BATMAN: 1943 SERIAL
This is a serial from 1943! Obviously lacking in special
effects, the story line isn't too bad. All in all, I enjoyed it,
albeit a little lengthy! B
From a reviewer at Amazon.com:
Before the big glossy Batman movies and the campy 1960's
television series there was this little masterpiece. It starts strong
with the spooky music over the opening credits. Lambert Hillyer
was an experienced B-movie director but this was his first and
only serial. He makes it an enjoyable adventure with an unusual
sense of humor for a serial. Note the banter between Alfred,
Batman, and Robin in the third chapter after Alfred fires a few
shots with his eyes closed.
The film has been criticized as racist, which it certainly is, rife
with comments like "Since a wise government rounded up
the shifty-eyed Japs..." and "your twisted Oriental brain." But
that's exactly the way it was at the height of World War Two,
so this is really a historical document of the pervasive attitude
at that time. The War was still unsettled in 1943, and people
were terrified of the Japanese threat. The serial has also been
issued in a cleaned-up version, but this one is much more
realistic even if it wouldn't be acceptable today. Just try to enjoy
it for what it was.
I particularly like Lewis Wilson when he's Bruce Wayne, with
his tongue-in-cheek portrayal of a lazy playboy, even though
in his Batman guise he displays a bit of a gut that kept him out
of the 1949 sequel. He's really a cool dude for 1943.
J. Carrol Naish was a great character actor, garnering two Oscar
nominations in a long and distinguished career. He specialized
in foreign dialects, and as Dr. Daka he does his best Peter Lorre
imitation. Any villain would kill for that living room with the built-in
alligator pit.
Douglas Croft (nee Douglas Wheatcroft, 1926-1963) was a successful
child actor in the early 1940's. The year before he played Robin in
this serial he was in both "Pride of the Yankees" and "Yankee Doodle
Dandy," playing Lou Gehrig and James M. Cohan, respectively, as
a boy. Not much is known of him as he dropped out of acting later
in the decade, and died at the age of only 37.
Shirley Patterson (1921-1995, later known as Shawn Smith) was
Miss California of 1940. After this performance she played in
B-Westerns opposite Charles Starrett, Johnny Mack Brown, and
others. Even Charles Middleton, that all-time favorite serial villain,
puts in an appearance starting in Chapter Six, but this time he's
on the right side of the law as Dan Colton, who has discovered
a radium mine and of course Daka needs radium for his nefarious
schemes.
As usual with Columbia serials the fights and the chases don't
measure up to Republic's standards, and in general the cliffhangers
aren't as good either. But the way Batman escapes from the old
room-with-sharp-blades-closing-in routine at the end of Chapter
13 is a classic. The Chapter 14 cliffhanger isn't bad, either. - A Customer