MovieChat Forums > The Shadow (1994) Discussion > Historical error - radios in taxis in th...

Historical error - radios in taxis in the 30s?

posted 11 years ago by paulmurphy42
5 replies | jump to latest

I greatly enjoyed this film, and I don't mean to pick holes in it, but one thing jumped out at me when I watched it - in the scenes where the Shadow jumps into one of the yellow taxis, they have the words Radiocab painted on their sides. Now I'm pretty sure that taxis didn't have radios in them in the 1930s.

Also, in the first scene in the Cobalt Club, the singer is singing a song which, again, definitely wasn't sung in that way in the 1930s...the arrangement was totally different and I don't think you would have heard anything like that even in the 50s...not until the 60s.

I'm ready to be corrected, though. Anyone care to put their oar in?

Presumably the film wasn't a success, as there was no sequel. I enjoyed it, though.

Paul Murphy,
London, UK.

[–] TheSolarSailor 11 years ago

Well, I don't think New York City had a wave of psychic powered men battling with their minds in the thirties either, now did it? Did NYC have those message tubes built all over the city like that? Did it have a real Monolith Hotel? I doubt it, at least not as depicted in the movie. It's a make-believe movie set in a NYC that never really existed, a fun comic bookish nostalgia piece. I'm not sure why you are expecting it to be a documentary on the real NYC of the 1930s. I am not trying to be ugly, but it's not intended to be some historically accurate film like Titanic sought to be.

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Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?

[–] TheFatDruidofNacyl 10 years ago

While I can see your point and somewhat agree, I think that if they are adding a fantasy element to a reality background then the devil is in the detail. I like to suspend disbelief to enjoy the movie, but more attention to the detail does seem to make the movie better.

Come visit my theblackrosecastle.com

[–] rquinn1-2 9 years ago

A bit late but according to my mother, who is old enough to know, they did, indeed, have radio cabs in the 1930's.

[–] lkwaterski 9 years ago

The pneumatic tubes go back pretty far but I haven't looked up info on them. I do know that the C. R. Anthony dept. store in Oklahoma City had the tubes when I was a kid. The sales women would put the bill and money into the tube and it would come back with the correct change for the customer. Also the famous urban photographer, Weegee, reportedly had a radio in his car that listened for police reports. As a result, he got to crime scenes to get the photo before the officials showed up.

[–] grendelkhan 8 years ago

Pneumatic tubes go back to the Victorian era. There were even experiments with pneumatic subways.

Radiocabs existed; it was a selling point.

Fortunately, Ah keep mah feathers numbered for just such an emergency!