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Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN STARRING GEORGE REEVES: SEASON 1 EPISODE GUIDE AND REVIEWS (PART TWO)

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Part two in a series. Part one of “The Adventures of Superman” episode guide is here.

This article originally appeared in a slightly different form at Alfred Eaker’s The Blue Mahler.

“Rescue” is a season one episode in which narrative purpose overrides attachment to character history or bullet points. Prospector Pop has been working his coal mine for a decade, despite warnings that it’s a death trap. Refusing to heed the warnings, Pop gets trapped after a cave-in. Enter Lois Lane, who discovers Pop’s predicament and attempts a rescue. Naturally, being Lois Lane, she too refuses to heed the warnings and attempts a lone wolf rescue, getting stuck herself. A series of near-misses follows in which Kent barely misses hearing news of the mine avalanche. Naturally, Kent being Superman, he would have super hearing. But not if it gets in the way of the plot. Thus, Kent, revving his faulty engine, fails to hear the radio broadcast of Lane’s current troubles.

Kent finally gets wind of the explosion which now seems to have sealed the fate of Pop and Lane. Naturally, our favorite boy scout saves the day, which inspires Lane to quip, “Clark, Superman finally took me out.” “Rescue” is a welcome change of pace, well-directed by Timothy Carr, and crams a lot of plot into twenty minutes.

Carr returns to helm “The Secret of Superman.” Jimmy Olsen’s mom calls Kent in the early A.M., worrying that little Jimmy has not come home. This looks like a job for… Clark Kent, who finds Olsen in a trance-like state at the Daily Planet office after hours. A file is missing, but not just any file! It is the file on Superman! As Kent suspects, dastardly gangster types are trying to find out the secret identity of the Man of Steel.

Next up is Perry White, who gets slipped a mickey in his coffee. White doesn’t know Superman’s identity either, and proves to be of little use to the bad fellas. Inspector Henderson, being the Sherlock he is, finds that both Olson and White were under the influence of sodium amathol and orders round-the-clock police protection for the Daily Planet staff.  A little gunplay follows, but we’re still no closer to wrapping up this episode.

Kent, pretending to be fired in an attempt to smoke out the gangsters, drinks from the same cup as White. Of course, Kent fakes a stupor but Lane is more susceptible and is asked the question:  “Could Superman have the ultimate disguise? Could he be … a woman?” “Superman—a woman? Nah, but Clark…. well, maybe,” the drugged Lane suggests. Performed with commendable straight faces, the cast deserves credit for convincingly guiding us through 50s naiveté. The world’s greatest mystery gets solved: Kent is Superman behind those horn rims. The henchman who figures it out gets wasted, however, and Lane conveniently forgets her drugged-induced sleuth work. Kent sighs in relief. No wonder he’s so charmingly smug.

Still from "No Holds Barred" from "The Adventures of Superman" The Lee Sholem-directed “No Holds Barred” has been a stapled fan favorite. Wrestler “Bad Luck Brannigan” has sent several opponents to the hospital after using the “paralyzer” move on them. With super-hearing now intact, Kent becomes privy to ringside conspiracies and locker room Continue reading THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN STARRING GEORGE REEVES: SEASON 1 EPISODE GUIDE AND REVIEWS (PART TWO) →

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN STARRING GEORGE REEVES: SEASON 1 EPISODE GUIDE AND REVIEWS (PART ONE)

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This article originally appeared in a slightly different form at Alfred Eaker’s The Blue Mahler.

Today, few seem to pay mind to the artists, writers or creators of comic book characters. When Denny Stephens and I walked into Denny White’s comic book shop as Indiana adolescents, we immediately knew—without looking at the credits—if a book was penciled by Jack Kirby, Frank Robbins, Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, Neal Adams, Steve Ditko,  Mike Ploog, Curt Swan or Wayne Boring. In their place now, a bland homogeneity permeates both the world of comics and the shops which market them. One book looks the same as the next, blending without seams, shorn of rough edges, entry points, atmosphere, originality, color, or inherent personality. One could say the same regarding the recent spate of films based on DC characters (not so with their television work, including animation where they rule their Marvel rivals. On the big screen, Marvel does it better). While the 1950s Television Superman was nowhere near as imaginative as stories being cranked out by Otto Binder in Superman Magazines (TV didn’t have the budget or, still in its infancy, the know how) the first season of The Adventures of Superman is something of a silver age within itself.

, , Jack Larson, John Hamilton, Robert Shane, Tommy Carr and each put an stamp on the characters and episodes, a personalized milieu and individuality that today is alien to an audience whose primary concern towards character tends to Biblical fidelity and adulation.

For many, George Reeves remains the quintessential portrayal of Clark Kent and his alter ego, Superman. It’s not out of nostalgia, or because he was the first actor to portray the pulp character. In fact, he wasn’t the first at all. That honor belongs to Kirk Alyn who starred in the serials Superman (1948) and Atom Man vs. Superman (1950). Alyn, who interpreted Kent as a kind of bumbling Jimmy Stewart character, simply doesn’t inspire. That lack of inspiration isn’t just limited by the serial’s quality: certainly, many of the later television and big screen incarnations were equally poor in their writing and execution. Rather, it’s due to Alyn’s Kent, who set the blueprint for the later Christopher Reeve performance. Kent really isn’t Kent. He’s Superman, and the newspaper paper reporter is just a façade.

Adventures of Superman (TV Series, 1952-2958) It’s hardly a secret that George Reeves had no love for playing a role that later actors would kill for. For Reeves, this was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Not only was he playing a little boy’s pulp comic book character who wore underwear outside of his pants, but he had been reduced to television. Like many actors of his time, including Alyn, who had refused to repeat the role for TV, Reeves was suspicious of the new medium. It was called small screen for a reason, Continue reading THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN STARRING GEORGE REEVES: SEASON 1 EPISODE GUIDE AND REVIEWS (PART ONE) →

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

SUPERMAN AND THE MOLE MEN (1951)

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I suppose I was in the vast minority in 1978 when I still preferred as Superman, and especially as Clark Kent, as opposed to Christopher Reeve.

One could argue this was, perhaps, merely nostalgia since I grew up watching repeats of the Adventures of Superman every Saturday as a young child, but it was more than that.

The Superman I recalled pre-1978 was derived from film noir, rather than science fiction, although there was always latent and simplistic sci-fi elements. The art deco Fleischer cartoons were a resplendent example of this. Superman/Kent might tackle a local mad scientist or robots run amok, but he still had to predominantly deal with diamond stealing gangsters, a feisty Lois Lane, and a cigar chomping news editor boss. In the classic Superman comics he did occasionally have a colorful villain, such as the impish prankster whose name no one can pronounce, Braniac, and Bizarro, but he was not blessed with Batman’s rogue gallery of nemeses, and usually was content battling wits with the dull Lex Luthor.

Still from Superman and the Mole Men (1951)Since the Richard Donner film, the Superman character has completely forsaken its golden age and radio origins, and Superman is a pimply faced superboy, not long past puberty.  George Reeves’ Superman was already pushing forty when he made his debut.  Reeves remained in the monkey suit (as he called it) until his death at forty five. Reeves personified the classic age Superman in that he was every adolescent boy’s idea of a super father figure.  Sure, he wore a padded suit, clearly “flew” on a glass table and ducked when bad guys threw their emptied Continue reading SUPERMAN AND THE MOLE MEN (1951) →