"The Sign of the Sphinx"
Screenplay: Victor McLeod, Leslie Swabacker, Harry Fraser
Director: Lambert Hillyer
Producer: Rudolph C. Flothow
Last Time: Daka's men had found Colton's radium mine, but Batman, Robin, Colton, Linda and the gangsters were trapped in the mine with a dynamite explosion went off and collapsed it!
Synopsis: Four of Daka's men manage to make it out before the cave in, and Robin is luckily shielded under a staircase leading down from a trapdoor in Colton's cabin. Batman and Linda were saved by the old "fallen beams make a protective arch" trick, but Colton didn't make it. One of the gang survived though, and is taken prisoner by Batman and Robin.
With so many of the gang killed, Daka assigns a man named Wallace the task of recruiting new ones. Meanwhile, down in the Bat's Cave, the captured Marshall refuses to talk. They decide to leave him alone to "sweat", but purposely tie him up poorly so he can get loose and get to a phone. Marshall calls the Sphinx Club, the hideout for all these gangsters Daka uses, but the line is a fake, leading to Batman on the other end, allowing Batman to learn of the Sphinx Club and its location.
Using his make-up kit, he creates the personage of Chuck White, a down on his luck tough guy which allows Bruce Wayne actor Lewis Wilson to really let loose with his East Coast accent. As White, he goes to the Sphinx Club, claiming a guy named Marshall told him to go here to look for a job. Fletcher, Daka's point man, decides to give White a looking over, as he's suspicious of someone coming looking around so soon after Marshall's presumed death.
Robin, looking in through the window, flashes a Bat-signal as a distraction, drawing the men outside and allowing White to escape. They chase Robin to the docks, where the Boy Wonder boards a freight ship, and the Batman appears atop a building, cape outstretched like wings, to leap down upon the crooks and attack them -- a classic sequence that appears without fail in any Batman adapation, but is perhaps a bit lacking in this first live action iteration.
There's a pretty good fight scene following, but eventually the crooks knock Batman out and then drop the ship's gangplank on top of him! Really? We blew up a mine last week and this is the best we got this time? Okay...
Next Time: Daka is trying to get a shipment of radium in by air courier - can Robin stop it in time?
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Thoughts and Review: With Colton killed, the radium mine plotline that's gone on for the last three installments is done.This serial is broken up into smaller arcs within its fifteen part structure, offering temporary focuses for a few chapters before moving on to another.
So it's time to introduce a new angle, thus the invention of Chuck White, an attempt to infiltrate the gang. Chuck White is another example of this serial using elements of the Batman comics of the day that don't get a lot of play today -- namely Batman as a master of make-up and disguise similar to Sherlock Holmes. In the character of Chuck White, a common low class hood who can interact with criminals and gain information Batman cannot, I see a lot of elements that later appear in Matches Malone, a very similar persona who doesn't appear in Batman comics until 1972, a very long time from now. Did Dennis O'Neil ever see this serial? I can't find any information one way or the other. Either way, it's a great performance from Lewis Wilson, really showing his range between White, Bruce, and Batman. It's a shame his career never really went anywhere after this.
The waterfront fight is a pretty good fight so far as this serial goes. There are a lot of good efforts to be dramatic and exciting despite the ubiquitous daytime cinematography. Robin continues to a joy in this series -- young, skilled, useful, dynamic.
"Lured by Radium"
Screenplay: Victor McLeod, Leslie Swabacker, Harry Fraser
Director: Lambert Hillyer
Producer: Rudolph C. Flothow
Last Time: Dr Daka has captured radium mine owner Colton. Batman and Robin track Daka's men to a Japanese laundry, but after a fight, Robin is knocked out and Batman's been tossed down an elevator shaft -- about to be crushed by the loading elevator!
Synopsis: If you guessed that Robin would just get up off the ground and then hit the "off" switch on the elevator to save Batman, congrats. Luckily the actual fall down the shaft didn't seem to do any damage either.
As Bruce and Dick they meet up with Linda, who's decided to go look for Colton herself, following his map to his cabin. Bruce is a big dick about it for a while, but eventually gets her to agree to bring the two of them along without making them seem to eager about it.
Meanwhile, Daka still has Colton, so after he again refuses to take them to his radium mine, they put him into the zombie machine. They turn on the machine for a few moments and Colton immediately relents, agreeing to take them to the mine.
They drive out into the (California) countryside, with Colton leading them to the mine entrance. This leads to the hilarious sight of Colton, in a wide brimmed hat and suit, leading a bunch of mobsters, also in suits and fedoras, into a mine carrying lanterns and pickaxes. Like, you guys are a bit overdressed for this? Colton leads them into the tunnels a bit, and of couse makes a try at escaping.
Bruce, Dick, Linda and Alfred follow some time after, getting directions from a Indigenous man at a trading post who gives perfectly clear directions but his broken English gets a real racist response from Dick, unfortunately. They head up to Colton's cabin. When they don't find him there, Bruce leaves Alfred and Linda at the cabin while he and Dick go to take a look at the cave entrance that leads to the mine.
After spotting the gangster's car outside the mine, Bruce and Dick change to Batman and Robin and engage the crooks in fisticuffs inside the mine. Meanwhile, Colton shows up in his cabin, emerging through a trap door in the floor. He decides to dynamite the mine with the claim jumpers inside. Unfortunately Batman and Robin are down there too, and an attempt to warn them ends up with Colton, Linda, Batman, Robin, and the gangsters all down in the mineshaft when the dynamite goes off!
Next Time: Some new character named Chuck White wants in on Daka's gang, but what does he really want?
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Thoughts and Review: I guess you could say there's some forward momentum in this episode, with the characters all finally going to Colton's mine -- although its a little unclear if it's actually a mine, a cave with ore in it that Colton intends to mine, etc. Ultimately it's good to finally move this little subplot forward, especially as it takes up so many episodes of this serial. It's pretty standard A to B plotting, although the scenes with the Indian at the trading post are really cringeworthy. He speaks in a kind of "me Tarzan, you Jane" style English, but he tells the group "Colton Cabin, right road; Colton cave, left road" and Dick says "that's clear as mud!" Really Dick? What a little asshole. The scenes where Bruce keeps playing at being a disinterested jerk with Linda are also starting to wear thin, as she's seriously upset about things like her missing uncle, his missing friend, etc etc, and Bruce keeps trying to play like she shouldn't be so concerned. Ultimately I'd say this is an average installment.
"The Phoney Doctor"
Screenplay: Victor McLeod, Leslie Swabacker, Harry Fraser
Producer: Rudolph C. Flothow
Director: Lambert Hillyer
Last Time: Alfred disguised himself as Colton in order to head off an attempted by Daka to steal Colton's radium mine - he meets Daka's men in a smelting plant, there's a fight, Batman and Robin swing into action, but a chemical accident causes the building to explode, burying Batman under a pile of rubble.
Synopsis: Luckily, the rubble fell in such a way as to form a convenient arch that actually protected Batman from any harm.
They phone Colton to let him know that it wasn't actually Martin who wanted to meet him, but the claim jumpers. Bruce tells Colton not to admit anyone to his room at any cost. Luckily, Colton's ready for them - he has a revolver stuffed down his pants, and a derringer used as a sleeve gun that he calls his "little Black Widow". Unluckily, Colton's stupid - he admits Fletcher to his room, who is disguised as a doctor (the disguise consisting of a medical bag and a monocle!) and claims to have been sent to check on Colton by Linda.
