Customer Reviews

Superman: Serial [VHS]

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A week ago I bout the 1948 Superman serial here from Amazon and I loved it! It is powerfully charming and fun to watch! There is a total of 15 chapters on the tapes and they are each 20 minutes long and end with a very suspenseful cliff hanger! I have showed it to my friends and there families my family and everyone loves it! I think you should buy it today! No one should have to live and not watch this! It is a must have! Now I'm going to give you a summary of the first three chapters:
Chapter 1 - Superman Comes To Earth: Galaxies far from ours there is the blue planet Krypton. Krypton is a world of advanced science and mystery. One day Jor-EL a member of Krypton's council board and one of the brilliant scientist on Krypton, makes a startling discovering! He learns that the mighty Krypton is coming upon its last hours, Krypton is being drawn into its red sun and will explode! He tells the rest of Krypton's council leaders this and tells them that all of Krypton's population must flee to the planet Earth, in spacecraft! The council leaders laugh at his discovery and vote to stay on Krypton; Jor-EL calls them fools and leaves! At Jor-EL's home he tells his wife what just happened, they both agree to send their baby boy Kal-EL on Jor-EL's experimental rocket and send it to Earth. After Kal-El is put into the rocket and lunched into space, the planet Krypton explodes, killing all of its people except Kal-EL! On Earth in a small town a farmer and his wife witness some sort of spacecraft come out of the sky and land on the ground! The farmer opens the spacecraft and finds a baby boy raped in fireproof blankets, the farmer and his wife adopted the boy that came out of the sky and name him Clark Kent. It's not long after Clark starts to grow, he learns he is no ordinary boy and can perform impossible deeds! When Clark grows up he vow's to his foster parents that he will use his powers for truth justice and the American way! His foster mother give's him a suit that she made from the blankets Clark was raped in when he first came to Earth. He tells them he will wear it only when he is SUPERMAN!
Chapter 2 - Depths Of The Earth: There is a mine disaster and reporters from the Daily Planet in Metropolis are sent on a train to cover the story. But a track is broken and the engineer of the train is not warned in time and is going to crash! Before a train goes over the broken track, a man in a cape and a giant "S" symbol on his shirt, comes out of the bushes and fixes the track with his bare hands. The train is safe but the queer man who help has run off. In Metropolis Clark Kent is in a cab and asks to go to the Daily Planet, on the way Clark sees a building on fire and asks the cabby to pull over! Clark gets out and use's his x-ray vision and sees a women inside the building, Clark say's to himself, "This looks like a job for Superman!" and changes into a suit with a cape and a giant "S" symbol on it. In an instant flies into the building grabs the women flies back out with her in his arms, next he drops her off safely and runs off. At the Daily Planet Clark asks Perry White the chief editor at the Daily Planet, if he can have a job. Perry is about to say no but gets a phone call instead. On the phone are Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen they were sent to do a story on the mine disaster but the police won't let them in. Clark say's to Perry that if he could get in and get the story, if he could have a job, Perry agrees. At the mine disaster Lois finds a way into the mine but gets caved in and now is left to die by dangerous fumes!
Chapter 3 - The Reducer Ray: Superman comes to the rescue and brakes through the mine and saves Lois and the miners and then runs off again! When Lois and Jimmy get back to the Daily Planet they are mocked because someone else got the story and Lois is really mad! Next her and Jimmy meet the newest member at the Daily Planet, Clark Kent! In a secret hideout the Spider Lady ruler of the underworld of crime want's to steal a very powerful weapon called the Reducer Ray, it can blow up any thing with a blast bigger then a the atomic bomb. Her first plot to steal it is unsuccessful for Superman stops her. That night a meteor crashes near Metropolis. At the Metropolis Museum Professor Leeds wants show reporter Clark Kent the meteor. It is in a lead box, Leeds tells Clark that it is very strange and thinks that it comes from the planet Krypton that exploded many years ago! When Leeds takes off the lid the meteor glows green and Clark falls down dead!

