The screen’s first super man.

Uttering the mystical word, “SHAZAM!” young Billy Batson becomes the mighty Captain Marvel, using super powers to aid his archaeological expedition in fending off a villain called The Scorpion.

It’s the world’s first superhero movie, with the world’s first comicbook superhero – Captain Marve—hang on a sec!—Isn’t Superman the world’s first comicbook superhero?! Yes, but Captain Marvel was the first to leap to film because he was more popular than Superman!– [Wash your mouth out, Poffy, for such blasphemy!]

Superman may have been published first in 1938 (by DC Comics, then known as National Comics), but when Captain Marvel debuted in 1940 (published by Fawcett Comics), he actually outsold Superman – and then DC sued Fawcett for plagiarizing Superman. I mean – come on! Of course it was plagiarism: Captain Marvel (created by C.C. Beck and Bill Porter in 1939) had exactly the same powers as the man from Krypton (published just the year before by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster).

Republic Pictures (which had nothing to do with the plagiarism lawsuit) wanted to make a Superman film serial, but were tied up in other legalities over the Man of Steel… so they turned to the only other superhero of the age – Captain Marvel. (Outraged bat-ophiles will remind me that Batman was existent in comicbooks since 1939, yet for his lack of supernatural abilities, Bats was truly just an updated Lone Ranger or Zorro.)

Thus, ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL, a 12-part, black and white Republic serial, which set the template for all superhero serials to come. Actually, this serial itself is based on the template for all heroic pulp adventure serials (such as DICK TRACY, ZORRO, THE LONE RANGER, etc. all produced by Republic before CAPTAIN MARVEL), so the new breed of “super” heroes was written much like the “merely flamboyant” heroes that simply pursued crooks on a basic level.

There was short shrift given to the fact that the supers were actually, uh, “super,” which is why the main form of combat in these serials was still the decidedly un-super method of punching. And there was no introspection at all with these characters, as film producers had to zap these stories out to the public in brisk 15-minute installments, as “shorts” that ran prior to feature films, so retained a linear storyline with clear demarcations on baddies and heroes. And each Chapter a cliffhanger, to drive audiences into the theaters the following week, dizzily speculating what might have become of their bland hero who somehow procured their emotional investment.

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL opens with the Dr. Malcolm Expedition in Siam (Chapter 1: Curse of the Scorpion), unearthing a scorpion talisman that can transform objects into gold by inserting lenses into its claws. The expedition consists of six barely-rugged white guys, two sappy white youths, and a blonde white woman dressed in tight skirt and secretariat blouse – perfect archaeological clothes!

I mention the expedition’s “whiteness” because their rivals are Siamese soldiers, who believe the white people are desecrating their Valley of Tombs – yet they all look suspiciously like white guys dressed as Asians. Also, one of the white guys in the expedition is dressed to look ambiguously Asian-Arab (John Davidson as Tal Chotali – trying to look like Yul Brynner, putting on an exotic accent to match), and one of the youths is named – appropriately – Whitey. And the blonde is named Betty, who has no lines, because it is taken for granted she is a woman, and therefore a second class citizen/ secretary/ eye-candy.

In the cave of the scorpion, the other sappy youth, Billy Batson (Frank Coghlan Jr.) stumbles into a secret chamber and discovers the Old Man from the cover of Led Zeppelin IV – “I am Shazam!” He entrusts Billy with a mystical power, “…to ensure the curse of the scorpion does not fall on the innocent.” Before anyone can ponder or ask exactly what the “curse of the scorpion” IS, Billy is accessing his new-found power by saying the word “Shazam,” whereupon he transforms into an adult man in fruity Mardi Gras tights named Captain Marvel. There is no wonderment at all in this transformation, as Billy and the audience simply accept that Billy becomes another person – what the–?! – or is he an adult version of himself? If so, then casting did a great job with weightlifter Tom Tyler.

Tom Tyler actually looks like an adult version of Coghlan, and makes a rugged Captain Marvel (well, once we get past his cameltoe and sideways cape decorated with floral needlepoint). With his commanding alpha presence, he was tapped in his early career for many leading cowboy roles in silent films, and with the advent of talkies, he worked hard to lose his Lithuanian accent. Supporting roles leading up to this starring turn as the Captain include STAGECOACH (with John Wayne, 1939) and GONE WITH THE WIND (1939). And as the Captain, his accent sounds all-American (and he must also say, “Shazam” to turn back to Billy). He appeared in over one-hundred and fifty films, dying tragically in 1954 at age 50, after suffering crippling arthritis, which dogged the last decade of his career.

Then there’s that abomination of a lightning bolt emblem on his chest – drawn by a 2^nd grader! Of course they were on a tight budget, yet the producers allowed that lame design to be seen week after week, even though it was clearly obvious it looked nothing like the lightning bolt from the comics, or even like a lightning bolt!