Meanwhile, Bruce and Dick are actually reporting the attempts on Colton's life to the police! Captain Arnold shows them a photo array, and Dick picks Fletcher out of it, reiterating as a former civil engineer who served time. Arnold puts an APB out on Fletcher.
Meanwhile "Dr." Fletcher does a check-up on Colton which allows him to get close enough to chloroform the guy and then have him removed from the hospital on a stretcher and into an ambulance to be taken back to Daka's hideout.
When Bruce and Dick arrive at Colton's hotel they find him gone, but Bruce smells the chloroform in the air and Dick finds the discarded hankerchief used to gag Colton with it.
In the crime lab, Bruce uses a "new black light process" to look over the handkerchief for clues. Standard procedure on CSI, but pretty new stuff in 1943, black lights having been invented in 1935. They find a Japanese laundry mark on the cloth, causing Dick to racistly remark "Never heard of a Japanese laundry", but Bruce knows of an abandoned one in the warehouse district.
Fletcher brings Colton to Daka, who offers him the ol' "join me or be a zombie" offer. Colton of course refuses and Daka shows him what happens to people who refuse -- showing him Zombie Martin Warren. But Colton uses his black widow to get the jump on Daka. He holds Daka hostage, moving to escape the lair through the door into the Cave of Horrors ride, but FINALLY the greased up immoving "not-actually-a-statue" dude gets something to do, and clubs Colton over the back of the head.
A bunch of Daka's men show up at the "Nakina Laundry" to pick up some supplies Daka has stashed there for the trip to Colton's mine. Because of course the only Japanese laundry in town is a front for the Japanese spy ring in town, because patrioic jingoist racism.
Anyways the Batman and Robin meet them up on the top floor, and it's fistfight time! During the fight, Batman gets overpowered by a bunch of them and they toss him down the loading elevator shaft! The suuuuper fake dummy playing Batman hits the ground hard enough that if it were actually a dude he'd probably be dead anyway, but the crooks then hit the elevator switch anyway to crush him with the loading elevator! Will Batman make it out of this alive? Find out Next Time: Daka puts the zombie machine on Colton! Linda and Alfred are at Colton's cabin, and even the narrator doesn't know what the fuck is going on! Guess you'll have to watch next week's episode to find out!
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Thoughts and Review: The best bit in this whole episode is seeing Bruce and Dick do some detective work, sniffing out the chloroform and then analyzing it with some pretty cool and real forensic science. Stuff like that really feels like the comics when they were throwing in some educational bits about science and criminology. Otherwise this is a move from point A to point B episode - Daka captures Colton, that's about the gist of it. That dummy they throw wearing a Batman costume gets me every time, as does the narrator's hilarious promo for next week, where it just seems like he's talking over the footage without actually knowing what's up. I also really like the scene between Bruce and Dick and Captain Arnold - Arnold's a great character in this serial, with a lot of fun character dialogue that feels almost improvisational and gives a very appropriately cynical view of the effectiveness of the police in Gotham, he comes across very world-weary and wry. Too bad he gets so very little to do over all these chapters. On the whole this one was a plot necessary, but otherwise unremarkable episode.
"Poison Peril"
Screenplay: Victor McLeod, Leslie Swabacker, Harry Fraser
Producer: Rudolph C. Flothow
Director: Lambert Hillyer
Last Time: Daka's spies steal a new secret airplane, but Batman's stowed aboard! He fights Daka's men, but the ever-vigilant US army spots the stolen plane and shoots it down with artillery fire! It crashes and explodes with Batman inside, inevitably he must surely be dead?
Synopsis: Nope. The fiery wreckage is completely nonfatal to Batman, who simply walks away from the crash after pulling both of Daka's men to safety - the second really disappointing cliffhanger "escape" of this serial thus far.
While pulling the men out, he discovers Daka's mind control caps, removes them and takes them for evidence.
Our confusion of where the fuck this serial takes place continues when Batman wanders over to the highway to check out a road sign and figure out where he's crashed. Despite early episodes establishing the serial as using Batman's comic book home of Gotham City, last week's chapter had us in LA - perhaps because the real world Lockheed factories where in California? Anyway, the road sign has nearby places as Edgeworth (a town in Pennsylvania), Edenville (in Michigan), and Garden City (there are several) so we're apparently back on the East Coast.
Losing contact with his men, Daka realizes Batman must have overpowered them. He contacts the submarine and tells it of the failure of the mission. The sub believes that rather than wait for the Americans to build another prototype, it will be better to secure the blueprint of the plane rather than the plane itself. But this plotline is rendered irrelevant when the sub is spotted by American destroyers and sunk in a combination of newsreel footage and stock footage from other war movies.
Linda stops by Wayne Manor to pay a visit, informing Bruce that Ken Colton, an old friend of her Uncle Martin, is back in town wanting to get in touch with Martin. Ken has struck it rich with a mining prospect and wants to register the claim in both names. Linda hasn't yet told Ken of her uncle's mysterious disappearance. Bruce agrees to come meet Ken with her at her apartment.
Daka finally comes to the realization that he's never gonna get anywhere in life unless he kills the Batman. His men spitball that Batman seems to always hang around Linda Page, and that Page is seeing Bruce Wayne, so maybe Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same guy? Daka dismisses the idea as "that simpering idiot could never be the Batman!" But he does agree that Linda Page is the key - so they bug her apartment to see what they can find out.
Colton meets up with Linda, Bruce and Dick at her apartment. Turns out Colton has a found a rich radium mine (of course) - and Daka hears all about it thanks to the bug! Luckily, Dick notices the hidden microphone and pulls it out just before Colton reveals the location!
Hoping to take advantage of this opportunity before it disappears, Daka sends Preston and some men to Colton's hotel room to search it for clues to the location of the map.
Bruce and Dick drop Colton off at the hotel, and Dick reports about the bug to Bruce. They decide to switch to Batman and Robin and keep an eye on Colton.
The prospector arrives at his room while Daka's men are still searching it, and a fistfight breaks out. Batman and Robin burst through the window and fight the intruders off, but they escape. The duo switch back to their civillian identities and check on Colton, who reveals that the "claim jumpers" didn't find anything, which means they're liable to try again.
The next day, Colton calls Bruce to let him know that Martin Warren has contacted him, wanting to meet him at the Atlas smelting plant (the explanation being that he's gotten some work there for the Defense Department). Bruce thinks it sounds fishy, and asks Colton to wait, that Bruce will go to meet this person and if it really is Martin then he'll call Colton down there. Colton agrees to be cautious.
Bruce's real plan is a little bit more tricky - he pressgangs Alfred into service, using his make-up kit to transform his butler into the facsimile of Colton. Alfred-in-disguise heads down to the smelting plant, and is met by Fletcher and some other goons of Daka's.
Alfred won't give them the location of the mine (since he doesn't know it anyway), so they decide to rough him up, and discover in the process that he's not really Colton. At that moment, Batman and Robin swing in on their ropes from the plant's high windows, and the usual fistfight breaks out. Its pretty fierce, with Alfred and Robin both getting punched into another room, and then a goon locking them in there behind a big metal door.