Once upon a time the Serial was an extremely popular form, and 2 studios were the major producers who stuck with it the longest- Republic and Columbia. Republic had the writers, actors directors and, most importantly, the stuntmen who knew how to make them. Columbia had the more popular characters(Batman,The Phantom, The Shadow...etc).And while they would spend the money to acquire the rights, they were incredibly cheap when it came to production. Superman is a Columbia Serial, with all the shortcomings that that entails. Bad writing, bad acting, cheap effects, bad costumes (Hell, the only time somebody changes outfits is when Clark Kent becomes Superman. Otherwise they wear the same clothes throughout, including an unfortunate choice of hat for Lois Lane that makes her look like one of the dancing mushrooms from "Fantasia" for 15 chapters) Still, Superman: The Serial is not without it's charms...Kirk Alyn's adoption of Bud Collyer's voice trick on (Tenor)"This looks like a Job (Basso Profundo)for Superman" allows you to hear the testosterone levels rising...Tommy "Butch from Our Gang" Bond as Jimmy Olsen...Noel Neill's first shot at Lois Lane (sans anger management)...and the opportunity to play spot the stock footage during the destruction of Krypton. It's all good fun...Still, I think the secret wish of every serial fan is to imagine what Republic would have done with the Big Blue Guy...Hmmm...Kane Richmond as Superman...Linda Stirling as Lois Lane...*SIGH*

All right Superman fans. For those of you who are really into the Superman mythology, then this nostalgic piece of work is for you. As like the modern (Chris Reeve) Superman, we see in the beginning chapter the origins of Krypton and it's untimely demise as the sun draws it closer to it. Then the origin of Superman is pretty much the same, which follows the George Reeves and modern Superman origins with Superman being raised by foster parents who teach him Godly morals and to fight for truth, justice, and the American way.

For those of you who like the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons or the Hanna-Barberra Superman cartoons of the seventies and eighties, this is also a film for you. The reason, whenever Superman flies, jumps from a building, or crashes into walls, he turns animated, thus making any stunt possible. And no actors were hurt, which is even better.

Sadly, the man that played Superman, Kirk Alyn, died in 1999 at age 88. However, we will always have the Superman serials and the memorories will never die.

All in all, I must give this movie 5 out of 5 stars. Any Superman fan or Kirk Alyn fan needs this piece in their collection....

A Super Fan, David Meek

Kirk Alyn gives a one of a kind performance in his signature role of 'superman'. Debuting as everyone's favorite super-hero, Alyn set high standards for any actor who followed in the role. Playing the part with humor and athletic derrying-do Alyn is SUPBERB as 'superman',making this movie great fun for kids to watch as well as adults. The special effects are a must see,especially the flying sequences,with live action given way to animation. Which in the era of the 1940s were considered state of the art.

The best parts of SUPERMAN (1948), a 15-chapter serial produced by Columbia Pictures, are found in the first three or so chapters when we see a lot of Superman lore adapted to film, including the destruction of Krypton, young Clark growing up on a farm with the Kents, and Clark coming to Metropolis and joining the staff of the Daily Planet. We also get to see Superman do lots of superheroic deeds such as rescuing people from disasters. Afterwards, however, it settles into a standard cliffhanger formula with Superman battling the Spider Lady (Carol Forman), a conventional serial villainess and criminal gang leader who sends her standard-issue thugs and henchmen (middle-aged guys in suits, ties and fedoras) out to kidnap Lois and knock out Jimmy Olsen with growing monotony in every episode.

On the plus side, the Superman flying effects are carried out through cartoon animation. This enables Superman to be seen flying through a variety of locales. (If Republic Pictures had shot this, they would have repeated the same shot over and over of a stuntman in costume flying on a wire strung from one rock in the San Fernando Valley to another.) Also, Noel Neill's Lois is as spunky here as the character ever got. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, the ever-smiling Lois plunges into the action wholeheartedly time and time again, frequently making Superman look weak and overly cautious in comparison. Neill played the part again in the sequel, ATOM MAN VS. SUPERMAN, and later in all but the first season of the TV series.

A word about the sequel: ATOM MAN is far superior to this one, with a stronger, more comic book-appropriate villain in Lex Luthor, many more clever and imaginative sci-fi twists, and a more carefully devised script and structure. Superman also gets to do many more heroic feats of strength and the animated effects are more plentiful too.

Too bad Republic didn't make this serial because over there they at least had Commando Cody and Captain Marvel up in the skies. Instead we get some fake animation everytime our boy in blue jumps. I'm sure that some think it's cute but I felt cheated. I give them 2 stars for trying though.

The Superman serials from Columbia had cartoons in tribute to the Fleisher cartoons of a few year before. It was very creative and thinking out of the box. ~*~ Carol Forman is great in her continuing quest to take over the world. This serial is a hoot.