For brevity, there is just blank acceptance of Marvel’s “powers” – he runs out and immediately starts punching crooks and stopping bullets and flying around. There is no pondering on the limits of his powers, or even questioning how and why they exist. All I know is, his mystical tailor musta been high to put that cape on sideways like that.

Dr. Malcolm (Robert Strange) proposes that before they leave for America, the six men each take one lens, to avoid disaster if the scorpion should fall into the wrong hands; they entrust the instruction scroll to Billy. Yes, the pasty boy with zero muscle mass, rather than the adult woman, who gets nothing, because – secretary/ untrustworthy/ brainless. It’s a wonder she even got any lines of dialogue, from Chapter 2 onwards.

A doughy villain called The Scorpion (–what are the odds?), hooded like a dominant BDSM bear, accosts the expedition with some native Siam henchmen (uh, white guys), steals the scorpion idol, easily abducts the scroll from Billy (who could have shouted “Shazam” at any point in his bitch-beating) and larks into the night.

Meanwhile, the Siamese soldiers attack, because they think their god is being angered by the white men’s presence. And Billy suddenly gets the gumption to yell, “Shazam!,” turns into Captain Marvel, and starts killing innocent Siam soldiers that are just defending their own land. He even turns one of their own machine guns on them as they flee! Repeat: Captain Marvel – the superhero – fires a machine gun on Siamese soldiers fleeing from him, murdering them in the back. Then – as if to make a statement on how evil guns are – he flings the machine gun away! (So much for the Wisdom of Solomon.)

Moral ambiguity this ain’t – it’s pure unadulterated racist murder! The Scorpion’s henchies were a completely different faction – Billy knows this, as he was girl-slapped by them and divested of his scroll – yet when the Siamese natives attack, Captain Marvel nonchalantly murders them, when he obviously has the power to reason with them, being impervious to their bullets. No one thinks twice about the murdered Siamese, because it was bred into audiences of the day that any “colored” people were expendable if they attacked white people, even unknowingly.

The Scorpion’s quest over the course of the serial is to retrieve the six Infinity Stones– I mean, lenses.

In a later Chapter it is revealed that The Scorpion is one of Malcolm’s men, with each hat-wearing doofus giving us enough red herring askew glances to suspect each one of them, especially the faux-foreigner Tal Chotali. Firstly, that turban makes him an “other” right? What self-respecting Caucasian wears a turban instead of a hat in this modern day and age?

Captain Marvel’s workmanlike practical flying effects are not half bad for their innovation. The “rear projection sky” or “dummy on a cable” efx were so revolutionary that they were utilized all the way up to 1952 in the COMMANDER CODY serials and television’s ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN. And Captain Marvel landing on people’s heads is a pretty potty visual, as we know it’s some guy being catapulted from offscreen and edited into falling on his victims in that vivid cossie.

But how did Billy know he could fly in the first place? Even with that “Speed of Mercury” thing, no one mentioned any actual flying.

Superman not-flying.

In the comics, Captain Marvel actually started flying before Superman. Recall that Superman’s slogan was always “able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.” He was a long jumper – NOT a flyer. Even in the early episodes of the heralded 1941 Fleisher cartoons, Superman only leaped terrific distances (thus, if he was descending from a leap, and trying to stop some big thing from hitting the ground, he couldn’t just catch it and fly upwards with it – no, he had to catch it, then make contact with the ground in order to push off in another direction. In the later episodes, he could fly, because this shortcoming was becoming too crippling for the bigger and bigger tasks the writers were burdening him with. Also, that Shazam fella was flying – why shouldn’t we?…

As a character, Captain Marvel is superficial, simply here to punch and torture and kill. There were not five screenwriters in order to brainstorm good ideas, rather to share the load in churning out Chapters weekly, using their protagonist as a blunt instrument to mete out pain – not even “punishment” or “justice” – as Marvel would just as soon toss a burglar out a skyscraper window as shoot down natives trying to protect their land. He only has a few lines, most of them torturing crooks into giving him information (Wisdom of Solomon), and his fights are not discerning – they are simply punch punch punch the guys who are punching him (Stamina of Atlas). And woe to you if you shoot him mistakenly – he’s not going to arrest you for attempted murder, he’s going… to kill you (with that Power of Zeus).

CAPTAIN MARVEL as a pulp thriller is barely watchable by today’s standards. Like all these Golden Age serials, it is academic. Watch it as a completist or as a curiosity.

By Chapter 5: The Scorpion Strikes, Captain Marvel has insinuated himself into the consciousness of the Malcolm Expedition, who are all fending off attempts by The Scorpion to steal their lenses. What bugs us as viewers is how they unequivocally accept him as a “super” person that is specifically helping them.

The exact moment that NVP came into being.