An electrical box gets smashed and a wire gets loose, so of course the vats containing the acidic smelting chemicals get shot and starts leaking, and so then of course it's just a matter of time before the chemicals reach the live wire, so the crooks high tail it out of there, the wire hits the spill, the whole place goes ablaze in flame, and the building EXPLODES with Batman inside it!
Next Time: Fletcher poses as a doctor to get at Colton to find the location of the mine, while Robin (maybe) faces off with Daka!
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Thoughts and Review: Chapter 6 feels a lot like Chapter 3, in the way that it deals with the fallout from Chapter 5, and then starts into a whole new storyline. It's certainly the biggest step forward in the storyline of the serial since we started, since it introduces a major new character and plotline in the story of Ken Colton and his radium mine.
So, when it comes to old school serials, I know most people know them through imitation rather than firsthand experience. You watch Star Wars or Indiana Jones and understand that they are evoking this older style, or you see parodies or what have you. When I was a kid the biggest straight-up serial parody I was exposed to was Six-Gun Justice which was a segment on the utterly brilliant Canadian sketch comedy series SCTV. It was a western style serial, with a hero, his sidekick, his love interest, and her father figure who was a prospector with a mine that the villains wanted to steal. Real cliche stuff, which added to the parody. But SCTV, being brilliant, added an entire hilariously surreal wartime propaganda element as well, in that the mine was a radium mine, and the bad guys were working for Tojo. It made no sense in the western context, but it introduced me to the idea of serials as wartime propaganda obsessed with radium mines.
So when I finally saw Batman, and it also weirdly shoehorned in Japanese spies and radium mines into a series that should've been about an urban vigilante fighting gangsters, well, let's say I was prepared by Six-Gun Justice. But I was also surprised at how accurate the parody was!
Anyways, Ken Colton may be one of the weirdest characters in the serial, but I love how Alfred gets drawn into it. William Austin really is fantastically funny as Alfred and I can see why his performance became so iconic as to inform the comic book version.
The final battle scene in the smelting plant is also one of the serial's best, as is the cliffhanger. But one question... what does the "poison peril" of the title refer to? The chemicals in the plant are gonna explode Batman to death, not poison him...
"The Living Corpse"
Screenplay: Victor McLeod, Leslie Swabacker, Harry Fraser
Producer: Rudolph C. Flothow
Director: Lambert Hillyer
Last Time: Daka and his men are off in an armored car to steal a shipment of radium - Batman blasts his way into the car with the radium gun, but in the ensuing scuffle the car drives over a cliff, dooming Batman to an inevitable death!
Synopsis: Or not. In a shot that wasn't included in this footage last week, Batman is seen to dive out of the truck and roll onto the ground before the truck goes over the cliff, surviving the crash completely. Robin rushes over to check on Batman, who then goes down to retrieve the radium gun. Daka's men perished in the crash.
Daka's pretty pissed about this, but soon receives a shortwave radio message from a Japanese submarine, delivering a "large package" for Daka to be picked up at "Smugglers' Rock", which Daka instructs Fletcher to pick up by "renting a hearse."
Down in the crime lab of the Bat's Cave, Alfred delivers the afternoon mail to Bruce and Dick, which Bruce is able to identify as a coded envelope sent to him from Washington by the way the stamps are arranged - in a close up shot we can see that it is addressed to "Mr Bruce Wayne, 1918 Hill Road, Los Angeles, Calif" despite the serial being explicitly stated to be in Gotham City by the narrator of the first chapter!
Anyways, this is our reminder that Batman and Robin are deputized G-Men working for Washington to sniff out Jap spies, despite having secret identities and an antagonistic relationship with the GCPD. Also, this envelope from Washington means that Batman's secret identity is known to the FBI! Apparently all this was included in the serial because the Production Code had a problem with Batman being a vigilante operating outside the law.
The letter in the envelope is written in invisible ink, but after some "science" of the smoky beaker and test tupe variety, is rendered legible by Bruce. Anyways, turns out that the Japs have learned of a new airplane motor being developed at Lockwood, and are going to try to steal the prototype plane, with Batman and Robin being ordered to prevent such a theft. (Obviously Lockwood is a fictionalized version of aircraft manufacturer Lockheed)
Meanwhile, at Daka's lair, Fletcher and his men bring a casket into Daka's laboratory. Daka opens it, revealing a Japanese officer in a state of "animated suspension" as Daka puts it. Using a bunch of electrical mad scientist equipment, Daka is able to bring the officer to life just long enough to pass his message along to Daka - which is that Lockwood has a new plane and Daka should try to steal it - before he dies. Daka explains the man was glad to die in service to his country this way.
Daka is able to get his men into the Lockwood factory by the most convenient means possible - a couple of Lockwood mechanics show up at the ride of horrors that masks the entrace to Daka's lair! Daka himself appears to them in full kimono (the mechanics get a good crack in about how his make-up is topnotch but his accent's a little off!) and has them knocked out by a couple of his zombies!
In the lab, he turns them into zombies himself, meaning they can now infiltrate the factory without suspicion and steal the plane. It occurs to me that this plan would never work in a decade where men didn't wear huge hats all the time, as the 1940s fedoras cover up the mind control devices the zombies wear on their heads.
At Lockwood, Bruce has Dick watch the factory while Bruce stows away aboard the plane in case someone tries something. Dick spots the zombies by their odd behaviour and tries to stop the hijacking of the plane - but the zombies overpower not only the proper pilots but Dick as well. They take over the plane and take off, but Dick radios Bruce to warn him, and so the Batman emerges from the back of the plane to confront the thieves in the cockpit!
A fist fight between the three men breaks out on the plane, leaving one to wonder who's flying the damn thing. Meanwhile, on the ground below, an army scout notices the stolen plane flying over his post and radios it in.
An army captain receives the call and orders a battery commander to shot down the stolen plane. They bring it down with artillery fire, and it crashes and explodes... with Batman inside!!
Next Time: An old-timey style prospector has discovered a radium mine, which Daka is determined to steal, can Robin defeat him alone? (Since Batman is clearly dead)
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Thoughts and Review: There are some cool elements to this chapter, but it's largely a disappointment. For one thing, let's start with the title element. This chapter is called "The Living Corpse", which implies some cool macabre undead action in this episode. But alas, its all a complete tease. The title is "justified" by the silly sequence of the army officer in the casket. And I say justified because the whole thing feels written solely so they could use the cool title. I mean, why else does any of it happen? Why would the submarine captain not just tell Daka his orders over the radio? Why send an officer, in suspended animation, in a casket no less, who will die after delivering his simple message? It's a really silly idea.
Furthermore, structurally it seems odd that Bruce learns the enemy is after the Lockwood motor before the villain even does! I guess it makes the FBI look on top of things? I may have written about this briefly before, but the idea that Batman's an FBI agent is a really weird and stupid one. Why does he dress up in a silly costume and have a kid sidekick then? Why the antagonistic relationship with the police?
One of Dick's lines tells us that this plane assignment is Batman's first special assignment from Washington, which implies that Batman has been active as the vigilante we know from the comics for some time and only recently drafted by the FBI. But it's still weird that they know he's Bruce Wayne. If the intention was to make our hero technically not a criminal himself, then it's odd that they ignored Commissioner Gordon and the fact that Batman was a duly deputized honorary member of the GCPD in the comics at this point.
