There are many super-heroes in movies nowadays. Spiderman, Batman, Ironman, Superman, Antman ... I could go on ... and on ...
but - when I was a kid I fell in love with Al Kabar The Red Shadow as portrayed by singer Gordon Macrae in the movie of the operetta "The Desert Song".
Sigh. Swoon. The Red Shadow was everything my nine year old heart could pine over. He was handsome and romantic, with a voice to entice the angels out from the clouds. My super-hero rescued maidens, trounced baddies, led a heroic bunch of rebels called The Riffs, and strode across the desert all moody, masked, and gorgeous.
When The Red Shadow dramatically swished his robes, and slipped on that shawl-type disguise thing over the bottom half of his face and his eyes were twinkling, I fell in love for the first time in my life. I was so jealous of Macrae's romantic interest, Kathryn Grayson. .
I saw the movie seven times. My love for it never waned, not even when my ballet teacher was an extra in the New Plymouth amateur presentation of "The Desert Song" and I wasn't, and a donkey did a poo on the stage; the dancers adroitly stepped around the mess.
Three years' later, I was in to rock'n'roll and operetta was out. No more sighing over Gordon MacRae.
Kids are so fickle.
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