Firstly, no one questions or marvels at this absolutely magical being that can stop bullets, fly and bend steel; secondly, his level of involvement in these particular people goes beyond simply flying by and helping them out of jams – he’s on the inside track with all the lenses and maps and who the bad guys are, etc. We, of course, know he is really Billy Batson, but the Expedition doesn’t know his secret identity, yet they converse with him as if they are continuing a conversation, rather than explaining any situation to him when he suddenly appears in a hail of fruity sideways-cloak. (Maybe they are put at ease by that Cameltoe of Lawrence.)

This aspect of blank acceptance becomes especially infuriating in Chapter 10: Doom Ship, where the Expedition takes a tramp steamer back to Siam through a storm (hilarious rear projections show the raging seas at a 45-degree angle to the boat), and suddenly Captain Marvel is on the boat, saving them from the storm! And no one is amazed that he’s there; no one questions WHY he cares about this arbitrary gaggle of scientists, enough to come flying to their rescue from God-Knows-Whatever he was doing – they just take it for granted he’s going to save them! And then, when the boat is stuck on rocks, this super man flies to the shore with a cable, so that people can individually zip-line to shore – when he could have flown the people to shore himself – or maybe even lifted the boat to shore! What part of the S.H.A.Z.A.M. catalogue covers this neglect of powers – The Laziness of Skywalker? The Fruitiness of Liberace? Whitey even tells the captain of the steamer, “He’s Captain Marvel – he can do anything!” Uh, except carry us to shore because the efx department isn’t developed enough for that kinda stunt…

Billy Batson has some kind of broadcasting job and goes straight from there to snooping for Dr. Malcolm. Appealing to the youth set, he was a sniveling Mary-Sue: whiny voice, never in the wrong, never at a moral crossroads. (I know the male version of this angelic character archetype is called a Gary-Stu, but trust me, this little swish is a Mary-Sue.) What amuses us is how Mary-Sue takes it upon himself to order a crook around at gunpoint, “Show me where The Scorpion is!” Isn’t that some kind of felony? Shouldn’t you call the police to handle these thugs? When did you learn how to use a gun? Do you have the stones to shoot this guy if he defies you?… The crook leads Billy to a cave lair, and in goes dummy without any calls for backup or even uttering “Shazam!” until he is trapped in the cave alone. In this cliffhanger, molten rock cascades down on Marvel, threatening to mess up his Brylcreem.

High-fashion snooping.

Betty goes snooping as well, and we start to suspect that the producers don’t really grasp the purpose of “eye-candy” as she’s always snooping in a dress, her hat, gloves and purse – like there’s a sale at Macy’s. Maybe the hotness comes from seeing Billy and Betty get knocked out and tied up so much? Like in almost every Chapter. Which raises the issue: the number of times these two are knocked unconscious by crooks, shouldn’t they have some kind of prolonged head trauma, or concussion, or just plain brain damage by now?

Although, back in the days when cars were the size of yachts, injuries weren’t what they are now; I mean, when people got shot back then, they just made a pained expression and fell down – no entry wounds, no exit wounds, hell, not even a droplet of blood stains their neatly-pressed suits and crisp hats.

­­­­­­­­­­ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL was co-directed by John English (co-director of 19 Republic serials from 1937’s ZORRO RIDES AGAIN to 1944’s CAPTAIN AMERICA) and William Witney (co-director of 23 Republic serials from 1937 to 1943). These were the days when studios would sign you to work for them exclusively. No credit is given to Captain Marvel’s creators. No surprise.

We can safely say these were the 2^nd-banana studio guys who wrote and directed the serials, as screen superheroes were not the economic cog they are today. These filmmakers did not aim to create anything that would last longer than the time it took to view it; nothing that should be pondered before the main feature started. No one was serious about anything storywise, except keeping the bizarre notion going for 12 installments.

And in the final Chapter 12: Captain Marvel’s Secret, soon after everyone is made aware of Billy’s secret big-man alter-ego, Marvel is divested of his powers by Shazam! Because The Scorpion (the guy, not the idol) is brought to justice. We hearken back to Shazam’s words, “…to ensure the curse of the scorpion does not fall on the innocent.” Wait – were you talking about the GUY or the IDOL, Old Man from Led Zeppelin IV? And if you were talking about the IDOL not the GUY, then the curse is a more metaphysical one – like greed. Because we’ve already seen that there is NO “mystical” curse that will bring a building down on the head of whomever owns the scorpion talisman, but it WILL inspire greed in anyone’s hands, not just the clutches of a hooded dom bear. These six scientists and Mary-Sue are not immune to the vagaries of a society that would want to possess them and their gold-making talisman, or hire it, steal it, market it, or make them stars over it, or combat world hunger with it, or a thousand situations that would cast moral ambiguity over this scorpion talisman and its possessors. (And how did killing those Siam soldiers protect anyone from the “curse of the scorpion”? If anything, it was doing exactly the opposite of Shazam’s directive: killing the innocent instead of protecting them!) But – as stated above – zero introspection, zero irony, zero elevated thinking, because – short attention span audiences/ who really gives a shit about good writing for superhero movies?…

Thus, Captain Marvel comes into existence and ceases to exist in the same serial! And everyone, including Billy, loses their memory of him! To avoid those raunchy hanging threads of Betty getting moist over Marvel, or the scientists exploiting Billy, or Billy just feeling the most emasculated any man could ever feel after possessing such potent man-power. Just a big fat sigh and they all go home arm in arm. Mary-Sues for Life.

