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Adventures of Superman | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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he backstory is familiar to most of us. Rocketed to Earth as an infant by parents Jor-El and Lara, Kryptonian Kal-El (Reeves) develops "powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men." Disguised as Clark Kent, "mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, the costumed Superman fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way."
Of course, it's rarely a "battle." The menaces confronted by this particular Superman, while life-or-death for Terrans capable of bleeding, rarely pose any serious threat to him. The succession of bad guys who persist in going after him with knives or guns or fists are all doomed the second he turns his steely attention toward them. The suspense lies in watching his trouble-prone co-workers Lois Lane (Coates), Jimmy Olsen (Larson) and Perry White (Hamilton) stumble into mortal peril and wondering just how long it will take the man in the blue suit to find and rescue them.
The biggest surprise, for those of us who haven't seen these immensely popular TV shows in decades, is not the expected primitive special effects and poverty-row production values, but just how bloodthirsty this first season can be. Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen are often beaten on-screen. Several people are shot. A cackling old woman in a wheelchair is shoved down a ramp into a filthy basement. Superman allows a number of bad guys to die while taking no action to save them.
In one disconcerting episode, "The Stolen Costume," Superman finds the pair of minor criminals who have discovered his secret identity and abandons them at the top of a snowcapped mountain, assuring them that they will stay there until he can figure out what to do with them. He does tell them that there's "plenty of food" in "the cabin," and assures them that he will feed them as long as they remain his prisoners. But he's not at all bothered when they fall to their deaths during an ill-conceived attempt to climb down. He even smiles afterward. In his eyes, it's enough that this takes care of the problem.
A B-lister's soaring adventures
There are other unlikelihoods. Sure, it's part of the charm, but Clark Kent's excuses for ducking out of the room at moments of imminent crisis sometimes go beyond the lame into the realm of the nonsensical. Among the best: In "The Human Bomb," Clark explains an absence of no more than half an hour by saying that he's gone fishing.
Compensating are the surprisingly strong performances. Nobody will ever accuse George Reeves of being a great actor, but he plays Superman with absolute conviction, capturing everything from the hero's warmth toward his supporting cast to his moral revulsion at the brutality of lesser men. When he tells one thug whose life he's just saved, "You don't deserve it," you can tell he means it. Phyllis Coates, Robert Shayne and Jack Larson provide able support, and John Hamilton is a hoot, even when reading his lines off a paper on his desk.
The best of the extras is the complete theatrical cut of 1951's Superman and the Mole Men, in which deep oil drilling disgorges diminutive subterranean beings whose harmless explorations of our surface world are greeted with hostility and violence from the small-minded citizens of a tiny rural community. Not only are the production values here much greater than in the relatively low-budget series, but so is the emotional impact. There's genuine pathos in the plight of a mole man pursued by a bigoted lynch mob, genuine terror when that creature is trapped in a burning shed and genuine contemporary relevance when Superman disgustedly characterizes the townspeople as "Nazi stormtroopers." That line, only six years removed from the real thing, carries a moral weight that still works as intended, all these years later, even if the raygun wielded by the mole men is all too obviously a vacuum cleaner with a funnel stuck on top. When everything else works, that's all you need.
Other extras include commentaries by George Reeves biographer Chuck Harter, a 1940 western short featuring Reeves and a mini-documentary, "Adventures of Superman: From Inkwell to Backlot," that includes interviews with Larson, critic Leonard Maltin and comic industry professionals Mike Carlin, Paul Levitz, Alex Ross and others. —Adam-Troy
Also in this issue: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Sealab 2021 Season-Three DVD
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