Tue 18 Aug 2009
A Movie Serial Review by Dan Stumpf: BATMAN (1943).
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Reviews1 Comment
BATMAN. Columbia, 1943. [Fifteen-episode serial.] Lewis Wilson (Batman / Bruce Wayne), Douglas Croft (Robin / Richard ‘Dick’ Grayson), J. Carrol Naish, Shirley Patterson, William Austin (Alfred), Charles Middleton. Based on the DC Comic characters created by Bob Kane. Director: Lambert Hillyer.
Lightning Warrior [the 1931 Rin Tin Tin serial reviewed here ] was a gift from a friend, and it led to me watching a spate of serials, a pleasure I seldom indulge in because of the time consumed.
But shortly after this, I started on Batman (1943) which I hadn’t seen since a marathon evening back in 1965 when all 15 chapters were screened back-to-back, accompanied by witticisms hurled from the audience, for a campy event called An Evening With Batman And Robin.
Back then, Batman seemed closely linked to the myriad spy spoofs of the period but forty-odd years (in every sense) later, it has acquired a certain charm of its own.
The characters and their baroque machinations seem like brightly-painted toy soldiers marching about to the caprices of a wanton child, and all the fights, chases and explosions merely excuses for fun. Batman keeps starting fights he can’t finish, leading to This Week’s Cliff-Hanger, as the bad guys repeatedly beat him up, push him off a skyscraper, down an elevator shaft, from a cliff, under a speeding train or what-have-you.
Lewis Wilson and Douglas Croft play the Dynamic Duo with admirably straight faces, and Charles Middleton livens up a few chapters as a colorful prospector, but J. Carroll Naish really steals the show with a hammy turn as the villainous Dr. Daka, complete with disintegrator ray, alligator pit, and an army of mindless zombies.
Not much sense in it, but there’s lots of fun.
August 18th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
I love this cheesy cheap Columbia serial. Stately Wayne Manor is pretty much an ordinary house in the suburbs and the Batmobile just a black sedan. Wilson’s bat ears are a work of art alone. I’d rank this one a bit over the second outing with Robert Lowery in the ears. And what’s with Croft’s hair. I didn’t know any white guys were wearing Afro’s in the 1940’s.
Can’t call this one a good serial — not like The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Spy Smasher, or Drums of Fu Manchu, but in the right mood it has a certain goofy charm.
Naish is very good an almost raises this above the usual level of Columbia serials. Middleton is almost always a joy in these. I think he must have been enjoying himself.