And with that big yawning anti-climax, superhero movies were born…

END

Oh Captain, Why Captain?

No super soldier serum, no World War II, no wings on his cowl, no military experience, no Steve Rogers – NO SHIELD! Is this even Captain America?

In this 1944 15-part serial for Republic Pictures, the titular American superhero battles a villain called The Scarab, who dabbles in mind-control, and wants to get his hands on Weapons of Mass Destruction like the Dynamic Vibrator (very popular with nuns) and the Electric Firebolt (also the name of the first gay superhero?). The serial is called CAPTAIN AMERICA.

But this Captain America is not the same red, white and blue Avenger from Marvel Comics who socked Hitler on the jaw.

The character premiered in Captain America Comics No.1 in March 1941, when Marvel Comics was still called Timely Comics. That first issue featured the iconic cover of Captain America giving Hitler a Sweet American Right Hook. That Captain was Steve Rogers, WWII soldier. The Captain in this serial is a doughy District Attorney named Grant Gardner. That Captain was injected with super-soldier serum. This Captain is pretty much a normal guy who doesn’t work out. That Captain had his inscrutable shield, the physical strength of many men and an abiding love of country; this Captain uses a gun, has the strength of a doughy guy, and an abiding ill-fitting mask.

There are many reasons why Republic Pictures portrays Captain America so poorly: the serial was apparently written for another hero, and when Republic replaced that hero with Captain America, they didn’t bother to rewrite the story; when Timely Comics protested that the film Captain differed so greatly from their comics character, Republic responded that the press kit Timely provided for Captain America (created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon) did not specify details like his civilian name, the war, the serum, etc. Steve Rogers was created specifically as a wartime icon, but Grant Gardner’s adventures make no mention of the war which was going on even as they filmed – the Big One, WWII…

In this modern age of superhero movies, CAPTAIN AMERICA is unwatchable. As a curiosity, the first few episodes are intriguing (to see the way early filmmakers treated supers; to marvel at the schoolyard punching regarded as interesting action, while a horn section goes nuts; to be intrigued at the clinical interactions between men and dames, and their roles as actioners and objects), until it becomes mind-numbingly repetitive.

This one’s for Murrica!

In the very first episode (The Purple Death), after a brief introduction of the Scarab using his mind powers (Lionel Atwill, with the most British accent, therefore the most evil), the first action scene finds “crooks” in hats and suits stealing something from a safe. Suddenly – Captain America (Dick Purcell in clownish costume and ill-fitting mask)! In this first inauspicious appearance of the hero, he holds a gun on the crooks (in the prescribed L-shaped elbow that all men used in black and white films), then pulls a Boba Fett by getting so close that the crooks lay into him. The gun goes off. Dead crook.

Cap then calls the cops, telling them he just killed one of the Purple Death crooks! Not as a confession – but to let them know where to collect the dead guy! Could the circumstances BE any more favorable for sending Cap up the river for manslaughter or murder? No witnesses, Cap’s gun, Cap’s bullet, crooks unarmed… But hold on a minute! Something is so screwy here it doesn’t even make sense within this movie’s own universe…

When we find out that Captain America’s secret identity is the D.A. Grant Gardner, well – why fight crime as a masked punching dickwad when you are already the top cop with unlimited crime-fighting manpower and resources?! The character of Captain America has nothing extraordinary to offer the law agencies that they do not have themselves – he’s just a regular guy, no super powers, no super lab, no super car, no super shield, no super deductive reasoning, no super speed, no super ANYTHING that distinguishes what he’s doing from the regular cops – hell, even as Gardner he gets into fisticuffs with crooks and does exactly the same amount of damage as Captain America would, which is next to nothing. So what’s the point in adding that clown costume to your crime-fighting arsenal when it adds ZERO VALUE to fighting crime?

Being the D.A., Gardner can actually walk into a crime scene and say, “Okay boys, I’ll take it from here.” And he does! So why waste the time pulling on that idiotic mask and underpants, as if that gay costume is helping him do a better job than the D.A. in any way? Sleuthing as the D.A. or actioning as Cap, the crooks hate him equally and punch him exactly the same way. As D.A. or Cap, his results are exactly the same because – say it with me – HE’S JUST A REGULAR GUY!

Proof? The professor who created the Dynamic Vibrator (lucky wife!) is accosted by Scarab’s henchmen, who turn it up really high. Captain America scares off the henchmen, but the professor stresses, “If the vibrator is not shut off, the building will collapse!” And Cap shouts back, “Get out! I’ll try and stop it!”– Hang on, doofus! Why not get THE PROFESSOR to shut it off?! Unlike you, untrained in anything besides light filing, he knows how to operate the gizmo! But the professor runs off, as instructed by Cap, only to have Cap fail at his task – no surprise! – resulting in the whole building collapsing. What was Cap thinking?! That somehow he’d convince the Vibrator to shut down with the power of his average biceps?