While the hijacking of the plane and the fight aboard it is cool, the whole sequence is somewhat marred by the obvious use of stock sources for the related footage. The plane changes from a model to stock footage constantly and also shifts its design completely depending on where the footage is sourced from, while the artillery fire is clearly very old stock footage as well.
This episode also has one of the cheapest cliffhanger saves of the serial - where we simply get a shot of Batman ducking out of danger that we didn't see last week. Yes, the hero comes out on top not because of his wits, luck, or skill, but thanks to an editing trick.
On the whole, the entire exercise of having Daka go after this plane feels like a weird detour from the radium based plot we've had so far - and it is. In the next episode we're back to issues of Linda Page, her uncle, the gun, and radium - revealing this episode to have been the complete and utter filler that it was.
"Slaves of the Rising Sun"
Screenplay: Victor McLeod, Leslie Swabacker, Harry Fraser
Producer: Rudolph C. Flothow
Director: Lambert Hillyer
Last Time: When we last left Batman, which was a longer time ago than I'd like to admit, the goon squad of Dr. Daka were primed to blow up a railway bridge to destroy a shipment for the US army. Batman and Robin show up to stop them - they foil the plot, but Batman gets knocked out on the bridge -- just as the train is about to run him over, causing his inevitable death!!
Synopsis: Luckily for Batman and moviegoers everywhere, Robin isn't stupid, and rushes onto the bridge, pushing Batman's unconscious body off the track and into the river below, before jumping in after him. Meanwhile, Daka's goons are afraid to report back given that they failed to blow up the train, but Foster is confident that killing Batman will be enough good news to offset their other failures (it's implied Foster's getting tired of Daka's shit anyway). Emerging from the river, Batman and Robin vow to find out who those guys were working for.
At his lair, Daka is feeding the pet alligators who live under a trap door in the main room. When there's no more chicken to feed them, he considers feeding them Zombie Martin, but is interrupted by the arrival of the other members of the League of the New Order - I guess its impolite to murder people in front of your business partners.
Foster shows up to report, and stoically informs Daka that the radium gun wasn't recovered, the train wasn't wrecked, but Batman is probably dead. Daka tells Foster he can be replaced and Foster pulls a classic "you can't fire me, I quit!" maneuver, since he's decided that he may be a criminal, but he's still a patriot. After throwing a bunch of patriotic racist slogans in Daka's face, Daka summons some zombies to kill Foster. Foster shoots one, but before he has to shoot Martin Warren, he turns the gun on Daka who calls off Warren. Daka backs down and agrees to let Foster leave, leading to Foster uttering the immortally racist line "That's the kind of answer that fits the colour of your skin," Yikes!
But, of course, Daka gets the last laugh, as Foster falls into the trapdoor pit of Chekov's alligators on his way out the door and is eaten alive, providing ample motivation for the rest of the men to never betray Daka.
Daka then gets a report of a radium shipment coming to the Gotham Foundation, which Linda Page is authorized received. Meanwhile, Bruce and Dick have examining the radium gun in their crime lab, discovering that it works on radium and thus that Linda might be endangered if the gang tries to hijack the radium shipment. Linda calls just then, saying that she's been instructed to meet with a fortuneteller in a bad part of town to get information on Uncle Martin, which is the shadiest thing ever. She asks Bruce and Dick to accompany her, but Bruce brushes her off with like a huge dick, and then goes to head her off at the swami's place.
Not expecting anyone but Linda, the swami is sucker punched by Bruce. The duo find a microphone headset in the swami's turbin, allowing him to receive instructions from Daka. Bruce decides to dress up like the swami, and then sends Dick outside to watch for Linda and tail her when she leaves. This, to me, seems like a terrible plan - why not just wait outside the whole time and when the swami tells her where to go, follow her?
Anyways, Bruce turns off all the lights so its dark when Linda arrives and then tells Linda she's in great danger and must leave. But on her way out, she's grabbed through a hidden door by one of Daka's thugs!
Baffled by Linda's disappearance, Bruce and Dick search the building, and it's Dick who discovers the hidden door. They find Linda tied up and gagged not far beyond, but with the delivery order papers taken from her.
Daka's crooks take off in a stolen armored car, and so Batman and Robin make chase in the Batmo-Cadillac, leading to a thrilling car chase in the winding Hollywood Hills of Gotham City lol. Since the crooks have an armored car, it's got portholes for rifles and so the crooks start shooting. Batman pulls one of the all time classic serial manuevers by climbing out of his car, having Robin pull alongside, and then jumping across to the other vehicle.
Climbing onto the roof, he blasts his way in with the stolen radium gun in one of the coolest moments in the entire serial. The two men in the back are knocked out, so Batman heads to the front to try and knock out the driver and get control. In the ensuing struggle, however, they end up heading over a cliff and the car explodes!!
Next Time: Daka's planning something with a Japanese submarine, they've got someone in a coffin, and Robin is left to carry on the fight alone (since Batman's dead, of course!)
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Thoughts and Review: Chapter 4 contains some classic serial moments - the trapdoor alligators and the car chase chief among them. I really like the final scenes especially - seeing Batman leap from one car to the next and then blasting inside with a radium gun is awesome.
Foster's attempted betrayal of Daka results in some of the most malicious anti-Japanese dialogue in the serial, but it's a cool character beat and one that reminds me of the ending of The Rocketeer, where the gangsters turn on the Nazis because y'know, they may be crooks but they ain't traitors! Of course, Foster gets eaten on the way out, in a sequence that's pretty familiar in structure to anyone who's watched a James Bond film (the fate of Mr. Solo in Goldfinger comes to mind).
That said, the middle section of this chapter, in the Swami's place, is pretty lame. I don't really see what Bruce thought he would accomplish by taking the Swami's place, and it makes Linda seem really dumb to be willing to see a fortuneteller for information on her missing uncle. It achieves its objective in a Point A to Point B kind of way, but feels very pointless. And kind've casually racist, but at this point casual racism feels almost like a relief compared to the rest of the serial.
"The Mark of the Zombies"
Screenplay: Victor McLeod, Leslie Swabacker, Harry Fraser
Producer: Rudolph C. Flothow
Director: Lambert Hillyer
Last Time: Daka has his men capture Linda Page, believing she has the radium gun. Batman and Robin bust in to rescue her, but as Batman carries Linda out the window along a telephone line, one of the hoods uses an electrical wire to spark a fire along the line, which catches up to Batman, causing Linda and him to fall off... to their inevitable deaths!
Synopsis: Robin throws a rope line, which Batman... catches... while still holding Linda.. and then swings down to ground level on... ? Honestly the way the shots are organized is kind of confusing and it feels like bad editing/movie trickery getting our characters out of this as a bit of a cheat.
Despite being shot at by Foster, our heroes make off with Linda and escape. Foster's men figure Daka won't be pleased with this failure - but Foster says he isn't afraid of any "squint-eye". Yikes. Seeds of dissent among the villains?
Daka indeed declares Foster a fool, and then asks his captive Martin Warren if he still refuses to join the League of the New Order. So he has Warren taken to his laboratory, and in a sequence full of classic 1940s Mad Scientist Gizmos (Tesla coils abound), has Warren transformed into a mindless zombie, controlled by Daka's electronic transmitter.
Meanwhile, Bruce has engaged in a classic "ad in the papers to trap the villains" gambit, and it totally works. Foster reports to Daka a classified ad featuring the radium gun listed as "found", with a time and place to pick it up. But Daka smartly realizes it's an obvious trap by the Batman. The ad has the time for pick up arranged at 10pm, but Daka needs the radium gun in order to blow up a US army supply train at 10pm. So Daka sends the boys to suprised Batman at the meeting place at 9 and take the gun in time to blow up the train (although he gives them some dynamite to use in case they fail to get the gun, because Daka is surprisingly competent.)
The meeting place is in an office in a high rise building, with Alfred playing the role of the placer of the classified ad. For some reason he's wearing a wig and fake beard, y'know, in case the crooks recognize him as Bruce Wayne's butler, I guess? Batman waits outside the window, while Robin plays look-out on street level.
But the crooks have anticipated the use of a look-out, so one of them knocks Robin unconscious and then climbs up the fire escape to get Batman (a fun game with this serial is counting how many concussions Robin should have).
Foster shows up to meet Alfred, but is having none of the butler's stalling, calling the boys in and pulling a gun on him. Meanwhile, on the roof, the guy who knocked out Robin has a bead on Batman with his gun, but Robin has recovered and followed him to the roof. They struggle for the gun for a bit before crashing through a skylight and into the office.
Batman uses the distraction to crash through the window, and soon it's fistfight time. During the fight Alfred calls the police, then grabs a dropped gun and fires wildly into the air, causing the crooks to run away. They search for some clues and find a map of the railroad, with a circle around the bridge marked "10 pm", and Batman figures what they're up to.
So we end up with our crooks attaching a bomb to the bridge as the train's about to come in, with Batman and Robin close behind them. What happens next is predictable, but fun: a fight on the tracks, the train's a-comin', the crooks scram, Batman goes to try and defuse the bomb - telling Robin to get clear of the bridge, and then one of the escaping crooks throws a wrench at Batman's head, knocking him out just as the train gets there to run him over!!!
Next Time: Daka has pet alligators! The bad guys nab Linda again (for radium reasons, again)!
~~~~
Thoughts and Review: Chapter 3 is a bit of a step down from Chapter 2. It's perfunctory and predictable in parts. Also, I don't understand the title. I mean, yeah, Uncle Martin is turned into a zombie, but there's no "mark" on the zombies - they just all wear those little electric transmitters on their heads.
I do like the use of the classified ads gambit - it's a cliché, but because it's a cliché in the comics it's fun to see it used in the serial. Another good detail is when Robin apologizes for screwing up by getting drawn off look-out duty, and Batman thanks him for saving his life. It really does a good job of cementing their mentor/pupil relationship, and gives him more personality and character beyond just "heroes". Alfred gets some good funny moments too, such as when he phones the police to report that he is "being murdered!"
The train tracks cliffhanger is one of the most tried and true of all cliffhangers, but it's still fun to see and they do a decent job with the fight. Hopefully however Batman gets out of it is less of a cheat than the confusing save at the start of this chapter - that being said it's cool that Robin gets to save Batman, and in fact in general the amount of stuff Robin gets to do is very cool. I think one very positive thing this serial does is have a kid Robin in the traditional costume who is very proactive and very useful - he flings himself into danger and contributes to the fights, he's not whiny or annoying or stupid.
The weirdest thing about this chapter, at least on first viewing, is the structure. Basically it feels like two halves that meet in the middle. The first half is dealing with the aftermath of last week, with Batman rescuing Linda and Daka wanting the radium gun back. The second half is like "fuck that" with Daka wanting to blow up a train and the Dynamic Duo having to go foil that, which leads into another cliffhanger. But while it's a little weird at first, and also makes the episode feel a bit identity-less on its own, it's gonna become a pretty common structure. It's the same reason old 1960s Marvel comics feel so soap-opera esque, and lead right from one into another instead of having more contained arcs -- because you spend half the story wrapping up last week, and the second half setting up next week. So there aren't any good breaking points, it keeps the audience coming back week after week, which was the whole point of serials.
"The Bat's Cave"
Screenplay: Victor McLeod, Leslie Swabacker, Harry Fraser
Producer: Rudolph C. Flothow
Director: Lambert Hillyer
Last Time: Daka tried to steal radium from the Gotham Foundation, but Batman and Robin show up to stop them! While fighting on the rooftop, two of Daka's thugs grab Batman and toss him off the roof!
Synopsis: Our hero's surely deadly fall is broken by landing on a window washer's platform! How convenient! He climbs back up to the roof as the cops show up. Foster and his accomplice try to beat feet, but when said accomplice stops to grab the radium gun that was dropped in the scuffle, Robin tackles him!
Foster makes it out and escapes but Batman and Robin take the other guy captive, along with the radium gun, and take him to the Bat's Cave!
"The Bat's Cave" in this, it's first major appearance, is very simple. Apparently candlelit, it features a big wooden desk for Batman, a ton of rubber bats on fishing lines flying around, a big Bat-logo on one of the cave walls, and... well, that's it. Batman sits his captive down and basically threatens to feed him to the bats, and that's enough to break him down and spill his guts.
The hoodlum says they were going to deliver the radium to "The House of the Open Door" - a "fluff joint" (which I assume is 1940s slang for a house of ill repute? Someone wanna take a stab at this?). He says he was working for a man named "Smith", describing Foster. Batman believes most of the story, although he figures "Smith" is a phoney name, then the Dynamic Duo head upstairs and leave the poor guy alone, locked in the cave.
Coming up through the secret entrance in the grandfather clock in Wayne Manor (another invention of this serial), Bruce and Dick use the radium gun to explode a vase and scare the shit out of Alfred - because fuck servants, we're rich, I guess?
Alfred, of course, has been reading his pulp magazines and detective novels again, but is interrupted so he can drive the Batman's captive to a police station and dump him on the curb.
Some patrol boys bring him in to Captain Arnold, with a note explaining that Linda Page can identify him and charge him in connection with the "radium robbery and hospital murder" -- hospital murder? Who was murdered? Is that referring to the zombie that Daka had walk off the roof to his death for no reason last week??
Back at Dr. Daka's Secret Giant Buddha Spy Headquarters, Daka admonishes his men for losing the radium gun. Daka figures since it was left behind at the Gotham Foundation that one of the employees might have it. Of course he might have had a better idea what had happened if he hadn't ordered his remote control zombie to off himself, but I guess hindsight is 20/20 after all. Daka figures that since Martin Warren's niece worked in the office where the radium was, it's likely either she has the gun or knows who does.
So Foster calls Linda, pretending to be Warren, and tells her to meet him at The Blue Parrot (in Casablanca?)... and come alone! Linda calls Bruce to tell him what's up, but also not to come. So of course Bruce and Dick are gonna pay a visit to the Blue Parrot as well to keep an eye on Linda!