THIS 1948 15-CHAPTER SERIAL FEATURES SUPERMAN [PLAYED HERE BY THE LATE KIRK ALYN] GOING UP AGAINST A GANG OF CROOKS. THIS IS A HELL OF A LOT BETTER THAN THE 1950S TV SHOW THAT FEATURED GEORGE REEVES! AT LEAST THIS SERIAL WAS FUN TO WATCH AND AT LEAST YOU CAN GET INTO WHAT'S GOING ON IN THIS MOVIE. YOU MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO FIND THIS SERIAL IN STORES TODAY, BUT, IF, BY SOME CHANCE, YOU COME ACROSS THIS VIDEO, GET IT!!!!!

I first saw this serial back in the 1990's when it was broadcast on the AMC cable network. As a fan of the 1950's George Reeves TV show, which was not known for being high tech or big budget, I figured the 2 versions would be similar. Well, even though this serial was filmed in 1948, only 3 years before the George Reeves series began, it might as well have been 25 years difference. Smiling, prancing, wooden, and just all around goofy, Kirk Alyn probably would have been well suited in the silent era of movies. As a Superman, I found him generally unsatisfactory.

That was my opinion until 2006, when I saw the big budget mess called `Superman Returns.' Since Brandon Routh, the Superman of that film, was such a big categorical dud, I have revised my opinion of Kirk Alyn. He is still prancing and goofy, and he looked just completely ridiculous during close ups when they tried to show his `X-Ray Vision.' But he was earnest, more likeable and more manly than Brandon Routh. It was pretty cool when Alyn would smile at crooks when they shot at him and the bullets bounced off his chest, a rare moment of toughness. Physically, Kirk Alyn probably resembled the original comic book Superman better than any Superman since. And there are some moment when he is convincing. The early sequence when he first gets clobbered by Kryptonite and befriends a scientist who saves him is very effective.

One of the worst things about this serial, and the superior 1950 sequel, `Atom Man Vs. Superman,' is the method the directors used to simulate flying: they simply overlaid an animated cartoon version over the film, switching a cartoon for poor Kirk Alyn. This is every bit as bad as you could imagine, only worse. Republic Pictures, 7 years earlier, had done very convincing flight sequences in `Adventures of Captain Marvel,' also a low-budget serial, so there is no excuse for the cartoons. This should serve as a caution to CGI geeks: in 30 years, CGI will probably look just as stupid, since it is, in principle, the same thing as a cartoon.

Of some interest to adults would be the main villain of this film: the Spider Lady. She does not seem, innately, to possess sufficient intellect, charisma, or raw power to be the head of a criminal enterprise. Yet she is, and countless male thugs kowtow to her. Physically, she is rather unimpressive, and the actress who played her, Carol Foreman, well let's just say she makes me appreciate Kirk Alyn as a thespian!

But the Spider Lady is dressed a slinky black evening gown, and she wears a black domino mask, just like the actors in porn movies made in the 40's did. And there is a strong S/M overtone to her method of executing enemies.

Besides curiosities such as the Spider Lady, this serial has other positives. The supporting cast at the Daily Planet is good to great. Pierre Watkin is probably as good a Perry White as the TV guy. Former Our Gang/Little Rascal kid Tommy `Butch' Bond is good as Jimmy Olsen, especially since he was essentially blazing a trail in the role. Best of all is Noel Niell, who was much spunkier and animated in this serial than she would be when she reprised her role a few years later on TV. Also, she wore her hair longer and straighter, and she wore a really cute/silly suit, which also adds to her appeal. One of the secrets to making Superman work is that you have to get involved with the supporting characters for Superman to be interesting, since they are the ones who are vulnerable. And in this serial, the characters work.

This serial has all the flaws of Columbia serials, and all the characteristic flaws of the whole serial genre. There are moments when the plot makes no sense, when characters break even the foam rubber logic of the serial. In case you didn't get the point, there's lots of bad acting. But the miracle is that despite having no money, almost no time, and no special effects, this serial is escapist fun, and it is never boring. There are many well-directed scenes scattered amidst the turkeys: one of the directors, Tommy Carr, went on to direct many of the very best episodes of the George Reeves series.

Ultimately, I find engaging that the cast and crew, despite all their obstacles, despite being paid virtually nothing, they plugged away, gave it the old college try. They had heart, something sadly lacking in the most recent versions of this character.

It may not be the best Superman but it is entertaining and I believe the first in many television series. I wished there was more of Robert Barron because he was the father for one of my dear friends and that's why I got the tape for her. We sat and watched the serials together at her home. She was thrilled to see her father act even for only a few minutes onscreen.