Just like the Batman costume, they really couldn’t figure how to cut out sensible eye-holes. Were scissors not invented yet?

It is taken for granted the character of Cap is known from the comics, otherwise, how bizarre is this costumed creep turning up everywhere just to get sensually beaten? There is no origin story of why the D.A. decided to add cosplay to his obviously busy schedule of hunting bad guys. At one point, the D.A. sees a man tied up by two crooks posing as mechanics – and he wastes the time to change into the Cap costume so he can go punch the mechanics! Wouldn’t his presence as the D.A. carry more authority, and maybe even avoid a fistfight? Even if he got into a fight as the D.A. his skills would be exactly the same, but the crooks would be up on greater charges, i.e. for assaulting the D.A. (!) rather than just bitchbeating some perve in a cossie.

Lorna Gray plays Gail Richards, Gardner’s secretary /love interest /dame in distress. Basically, Gardner’s Lois Lane.

Cap punches a guy, who goes tumbling out a skyscraper window, falling to his death. Is Cap perturbed in any way? Nope. Add another murder to Captain America’s growing list of felonies. Now, both those murders may be lawyered down to manslaughter, but there is another scene where Cap, who uses his gun quite a lot, threatens a crook for information by playing Russian Roulette on him! Cap really doesn’t know how many bullets are left in his gun, so that means he must be prepared to commit outright Murder in the First Degree! This costumed vigilante is outa control!

For context, Columbia and Republic were the two studios producing, among other genres, superhero serials in the 1940s. The first recognizable superhero title was ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL by Republic in 1941; THE BATMAN was produced by Columbia in 1943; CAPTAIN AMERICA (Republic), 1944; and SUPERMAN (Columbia), 1948. All these early black-and-white superhero serials have dated egregiously, none more so than CAPTAIN AMERICA, mainly because we can’t see any roots of the modern character we know. Written as blandly as he was, completely ignoring canon, this character was a dead-end; a one-off, thereby not holding any interest whatsoever.

In a grand irony, Dick Purcell, who played the Captain, would die a few weeks after filming wrapped (of his 72 film credits, CAPTAIN AMERICA would be his last). They say the stress of filming CAPTAIN AMERICA was too much for his weak heart!…

END

Thrills! Mystery! Man-Panty!

Batman Returns! For the first time. Six years after Columbia Pictures’ success with THE BATMAN (1943), they release a sequel, another serial of 15 chapters called BATMAN AND ROBIN. And all cloth cosplay breaks loose.

Robert Lowery plays Batman/Bruce Wayne (looking like Victor Mature), and Johnny Duncan plays Robin/Dick Grayson (and we can’t quite figure whether he has a speech impediment or he’s just a bad actor).

Columbia Pictures was buoyed by the fact their 1948 SUPERMAN serial (starring Kirk Alyn) was a success, so didn’t hesitate investing in this 1949 superhero thriller, that finds Batman against a more fearsome adversary than the Caucasian-pretending-to-be-Asian in his last adventure. The Wizard is the arch-villain tweaking Batman’s cosplay nipples here, an electronics whiz bedecked in black clothes, black cape and a black, full-face hood (replete with eyeholes as misplaced as the ones on Batman’s cowl); he creates a device that can control all transport, that runs off diamonds that his henchmen in hats and suits must continually steal. And which Batman and Robin must continually punch. Because punching solves everything.

The Wizard’s head crook is Nolan, who looks so much like Clark Gable he frankly doesn’t give a damn.

In our youth, these henchmen were the guys whom we colloquially referred to as “crooks.” They don’t make crooks like they used to: all suited-up like groomsmen at a wedding, hats rakishly tilted like they were in the Rat Pack. And always holding a gun with their elbows bent in an L-shape, talking in clipped syllables to the person they’re pointing the gun at (“You, get-over-there!” “You, get-the-money!”)… In our youth, it got so that any guy in movies with a hat and suit that called his boss “Boss” was a “crook.”

Lowery plays Bruce Wayne the same as his predecessor – a lazy carouser, while Duncan is just happy to get syllables out of Dick’s mouth without tripping over them. (Really, was this guy retarded?) Alfred, the Wayne’s faithful manservant, is played by Eric Wilton with a more dignified air than 1943’s comic relief butler. Added to the cast is reporter Vicki Vale (Jane Adams), whom we must presume is also slightly retarded, because she can’t recognize that Dick Grayson’s curly hair is exactly the same as Robin’s, due to that obscuring eye-mask. If only that darn eye-mask didn’t block so much of nothing. A suitably doughy Commissioner Gordon (Lyle Talbot) is now head of the police force, and seems to be the only cop who ever does anything around there. We must presume that the lack of police around the station drove him to invent – the bat-signal, a tiny light that he shines out the window that can be seen as a magnificent bat-specter in the sky from miles away, even in daytime. We constantly wonder why he doesn’t try to solve these crimes with his police force first and turn to Batman as a last resort. He even gives fingerprints to Batman to identify!

As the familiar elements of the Batman’s world fall into place, Batman’s outfit has also been modified since his first filmic outing. His cape and cowl are blacker, his panties are slimmer, and his ears, for some inexplicable reason, point outwards, rather than straight up, in that classic Jim Aparo comics-art fashion we know and love on all our Batmen. His chest symbol is larger and his utility belt is smaller (although he does pull out massive gas containers and oxyacetylene torches whenever he needs them – like a cartoon). Robin’s costume and cape are altogether darker (which is a good tactical move – I’ve always questioned the utility of a stealthy night avenger wearing a SCREAMING YELLOW CAPE. “We shall hunt under cover of darkne–” It’s YELLOW! “We will be hidden by the night–” It’s YELLOW!).

Yet the eyeholes in Batman’s nose-pointed cowl are still in a weird place, forcing him to add a new tactical move to his combat arsenal – mid-fight he adjusts his cowl, to be able to see out of those stupid bat-eye-holes. Crooks use this opportunity to punch him. Very krav-magAAAH.

Though Batman comics have a Batmobile, lack of budget means no Batmobile on set, and the caped crusaders must make-do with just a big tan convertible, sometimes changing in the back of it, like bandguys forced to use the toilet as their green room. Vicki Vale even asks Batman, “Does Bruce Wayne know you’re driving around in his car?” Whaaat?! Yes, Batman and Robin are so hubristic about their secret identities that they brazenly don’t even have more than one car; never mind a “Batmobile” – just another car to disguise your identities! Matter of fact, there is no Wayne Manor, and I’m not even sure if Bruce Wayne is a millionaire here; his house looks like it’s on Mapleton Drive next door to Jerry Mathers as The Beaver.

And the dynamic duo actually do some “science” in their crime lab known as – the Batcave! They regenerate a negative film that was burned, to identify the crooks. They also follow some radioactive money with a “sensor.” (And when that radioactive cash falls on some straw, it catches alight. I guess the filmmakers don’t really grasp what “radioactive” means.) They use communication devices: Robin follows a getaway car, sees crooks enter a secret hideaway, and radios Batman on a com way too large to fit in his tights, “I’ve discovered the Wizard’s hideaway. It’s on a cliff near the ocean.” Being driven by the police, Batman replies, “We’re on our way!” Firstly – driven by the police?! Of course – NO SECOND CAR! Secondly – no further directions; “on a cliff near the ocean” is enough to have everyone meet in the same place and punch crooks. Kids will enjoy the stupid taste of Batman Hideaway Directions Cereal.

Beating the Crooks! Chasing the Villain! Adjusting the Cowl!

Movie opens with Batman and Robin thwarting a crime wave in Gotham, as touted by newspaper headlines. Quickly followed by diamond heists, train heists, bank heists. Uh, about that crime wave, guys…

It really is a kids’ movie. Do they really expect adults to accept the ridiculous plotlines? One whole episode is driven by Batman replacing a packet of diamonds in a sleeping crook’s pocket. This crook sleeps not with the diamonds in his inner coat pocket, but with this most precious cargo poking out of his side jacket pocket like a newspaper, to make it easy for Batman to reach out and replace them.

Batman and Robin are trapped in a room with poison gas pumping in. They almost die of inhaling the fumes before Batman gives Robin a gasmask, and then pulls out a blowtorch bigger than his briefs and cuts the door down. Why didn’t you pull these things out RIGHT AWAY instead of suffocating for the first five minutes?! 

In another episode, Bruce dons a disguise to infiltrate the crooks’ club. It’s a bandage on half his head. He doesn’t look one bit like the guy he’s trying to imitate. He looks like Bruce Wayne with a bandage on half his head. It’s as laughable as the “Chuck White” character from the 1943 serial. Bruce asks Dick, “How do I look?” Dick replies, “Like his twin brother!” Wait, really? You know we have eyes, right?

There is an almost-exciting car chase, Batman pursuing crooks in a van, and the van plays chicken with Batman in an unbroken take, where the stunt actually achieves a high level of danger. The crooks push bales of hay out the back to hinder Batman’s pursuit, then they turn a corner and stop, and we think they are going to set a trap for Batman… But no. They all get out to have a smoke! And Batman stops just short of the corner and tells Robin, “They’ve stopped around the corner.” How does he know this?! After Batman fights the gang and is thrown off a cliff, the gang leader says, “We’d better get out of here!” Really? WHY DID YOU STOP IN THE FIRST PLACE?!