At the club, Linda is called away to the telephone booth and Bruce sends Dick to keep an eye on her. Dick goes over, sees that yep she's on the phone, and reports back to Bruce, who's all "I told you to keep an eye on her, stupid!", and when they rush over to see what's up, she's gone! Because the phone booth was rigged with gas and a trick door, so Foster has kidnapped Linda.
So Bruce and Dick use their only clue and head to the House of the Open Door, with Bruce putting on a sort've prototype Matches Malone disguise, and Dick dressing up like a "Daily Record" newspaperboy, complete with accurate outfit, t-shirt, newspapers, etc. Dick serves as a lookout in front of the building as Bruce goes in, each wearing 2-way radios to communicate with each other. Very smart.
Foster comes into the building, and Bruce shadows him upstairs, keeping note of which room he goes into. There's a trick door in the back of the room, leading to another room filled with radio equipment and hazardous chemicals (??) where some hoodlums are interrogating Linda. She doesn't tell them anything, because she doesn't know anything, but the hoods aren't buying it.
As Batman and Robin (with Batman wearing a much improved costume), the Dynamic Duo climb up to the window by throwing their grappling hook up onto a power line and then walking across the power line to the windowsill. Now, I'm no electrician, but I figure that at least sometime in there they should've been fried.
Anyways, they burst into the window as is their custom, and we get an all out brawl, which feels just as uncoordinated as the one last week, just guys throwing haymakers left and right (at one point, Batman's cape falls off, but it's back after the next cut). So of course those hazardous chemicals (acid, apparently) that are in there are spilled and so there's deadly gas spewing everywhere. Foster and the boys escape and lock Batman and Robin in the room. Robin heads out the window and across the power line, Batman following while carrying Linda.
But Foster has them spotted from the roof, and grabs some wire from another power line and swings it down to the line Batman is standing on, short-circuiting it.
Now, again, I'm no electrician, but I'm pretty sure the dangerous electrical fire wouldn't just slowly make it's way up the line behind Batman like a lit bomb fuse or something - but that's what happens here. Robin makes it down to ground level, but the electrical fire catches up to Batman just as he reaches the grappling line, and he and Linda fall off the line.... to their inevitable deaths!
~~~~
Thoughts and Review: Chapter 2 of Batman is a big improvement over Chapter 1. Part of this is that it doesn't have to set up the story and characters, so the pacing is much better. Even with a shorter running time it balances story, action, and character quite nicely. But mostly I think it just has the best mix of elements. It might be my favourite chapter in the serial overall, which yes, means we're peaking quite early.
For one thing, you've got Batman and Robin being a lot more competent and awesome then they were in the last chapter. First, capturing and interrogating that guy in the Batcave - and I love Lewis Wilson's performance in this scene, a kind of gleeful meaness. Then, tailing Linda from the Blue Parrot to the House of the Open Door, and again Wilson does a great job of switching personas from Bruce to Batman to his disguise and back again. The bit with the radios and the newspaperboy lookout feels like a regular routine, like they've been doing this a while and have certain favoured maneuvers, which increases the feeling that we're seeing the comic book characters with their history, translated onto the silver screen. Scaling the building with their grappling hook, smashing through the window, fighting off thugs, carrying Linda out of there -- our heroes do a lot of fun, cool things in this chapter, things that feel like what Batman and Robin do in their comic book adventures.
Significantly, this chapter gives us our first good looks at the two additions the serial made to the Bat mythos: the Batcave, and Alfred. The Batcave is very prototype, just a simple one room affair. It seems connected to another room, a secret crime laboratory which had already been featured in the comics, but the two are definitely seperate locations rather than unified under the "cave" stylings. But what's really cool is the entrance to the Batcave is through a grandfather clock in Wayne Manor - which, once the Batcave made it's migration to the comics, is where the secret entrance would be depicted as well. In the comics they will add the detail that the door is opened by changing the time on the clock to the time Bruce's parents were killed - but oddly, other than the Bruce Timm animated series, no other Bat-adaptation would use the grandfather clock entrance - the '66 show used the Shakespeare bust and sliding poles, Burton's films had an Iron Maiden trapdoor, the Schumacher films had a hidden door in the silver closet, and the Nolan films had it activated by a trick piano.
Alfred, meanwhile, is fantastic. I mean, yeah, this isn't the super competant dry wit Alfred of the modern day, but William Austin is giving a great comic performance here. While he's much the same character as the comic book Alfred - a little bumbling, but eager to help - it somehow work's a lot better with Austin's performance. He's thin, high-strung, very upper crust -- it's a little reminescent of what Anthony Daniel's would do with C-3PO for Star Wars! Austin's performance was such a popular element of this serial that Alfred's character would be reworked to resemble Austin more, especially physically, which is why in the comics for 70 years afterwords Alfred would be thin, balding, and with a moustache!
Notes and Trivia: First appearance of the grandfather clock entrance to the Batcave
The theatrical serial is an extinct, almost forgotten form of film entertainment, but one with an unmistakable influence on the past seventy years of pop culture media.
Serials were, in some respects, more like the predecessors of television than short films. Divided into multiple chapters of two reels in length (with an introductory three reel chapter), a serial would tell a continous story across it's chapters but each "episode" would also have it's own story, almost invariably ending with a "cliffhanger" in which the heroes were left to almost certainly die, only to miraculously escape in the opening minutes of the next chapter.
Formulaic to a fault, and often very low-budgeted, serial chapters were shown once a week at a theatre, often as part of a Saturday matinee. Sometimes considered mere children's fare, many serials adapted pulp magazine characters and were also popular with adults. While they aren't very sophisticated in their storytelling style from today's perspective, they are nonetheless an intrinsic influence on filmmakers like George Lucas, with both Star Wars and Indiana Jones having their precedents in movie serials. And of course today's weekly episodic television, with its serialized storytelling, owes a debt to its simplistic forebears.
By 1943 only three movie studios were producing serials - Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures and Republic Pictures, the latter of which produced serials exclusively and was generally considered the best of the three. Columbia serials were often made to be "cost effective", while Universal serials were often more lavish and approaching feature film quality, such as its famous 1936 Flash Gordan adaptation, and Republic serials being the most exciting and expensive.
Many serials of the golden age were adaptations from other media, often comic strips and pulp magazine characters like Dick Tracy and The Shadow. Captain Marvel became the first comic book superhero to get a live action serial in 1941 from Republic, and it featured some amazing special effects. The rights to Captain Marvel's biggest rival, Superman, were tied up with Paramount Pictures, who were producing the famous animated shorts at this time and considered a live-action Superman impractical. So it was in April of 1942 that Columbia announced it would be adapting Batman to the big screen in a fifteen-part serial.
"The Electrical Brain"
Screenplay: Victor McLeod, Leslie Swabacker, Harry Fraser
Producer: Rudolph C. Flothow
Director: Lambert Hillyer
Synopsis: A somber, sonorous narrator introduces us to our setting in Gotham City, and outside it Wayne Manor, and deep beneath it - The Bat's Cave, secret underground headquarters of Batman and Robin. Their origins and motivations are left unexplained, but it's clear they are heroes, and that they are patriots - "they represent American youth who love their country, and are glad to fight for it". Did I mention it was 1943?
Our story proper begins with Batman and Robin pulling up to a streetside policebox in their 1939 Cadillac convertible (no Batmobile, that would cost money). Batman picks the lock and puts a call through to Captain Arnold of the GCPD, alerting him of a little "package" being left for him.
