I really wish I had seen this as a kid because I'm pretty well convinced I wouldn't have fallen for any of the goofy gimmicks on display here. Don't get me wrong, these Columbia serials have a special place in the minds and hearts of Batman fans like myself, but they do take a special effort to get through. One is always on the fence on how liberal one's use of the fast forward button ought to be, in my case I have to breeze through each of the opening chapters to get to just the right spot to see what kind of red herring the last one offered before a car went over a cliff or some building blew up.
Robert Lowery and Johnny Duncan seemed like pretty good choices to portray the costumed heroes; Lowery managed to distract me a bit with his uncanny resemblance to Johnny Weissmuller, and it eventually dawned on me that he portrayed Big Tim Champion in the 'Circus Boy' TV series of the mid-Fifties. How he dealt with the Bat-Mask I'll never know, the protruding nose and ears might have been menacing to crooks but they seemed rather silly looking to me. Perhaps to further a connection to Batman's namesake, I thought it interesting that the script often called for him to swoop down from an elevated position with outstretched cape to simulate a flying bat.
One of the funniest things throughout the entire serial occurred when Batman needed a blow torch to cut through some wall or other, and he just so happened to have one under his cape. Throughout the story there are a myriad of credibility defying devices introduced that boggle the mind like a remote control machine that stops automotive vehicles in their tracks, invisibility rays, and a tele-viewer the Wizard is able to use to see virtually anything the script calls for.
More than anything, what blows my mind is that at one time, grown men saw fit to write, produce and act in these stories with virtually no self-conscious embarrassment over how dumb they looked. Take for example any scene in which more than one thug or henchman was involved in which they consistently crossed paths wondering what to do next. And was it my imagination or did every uniformed policeman in the picture look like he was already past retirement age?
Well look, I don't want to rain on anyone's parade here. Early serials like this were an interesting attempt to get super-heroes from the comic pages onto the big screen and were wildly and successfully accepted by young matinée fans of the day. And if you missed an episode during any fifteen chapter run it's not like it would have been the end of the world. You just picked up the story in mid stream the following week and you'd be back on track in no time.
Robert Lowery and Johnny Duncan seemed like pretty good choices to portray the costumed heroes; Lowery managed to distract me a bit with his uncanny resemblance to Johnny Weissmuller, and it eventually dawned on me that he portrayed Big Tim Champion in the 'Circus Boy' TV series of the mid-Fifties. How he dealt with the Bat-Mask I'll never know, the protruding nose and ears might have been menacing to crooks but they seemed rather silly looking to me. Perhaps to further a connection to Batman's namesake, I thought it interesting that the script often called for him to swoop down from an elevated position with outstretched cape to simulate a flying bat.
One of the funniest things throughout the entire serial occurred when Batman needed a blow torch to cut through some wall or other, and he just so happened to have one under his cape. Throughout the story there are a myriad of credibility defying devices introduced that boggle the mind like a remote control machine that stops automotive vehicles in their tracks, invisibility rays, and a tele-viewer the Wizard is able to use to see virtually anything the script calls for.
More than anything, what blows my mind is that at one time, grown men saw fit to write, produce and act in these stories with virtually no self-conscious embarrassment over how dumb they looked. Take for example any scene in which more than one thug or henchman was involved in which they consistently crossed paths wondering what to do next. And was it my imagination or did every uniformed policeman in the picture look like he was already past retirement age?
Well look, I don't want to rain on anyone's parade here. Early serials like this were an interesting attempt to get super-heroes from the comic pages onto the big screen and were wildly and successfully accepted by young matinée fans of the day. And if you missed an episode during any fifteen chapter run it's not like it would have been the end of the world. You just picked up the story in mid stream the following week and you'd be back on track in no time.