And tying it all together there is… the punching. Every episode of this 15-part serial has to have its third-grade schoolyard fight choreography, to keep third-grade schoolyard boys happy. If the serial is watched in its entirety in one sitting, the fighting becomes tiresome immediately, as there are no interesting or exciting moves or even creative editing, just guys amateurishly hitting each other like schoolboys who think this is how adults fight, with that omnipresent dsh! dsh! dsh! sound, no matter if the punches land on the face, gut or back of the head. For two guys who are trying to stop crime, you’d think Batman and Robin would engage in punching as little as possible, and have more efficient methods of stopping crooks. How about a gas pellet? How about bolos? How about stun-guns? Do they have to always RUN toward the group of henchmen and wade into the punching? And keep in mind that all these henchies are armed with guns that they never shoot.

When we compare these first superhero films with modern super movies, even the stupidest ones (cough— FANTASTIC FOUR, GREEN LANTERN, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER) seem like masterpieces of re-imagining beside them.

In the final chapter, the Wizard creates a device that makes him invisible, so we get all the old-fashioned “invisible man” gimmicks – doors opening by themselves, objects floating through the air supposedly being carried by the invisible guy, but looking like they’re on strings, people pretending that someone is hitting them, telephones dialing themselves… for which I’m sure 1940’s kids were utterly amazed.

The mystery resolves like a Scooby Doo cartoon, with the unmasking of the Wizard and the explanations of his methods and crimes. That still leaves many questions unanswered:

Why is that newscaster broadcasting every single plot point, so that the heroes and the crooks all know where to go punch each other? Why don’t the crooks ever shoot? Why does Commissioner Gordon speak to Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson as if he’s just continuing a conversation he just had with Batman and Robin? Why is that guy in the wheelchair suddenly walking? How does Batman fit so much big stuff into his utility belt? Why does Robin look older than Batman?

After this childish attempt at bringing the dark knight to the screen, surprisingly, it would only get more childish, as the Batman would soon – go West!

END

The Paunch Knight.

The very first Movie Batman! After Bob Kane created the name of The Batman in 1939 and Bill Finger created all the elements that would become Batman canon (from the costume to the Batmobile), THE BATMAN follows the caped crusader in a 15-part serial released just four years into the character’s comicbook adventures. No wonder Batman didn’t have time to get in shape.

Peering through eyeholes not far enough apart to accommodate his fat head, panties hiked up to his nipples, and with his cloth cape aflutter, the cowled “government agent” Batman lumbers into fistfights with the grace of a doughy bus driver and punches his way to justice, all the while effeminately brushing his cape out of his face, while wearing a utility belt that he never uses, the size of a pizza tray, and aided by a pissboy who seems to love getting punched in the face by men.

It’s a long way to Christopher Nolan…

When superheroes put Justice first, and Working Out last.

Lewis Wilson stars as Batman/Bruce Wayne. In this first ever onscreen appearance of the dark knight, there is surprisingly no “origin story” (maybe it was not yet ironed out by Bill Finger, while Bob Kane was hiring lawyers behind Bill’s back to steal all those ideas as his own), but there IS one of those excitable radio-styled narrators, introducing the dread Batman in his hilltop mansion, brooding in his Batcave. Now, in the previous sentence, I used the terms “dark knight,” “dread” and “brooding” – but it is obvious those epithets are a long way from being employed on this fruit in the gray cloth cosplay.

Another fruit enters the scene – the smooth-thighed Boy Wonder— I mean, Bruce Wayne’s jailbait ward and beaten-upon sidekick, Dick Grayson aka Robin (Douglas Croft). While the narrator is pre-ejaculating, extolling the virtues of this government agent who works with the police force (the censors made them tweak Batman’s role to a socially-acceptable one, rather than retain his comicbook ethos of vigilante), Batman and Robin earnestly discuss fighting crime, like they’re acting in a scene to earnestly discuss fighting crime.

Let’s talk context: 1943 – America was in World War II, after Pearl Harbor; Japanese internment camps dotted the American landscape and forever stained the American soul (George Takei, of STAR TREK fame, recounts those camps with great clarity, as a child prisoner with his innocent parents). And this serial reflected those jingoistic sentiments, making the villain Japanese, Dr. Daka. And though there are numerous blatant insults to the Japanese people (Narrator: “Since a wise government rounded up the shifty-eyed Japs…” JESUS CHRIST! They said that on film?!), the filmmakers’ greatest insult to the Japanese would only become apparent decades later, as Daka is played by J. Carrol Naish – a CAUCASIAN ACTOR WITH PULLED-BACK EYES!

Daka’s plot is to kidnap scientists and mind-control them, via a salon hairdryer that shoots those sciency bzzz sparks. Daka calls his slaves “zombies,” but dahling, zombies are people like Jesus and Lazarus – who used to be dead and brought back to life. Your creations are just slaves without free will.

