My intent in the past two blog postings has been to watch an episode of The Adventures of Superman every night and write about it. Essentially making a day equal to one week's worth of TV in the past. Superman being the only thing on at the time I can get my hands on from the era, that means I don't get to watch any other shows for months. Trust me, I did the math. So I'm stepping up my time-table a little by making each day worth a month of 1952 time. This will make more sense when the summer break of 1953 comes about and I don't have to waste a few weeks not watching anything (just a few days). Today's viewing consists of five episodes from October 1952.
The Case of the Talkative Dummy- The weakest of the bunch. It's Jimmy Olsen's birthday so Lois and Clark take him to a ventriloquist show where the dummy starts saying random things that freak out the performer. This is somehow involved with a series of armored car heists and The Daily Planet reporters get to work with police to solve the crimes. The reveal is kind of disappointing but the journey there is more interesting, setting up the future of how Jimmy and Lois get in trouble during investigations. There is a part where the bad guys had to drive an armored car into a larger truck and they really filmed setting up the ramp and driving. It's a very believable touch.
The Mystery of the Broken Statues- Two dapper thugs go around to knick-knack stores smashing all their cheap ceramic statues, but paying for it so the shop keepers don't ask questions. Lois gets wind of it and starts collecting statues ahead of the duo to determine what might be hidden in them. Of course she gets in trouble, but this is a much more interesting mystery. As it turns out several items are recovered out of the statues, not just what Lois finds. In a well-played but oddly-conceived scene Clark Kent solves the riddle of the hidden items by playing a word game on a chalk board that Adam West's Batman would have trouble solving. I guess Superman is a genius. I love the moment when Lois is being threatened to give up her piece of the puzzle and she smashes a statue in the dudes face to get away. Lois is a much stronger character than I remember, which is good for everyone.
The Monkey Mystery- A somewhat convoluted episode about Maria, a daughter of a scientist, escaping Poland with a formula to protect America from something vaguely atomic, and the people chasing her. Somehow the bad guys set up an organ-grinder to pass information around using a monkey, named Pepe, dressed as Superman. If this doesn't really make sense, Pepe (who normally gives out fortunes on paper to children) accidentally passes Lois Lane the travel info of Maria. Lois guesses this is huge and goes out to meet her on a train, but gets caught up in the intrigue as both of them get knocked out, losing the formula. Then to cover their tracks the organ-grinder is killed for losing the message and a manhunt is put out for Pepe. This episode is actually funnier than it sounds and worth a watch. Maria is played by the same lady who played the deaf/mute housekeeper, Alice, in The Haunted Lighthouse. Things to look for are: Maria's father being caught and whipped by authorities, Maria's escape montage through Germany, Jimmy being beat up over the monkey, and Superman flying through a window to intercept a bullet from hitting Pepe. I like this episode and probably not for the right reasons.
Night of Terror- Lois Lane goes to a motel, for reasons that aren't readily apparent, to find a crime in progress. Once again she is beat up and captured by thugs. Her and the wife of the proprietor (already killed) work together as they try to figure out what's going on. It turns out this motel is 20 miles from the Canadian border and smugglers have been operating out of it. The real drama and tension comes from a frantic call from Lois to The Daily Planet asking for help, but being cut off at the last second. This leaves Jimmy (and later Clark) to piece together where she might be. The only reason the thugs don't kill her is that their boss is sending a hitman know as Babyface to take care of them personally. Jimmy has all the info but can't communicate it to Clark so he heads off on is own and is mistaken for the hitman. The writers had to add some road blocks to stretch out the tension. Jimmy writes Clark a note but it accidentally falls in the garbage, and Perry White's personal secretary can't be bothered to remember important details because she doesn't think anything Lois, Clark or Jimmy do is important. I could almost see the desire in Clark's eyes to punch the crap out of the lady for endangering Lois with her incompetence. Superman does beat up a room full of bad guys and that's a lot of fun to watch.
The Birthday Letter- Sometimes the writers just want to tell a kids story, so this one is about a crippled girl, Kathy, who wants to go to an amusement park for her birthday, but can't because she's crippled. And something about her mom working all day to support them. So Kathy writes a letter to The Daily Planet for Superman to come visit her and take her instead. Lois decides this would make a great human interest story and writes the piece hoping Superman will notice. At the same time Kathy gets a wrong number telling her a time and place to be, which ends bad for the caller as he is gunned down in a drug store. The plot then shifts to the point of the story where a French crime couple are trying to buy counterfeit plates of French money. They learn the girl has the info and dress up their brain-addled ex-boxing associate to put on the worst Superman disguise ever and kidnap the girl. They threaten her, but buy her toys and candy until she remembers the whole message. As you can guess all the bad guys are caught and Superman ends the episode flying Kathy to the park while people on the street point and cheer. Not the best episode, but Superman proves to be acid proof when he recovers the printing plates from a vat of acid, barehanded. An okay episode.
The only real sci-fi in these are once again the presence of Superman, an alien. All the plots are basic, criminals trying to do crime, not realizing Superman is around. I do like seeing him fight as knives break on him and bullets do nothing. One good punch from him and people are out. George Reeves is a lot of fun to watch and his Clark Kent plays with the other characters by almost hinting he is Superman. Jimmy asks him in one of the episodes how he knew something and Clark says, "because I have X-Ray Vision like Superman". There is really only one piece of music (the main theme) for him which kicks in as soon as he starts flying. The rest of the music is generic but functional. It's been a long time since I watched any of these episodes and they are worth the time to watch 'em. Except maybe that talking dummy episode.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment