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Directed by Louis Gasnier and Donald MacKenzie and written by George B. Seitz, the team that had given the world The Perils of Pauline two years earlier, this silent action serial read like a Pearl White reject and probably was. The star, novice actress Grace Darmond, was no Pearl White (not even a Ruth Roland), however, and the story -- something about a box of mysterious pellets that can render its owner invisible -- was nothing new even in 1916. Ralph Kellard, who later that year starred opposite White herself in Pearl of the Army, played the daredevil hero, Madlaine Traverse and Frankie Mann were the femme fatales, and Leslie King played a character named One Lump Louie. The Shielding Shadow was produced by the leader in the serial game, Pathé, a fact which gave Darmond enough credibility to later headline such low-budget serials as The Hope Diamond Mystery (1921) and A Dangerous Adventure (1922).