Just so happens, Bruce Wayne’s somnolent squeeze Linda (Shirley Patterson) is missing her uncle, and suspects Daka has enslaved him. Of course, she’s right, otherwise where would the plot go? But being Daka’s slave is not so bad. Each slave sports a Buck Rogers helmet that doesn’t muss their hairdo, matching snappy turtlenecks and a nice pair of slacks.

Wilson plays Bruce Wayne like a lazy carouser, and every time Linda asks for help from her supposed boyfriend Bruce, he tells her to go it alone! WE know it’s so that he can follow her as Batman, but Bruce is constantly complaining he could never wake before noon, never keep dinner dates, stalls her at every turn until we wonder why she would ever continue to date the lethargic, callous, entitled, overweight, rich— oh. Never mind…

And Dick Grayson never leaves the two lovebirds alone – not for a second; like he’s attached at the hip to this dirty older man. And what a big mouth he has. This must be where Burt Ward (Robin from the 1960’s TV series) learned his craft, as Dick delivers his lines like he’s trying to talk over a jackhammer, “You’re liable to carry that masquerade too far!” And Bruce shouts back, “If I let her know I’m the Batman, she might worry!” Geez, fellas, speak a little louder, the people two mansions over can’t hear.

Batman and Robin access the Batcave via an old grandfather clock, squeezing through it slowly and uncomfortably, and hoping that the crime they’re changing for isn’t urgent. Sometimes they just change in the back of their car, like band guys changing in the toilet. It’s just a big, black car, NOT a Batmobile, because the studio couldn’t afford to build one.

Alfred (William Austin) is quite a card, as British as cricket, gadding about in different disguises, infiltrating crooks’ lairs and right amongst the fracas when Batman and Robin appear to take charge as nellie bottoms. (In the comicbooks, Alfred was portrayed as portly, but soon his image would emulate this wizened liege.)

There is a Captain Arnold instead of Commissioner Gordon, who refers to Batman as his “best agent” (to keep the censors out of their pants). He keeps finding crooks tied up on the street with – get this! – a bat symbol on their foreheads! Decades before Batfleck started branding his victims – here in this first Batman outing is that mark of the beast. There is a Native American (true-blood Billy Wilkerson), known as “Indian Steve” whom the writers give lines like, “Me know Coulton. Me no see Coulton.” Well done, Columbia Pictures, you racist assholes! And I’m sure that’s Jason Robards as a young thug, who must’ve wiped this movie from his imdb page.

One episode features Bruce donning a big-nose disguise to infiltrate Daka’s henchmen, calling himself “Chuck White.” It’s hilarious because now he’s crossing over into Clark Kent glasses-wearing territory; Linda calls on him, and we gain a greater understanding of the level of her mental retardation when even she can’t recognize him. Late in the serial, Daka eventually gets Linda under mind control, and that’s when we KNOW he’s mad – because the first thing he DOESN’T do is make her take her clothes off.

Squeezing through the clock not raising any alarms about the weight, Bruce? None?

In fisticuffs, Batman and Robin are pretty well-matched by the crooks, who regularly get the better of them. And who never fire their guns that they are usually holding. In one scene, a thug holding a gun walks into a room, sees Batman – and hits Batman on the head with his gun hand! Then, instead of just shooting him to make certain, they put Batman in a coffin. So this is where the practice of Having A Gun And Not Using It started!

Suffice to say the fisticuffs, which the serial includes in almost every episode for “action,” becomes tiresome and repetitious if watched in one sitting. We can never hope to capture the intensity of watching this with young eyes, waiting breathlessly for the next weekly installment, in the days when cars drove in front of rear projection screens and every pit you fell into had wall-spikes that closed in on you. Remember when EVERY action movie had wall-spikes that closed in on you?

Directed by veteran B-movie maven Lambert Hillyer, THE BATMAN was taken pretty seriously in its day, yet filmic techniques and cultural norms have moved so far from this period that it is painful to watch the way people fought, the way they acted, the way they spoke, the way everyone was blocked facing the fourth wall while they spoke in a group, even the way people had to put a coin into a public phone and dial!

Released during the war, the filmmakers could get away with all sorts of explicit racism: “In this hour when the Axis criminals are spreading their evil over the world…” “That’s the kind of answer that fits the color of your skin…” The Japanese Cave of Horrors is like a ghost train ride with all the exhibits showing mannequin Japanese soldiers holding white women prisoner, taunting a white man in a cell, etc. Batman himself, when he finally meets Daka in the last chapter exclaims, “Jap devil!”

Looking vaguely like Clive Owen, Lewis Wilson filled the remainder of his career with “uncredited” roles in B-movies and one starring role in a series in 1973. He only has 16 credits listed on imdb. These days, to score a starring role as a superhero means your star is rising, as well as promoting the careers of veteran actors in smaller roles and occasionally spawning spinoff movies for secondary characters.

THE BATMAN serial was so successful that it spawned another serial in 1949, BATMAN AND ROBIN, same Bat-studio, different Bat-actors.

END