The implication is that Arnold has been suffering with the Batman for some time, and has a kind've easy antagonism with him (a far cry from the deputized Batman of the comics, but not so far off from the vigilante Batman of the 39-41 era).
The crooks Batman is dropping off are the "last of the Collins gang", but they warn him that "Dr. Daka" will make him regret his actions, the first mention of this name. The Dynamic Duo drive off (with Robin driving!) before the cops arrive so that Bruce can make a date with Linda Page.
Linda is depicted as working at the vague "Gotham City Foundation". She seems more like a secretary than a nurse, but she still works for an MD, Dr. Borden. Bruce and Dick show up and Bruce makes a big show about what lazy good-for-nothing playboy he is, and Dick later suggests that he's perhaps laying it on a little thick. They discuss plans for heading to the prison to pick up Linda's uncle, Martin Warren, who is being released. In private, Dick asks why Bruce doesn't just tell Linda that he's the Batman, and Bruce's reasoning is that a) she might worry, and b) that their special assignment from Uncle Sam requires secret identities. So Batman and Robin don't work with the police, but they are working as G-Men? (Bruce's cover for not having been drafted is that he's a 4-F - hey at least that's better than a Section 8!)
So they go to pick up Warren, but a bunch of his old cellmate buddies have shown up to pick him up (read: kidnap him) first, led by a guy named Foster who has the best "stereotypical 1940s gangster" voice ever. Bruce and Linda arrive just as the crooks are driving out with Warren, so Bruce orders Alfred to turn around their 1939 Cadillac convertible that's exactly like Batman's and follow that car! (Apparently putting the top up is enough to change "Bruce Wayne's car" into "Batman's car")
They give chase at great speed, but the bad guys pull far enough ahead to get out of sight and "make the change" - the license plate rotates to a different one, and an aerosol spray repaints their black sedan white! They turn around and pass Bruce and the gang, who are perplexed at having lost sight of their pursuit.
We then cut to Gotham City's "Little Tokyo", a ghost town now that a "wise government had rounded up the shifty-eyed Japs" and oh man, here we go. I'll take a bit later on to unpack that statement, but suffice for now to say that this serial is unabashedly patriotic to the point of jingoism, as well as decidedly racist, and these elements can make it difficult viewing for some folks here in 2014. It never gets quite as mean-spirited again as here, but it does remain (as Tumblr would put it) problematic.
Anyways, the only business left open in Little Tokyo is a "Cave of Horrors", basically a carnival haunted house railcar ride with the spooky monsters replaced by wax Japanese soldiers torturing wax Americans. Foster's gang of crooks get Martin Warren into a car, getting out halfway through by a weird display of a caveman looking guy about to club another caveperson (said caveman is clearly an oiled up living dude working as a human statue sentry - hope he gets paid well because he just stands there motionless and we spend almost the entire serial waiting for that other shoe to drop).
There's a pretty obvious door in the cave wall at this display, Foster opens it by opening a panel and flashing his Super Secret Spy Decoder Ring TM, and soon they are in a Very Oriental Hideout, complete with a Giant statue of Buddha. Warren is here greeted by our villain, Dr. Tito Daka of "The League of the New Order" - a Japanese national, prince (?) and spy played by J. Carrol Naish (a definitely caucasian actor in relatively good "Asian" make-up using an odd accent and wearing a kind of black Colonel Sanders suit - an odd mix of elements). What kind of Japanese name is "Tito Daka" anyway?
The League is a group of "dishonored" American businessmen and scientists and so on who's criminal pasts make it impossible for them to work in their society and thus have joined Daka. There's Fletcher, a rougher Howard Hughes/Cary Grant looking kinda guy who was an architect and engineer who built shoddy buildings. There's also Marshall, Preston and Wallace. Daka wants Warren, an industrialist, to join to round out the group. Anyways, the whole thing is a Japanese fifth column spy ring designed to "liberate the enslaved peoples of America". Hopefully they start by liberating all the Japanese-Americans in the internment camps.
Too soon?
Warren explains that in fact he was falsely accused (because he's a good guy) - although the details of his crime and imprisonment aren't elaborated on. Warren refuses because he's "an American first and always!", so Daka reveals his method of dealing with those who won't join him willingly - he uses a electronic transmitter/receiver wired into the spinal column, turning the wearer into a "zombie" who only obeys the commands Daka gives by microphone. "Bob", Warren's former partner, has been turned into "Number Twelve".
Warren continues to refuse, and thus is taken down into Daka's electronic laboratory. Daka cannot turn Warren into a zombie just yet because he has information Daka needs. So he just pumps him full of truth serum. Daka needs to know where the Gotham City Foundation keeps its store of radium, and Warren knows because he endowed the Foundation (presumably in his pre-convict days). Warren tells him where to find it (Dr. Borden's office) and so Daka sends the goon squad out to retrieve it.
He arms the men with a "radium gun", a miniature "atom smasher". It's a ray gun, for all intents and purposes, and Daka needs more radium so he can build a larger one so that Japan can use it to destroy America. At this point my head is spinning at this plot of the dastardly Japanese creating an all powerful atomic weapon to defeat the US, because they're the villains and that's what villains do and...
Daka gives Foster the gun and sends them on their way to use it to blast the safe and get the radium. Foster and some other crook are sent with a zombie, because Daka can watch them using the headpiece that controls the zombie.
Meanwhile, at the Foundation, Linda is freaking out about her uncle while Bruce tries to play it cool. Linda is not impressed. Bruce and Dick take off to leave Linda to her work just as the goon squad shows up. Bruce recognizes them, and has Alfred pull the car into an alley so they can change into Batman and Robin. The goons grab Linda and Borden, incapacitating them, then use the radium gun on the safe. Batman and Robin climb up the side of the building using a fire escape, then swing down the building and crash through the window using a grappling hook. The crooks dump the stolen radium down the laundry chute, where it's picked up by a waiting van.
The crooks make a run up the stairs to the roof for some reason, and the Dynamic Duo pursues. An extremely unchoreographed scuffle breaks out that features some cool use of the radium gun, but also makes our heroes look pretty uncoordinated. Police sirens spur the van to take off, leaving Foster and the others stranded. Batman knocks Foster out, and the zombie has Batman dangling over the edge, but Daka instructs the zombie to "leave the roof" for some reason (?) which the zombie interprets as just walking straight off it to its death!
Robin is knocked out, and Foster and the other guy toss a dazed Batman off the edge of the building to his inevitable death!!!
Next Time: Daka captures Linda because she maybe has the radium gun?!!!
~~~~
Thoughts and Review: The 1943 Batman serial is often considered a footnote in the 75 year history of the Dark Knight. If it's mentioned, it's usually a short bit that almost invariably goes like this: "first live-action Batman, wartime serial, very cheap, bad costumes, no Batmobile, first Batcave and Alfred, incredibly racist." And while, yes, all those things are true, the serial is far more important than that and deserves some more in depth consideration.
Frankly, if it were not for the serial, it is highly doubtful that Batman would be as popular today as he is. But how is that possible when only a very small handful of Batfans have even heard of the serial, much less sat through the entirety of it multiple times as I have?
