheats the cliffhangers between chapter. One chapter ends with a car blowing up, only to begin the next chapter by having it explained as a tire blowout.

Wayne has a nice moment early on when he is confronted by an aggressive questioner ("I'll do the questioning..." "Well, you'll do your own answering, too.") There's also that stunt classicsoncall mentioned in another review, the plane buzzing McCoy as he runs across a field like Cary Grant. But such moments are thin on the ground and get thinner as the serial moves along and various supporting characters pop up and drop off without explanation.

"Shadow Of The Eagle" bears the marks of a project being made up as it went along by a no-budget studio. Unfortunately, while inspiration is free, talent is not. The result of working around that reality is terribly obvious with more than three hours to fill.

The Shadow of the Eagle (1932) is a movie/series that I watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a group of carnival employees who keep seeing messages in the skyline left in smoke by an airplane warning of misdeeds by the Eagle. When the owner of the carnival goes missing the carnival employees believe it is a much bigger act against them and their show. They will work together to discover who kidnapped their boss and who is behind the messages.

This movie/series is directed by Ford Beebe (The Invisible Man's Revenge) and stars John Wayne (True Grit), Dorothy Gulliver (The Galloping Ghost), Walter Miller (The Last of the Mohicans) and Kenneth Harlan (Danger Island).

This movie is recorded in a classic television series with many who done it elements. I adored the carnival setting and the characters were unique and a lot of fun, especially the midget. The dialogue was very good, and the little person's voice and one liners had me cracking up. The flight scenes are also creative and well done. The sped-up scenes are fun too as are the fight sequences and the car fight ending.

Overall, this is very dated but fun movie to watch unfold with unique characters, settings and circumstances. I would score this a 7/10 and strongly recommend watching it once.

John Wayne in one of his early credited roles - Craig McCoy, a fancy flier. Dorothy Gulliver is "Jean", and her family is losing the circus if they don't come up with some cash fast. Wayne is the "Ace" who is determined to stop the "bad guys" from using and producing "the invention" stolen from the original "Eagle". Lots of unknowns here. It also seems to be a film made from a twelve episode series. The picture and sound quality are pretty rough. Much use of trick photography effects, to make it look like the plane was lighting the circus tents on fire, and even during the sky-writing itself. Skip this one. Stapled together from a serial series. Written and directed by Ford Beebe. Meh..... goes for 3 hours.

I found this movie serial on YouTube and instantly knew that the person who posted it was NOT acquainted with the films of John Wayne. This is because emblazoned on the preview is 'John Wayne's First Movie'...and it clearly was NOT. Wayne had already starred in quite a few films and appeared in quite a few more before this 1932 serial.

The story is mostly set at a carnival and involves a character named 'The Eagle'. Apparently during WWI, this great pilot was supposedly shot down and was killed...but someone, perhaps him or perhaps someone posing as him, has returned for revenge against a group of men who have wronged him.

This is a film from Mascot Pictures, a studio which later merged with a few other tiny studios to create Republic. But the quality is clearly below that of a Republic serial, as the film has stilted acting (not just from Wayne), is surprisingly quiet with little in the way of incidental music and features some amazingly bad special effects of an airplane skywriting as well as flying about. But the worst thing about the film is that it's very dull...too dull to make it worth seeing for anyone but a person wanting to see ALL of John Wayne's work.

A 12-part serial in which a fresh-faced 25-year-old John Wayne runs around and engages in fist fights for what seems like forever. Grows repetitive when watched in one or two sittings, but then that's not how it was intended to be watched. Wayne is very green in this one, showing little of the star presence that was to come. Billy West, who has a small part as a treacherous clown, was the premier Chaplin impersonator back in the teens.

An American adventure mystery; A story about a pilot who defends a carnival owner accused of being the killer who 'writes' the names of the victims in the sky with an aircraft's trail. This is a feature film made from an original 12 part film serial. A carnival setting and an airplane factory provide picturesque backdrops, and there are some quirky, colourful supporting characters. Mistaken identity, red herrings and mystery provide distraction along the way, oiled with some broad humour. But, it becomes an endurance test in its long running time, mainly due to sequences that offer little variation, despite the lightning-fast pace.