Well, for one thing the serial propelled Batman into a medium other than comics, proving he could work in live action and setting the stage for his complete domination of modern pop culture. But the real chain of events here requires us to look forward to the early sixties, when the Batman comics under the editorship of Jack Schiff were on the verge of cancellation, or so the story goes. The comics were handed off to Julie Schwartz in 1964 who instituted the "New Look" Batman, which nowadays would be considered a relaunch. But it might not have been enough if not for the phenomenal, massive success of the 1966 Adam West television series. And that series exists almost solely due to the 1943 serial.
In 1965 the serial was re-released in an edited form as An Evening with Batman and Robin, designed to be shown at college campuses and watched ironically, like how we enjoy The Room or Rocky Horror Picture Show today. This print found its way to the Playboy Club, were it was shown regularly and was very popular with the patrons, who laughed at its inate corniness. An ABC executive was there one night and figured a campy, parodic take on Batman, a pop art update of the serial, could be a smash TV show. And he was right. While it took characters and stories from the New Look Batman comics, the show was in many ways more a skewering of the serial, with the campy costumes, overly serious narrator, and of course the cliffhangers and death traps.
The success of the Batman TV show led to a backlash in comics fandom, leading Denny O'Neil to bring back the "dark and serious" Batman of the early (pre-serial) comics. Frank Miller's defining work, The Dark Knight Returns, is almost entirely designed as a rebuttal of the TV show, and remains to this day the most popular Batman comic, influencing everything that came after, up to and including the Christopher Nolan films. The feature film series itself came from Michael Uslan's desire to produce a Batman movie that would wipe memory of the TV show from public consciousness. And of course recently we've seen the pendulum swing back, with the 60s show referenced in the Brave and the Bold cartoon and resurrected by DC in a new comic series.
So, to recap, no serial - no TV show - no Frank Miller comics and Tim Burton movies as a reaction to the TV show - thus no explosion of Batman popularity in the 80s and 90s leading to the Chris Nolan series and Batman's current superstar status.
So yeah, the 1943 serial? Kind of a big deal in Batman's development as a pop culture icon.
But is it any good? Well... kinda. I mean, I love this thing, and I often have a hard time discerning if I love it ironically or whole-heartedly. Frank Miller once said the serial was his favourite live-action Batman because it was so low tech - Batman was just a dude in a costume straight wrecking dudes - and I can see that appeal. It also has that whole 1940s film noir gangster flavour modern Batman stuff pines for more naturally, because duh. And it's the only live-action Batman where Robin is actually played by a kid - Douglas Croft was only 13 during filming and it's frankly awesome to see this kid who just leaps into danger and takes down armed thugs. I think the main reason you can't do kid Robin these days in live action has less to do with the perceived "lameness" of Robin and more to do wth the fact that everyone would freak out about the child endangerment and potential for kids in the audience to "try it at home".
Yeah, the costumes are ill-fitting and look cheap, but there's a charm to them in their attempt to bring the designs and art of Jerry Robinson to three-dimensional life (and they are also far superior to the costumes in the second serial - oy!) Batman's cowl is often accused of having "devil horns" for ears, and my reaction? How cool is that?! My only complaint is that it seems the filmmakers had two cape/cowl sets - a light blue and a dark blue one - and the light blue one shows up nearly white in black and white and looks awful. Luckily the filmmakers seemed to notice that and discarded it in favour of the dark one a few chapters in, but for a little while they're used interchangeably and I just hate the lighter one.
The acting is actually pretty good. Lewis Wilson plays Bruce Wayne/Batman, and I find him pretty cool. He's looks great in the role, and plays both roles convincingly. I love the slothfulness of his Bruce and the dynamite glee of his Batman -- his Dark Knight is serious about his job, but also takes pleasure in it, and that's fun. I've heard people complain that he's trying to cover up a Boston accent, but frankly Gotham's an east coast city analogous to New York so I don't mind it - Christian Bale plays Batman trying to cover up being Welsh after all! Fun Fact: Lewis Wilson is the father of Micheal G. Wilson, the guy who's been producing the James Bond movies since 1979.
Douglas Croft may be my favourite live-action Robin. Granted, that's a list of like, four dudes, but still. His youthful exuberance and hutzpah is so fun and genuine, and he's also got a great wry attitude as well. It's a huge tragedy that he died at the age of 37.
The most notable other great performance in the serial is from William Austin as Alfred, but I'll talk more about that in the next chapter when Alfred's role becomes more prominent. Suffice to say for now, the character was invented for the serial first as comic relief, as writing of the serial began in late 1942, continuing to April of '43. Alfred was introduced in the comics first as DC and Bob Kane were invited to consult on the creative process, and later Alfred's rotund comics appearance would be changed to match the thinner William Austin - who to this day is the model of what Alfred looks like.
The serial's director, Lambert Hillyer, acquits himself well - nothing is overly inspired here but it's also not bad. Hillyer's most interesting credit aside from this one is directing 1935's Dracula's Daughter, which some call the first lesbian vampire movie.
Honestly the biggest dark spot on the serial, this chapter in particular, isn't it's low production values or bad writing - it's the blatant malicious racism. I mean, the film gets a dubious notoriety in that it's one of the few Hollywood productions that even acknowledged the internment of Japanese Americans (the other was a truly odious Three Stooges short where our "heroes" kill some escapees from an internment camp). This internment was ostensibly based in security concerns - Imperial Japanese sympathizers sabotaging the war effort and so on - but really it was based in pure racism. And as was common for wartime serials, Daka's status as an enemy alien means there's a lot of hate thrown his way, but because he's Japanese, and thus not a white European like Nazis are in films of this type, the hate has often more to do with the colour of his skin than the actions of his government. Certainly, the serial lets us know what side it's on, loudly and plainly.
However there is a weird "plot hole" in the serial's depiction of internment, however, in that it was an entirely West Coast phenomenon, as the security justification for the camps didn't make as much sense applied on the East Coast, and Gotham has always been depicted as an East Coast city. So that's.... weird?
The other weird effect of the serial's wartime patriotism is the odd status of Batman and Robin. Apparently it was the censor board that demanded they be made into G-men, as they felt vigilantism was inappropriate to be depicted heroically. Except the Batman and Robin of the comics were no longer vigilantes, so that's just weird.
Almost as weird as the absence of Gordon, or the Batmobile and Bat-signal. Yet it's clear that the writers of the serial had some familiarity with their source material, given the presence of Linda Page - who even by this point was slipping away from the comics. It's odd and interesting what the serial gives and takes from the comic. I mean, the Bat Cave and Alfred are huge additions, but to not have Gordon? The serial is also often criticized for not using any of Batman's illustrious rogues gallery, but that's not surprising. None of the Dick Tracy serials did. However, it's a lesser known fact that the villain and storyline are clearly based to some degree on Detective Comics #55, with German fifth columnist Dr. Deker replaced with Japanese fifth columnist Dr. Daka.
All in all, it's a more faithful translation from the comics than the Captain America serial, and largely has a real feeling of seeing the Golden Age Batman and Robin translated onto the screen.
In short, for all its faults, its a hoot and I love it!
Notes and Trivia: First appearance of the Batcave, first appearance of skinny Alfred, first live-action Batman and Robin, first appearance of Dr. Daka and Captain Arnold,
