The Dark Past (1948, Rudolph Maté)

The Dark Past opens with a lengthy, confidently showy, and capable POV sequence. Lee J. Cobb is arriving at work, just like anyone–and the movie does a lengthy “peoples is peoples” bit–except he’s a police psychiatrist. It’s his job to save kids from becoming hardened criminals, thereby not being on the taxpayer dime. It’s progressive but not too progressive. Cobb’s not some wuss.

Cobb is outstanding in the film. It’s a sometimes silly role with the framing sequence, but when he gets to acting, it’s acting. Past is a remake of a stage adaptation, and Maté spotlights the actors. Well, Cobb and Holden. Cobb’s the protagonist and narrator, and Holden’s the star. The rest of the cast stays busy, but everyone gets left in the dust. It’s worst for Nina Foch. Second-billed, and she just disappears.

Oh, yeah, the setup. So, when Cobb has to convince a cop a petty criminal is a human being, he tells the story of his adventure with Holden. Holden’s so infamous everyone recognizes his name. But apparently don’t know anything about his very consequential involvement with Cobb. No spoilers, but the more interesting story is the direct sequel.

So, back to the setup. Holden and his gang crash Cobb’s dinner party. They need a place to wait for their getaway boat. While the guests give Holden’s gang minor trouble, Cobb gets around to psychoanalyzing Holden in a commercial for the Freud method. Holden’s a vicious killer who delights in toying with his prey, but Cobb sees some glimmer of humanity and tries to cure him. Foch kind of wants picket fences and helps Cobb.

The second act is Cobb slowly unraveling the very simple knot Holden’s tied out of his subconscious. Holden can’t unravel it himself because he has repressed memories, which only come out in his single, ever-recurring nightmare. There’s an inverted color dream sequence. It’s not as successful as it should be.

Despite his top billing, the film keeps Holden in reverse for a good while. Once the bad guys take everyone hostage, it takes time even to get Holden and Cobb talking. Partly because of Holden’s reticence, and partly because there are so many subplots cooking. Every single one of them gets left unfinished. The film often feels like the framing device is a distraction from the real story–which is sort of true because there doesn’t end up being a comparison between Holden and the kid criminal in the present. It’s not about criminals possibly being human; it’s about psychiatry curing them of their anti-social tendencies. Cobb’s not even concerned how the patient feels about things.

It’s craven, and it makes for some great scenes. Holden can’t figure out Cobb’s angle, and–with the frame defining the character already–neither can the audience. Cobb’s intentionally inscrutable; the only thing the frame helps with.

Lois Maxwell plays Cobb’s wife, who does get to fail Bechdel with Foch, but otherwise just sits around with son Robert Hyatt. He’ll end up with a bit to do before the movie drops him for the next subplot. Past is so noncommittal to its subplots, for a while near the end I thought they might even skip closing the bookend. At that point, with everything else unfinished, why do it anyway?

Maxwell’s solid. She doesn’t get much at all. Foch is good with a little more. Between Holden and Cobb, Holden probably has the edge. It’s a showier role, but he’s also got an arc. Cobb’s just proving one point or another.

While Past has its problems, the stars are phenomenal, Maté’s direction is good, and Joseph Walker’s black and white cinematography is beautiful.

This post is part of the 6th Golden Boy Blogathon hosted by Emily of The Flapper Dame and Virginie of The Wonderful World of Cinema.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948, Charles Barton)

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein makes a surprising number of Universal monster movie gaffes. Most obvious is director Barton’s fault—Dracula (a very fun Bela Lugosi) casts a reflection. After shooting the “vampire seduces lady” scene half in reflection, careful not to show Lugosi, the finish just has a visible Dracula in the mirror. So it goes from being a clever constraint to a bewildering fail.

There’s also some questionable vampire logic—Lugosi’s victims crave blood but aren’t vampires—and then it’s a full moon at least five nights in a row, maybe six, so Lon Chaney Jr. has something to do in the movie.

For the first and third acts, gaffes don’t really matter. Only in the plodding second; Meet Frankenstein is only eighty minutes and change. There shouldn’t be any plodding, but it indeed plods, mainly because Bud Abbott is convinced there aren’t monsters, and Lou Costello’s either making it up or too dumb to successfully process reality, and it’s a drag. Every gag ends the same way—Costello seeing monsters, Abbott just missing them. In the first act, when Costello’s got a lengthy bit with Lugosi coming out of a coffin next to him, it’s amusing.

Approximately fourteen times later? Less amusing.

It’s especially unfortunate since Abbott’s pretty good when he’s not playing dunce. He and Chaney have to team up to save the day, and it’s a missed opportunity for more. Especially for Chaney, who starts the movie with a bunch of potential but then they just keep doing the same thing for him over and over again.

At least Lugosi gets some variety. He gets to terrorize Costello, pretend to be a mad scientist, seduce the ladies, and lead Glenn Strange’s Frankenstein Monster around. Lugosi’s got the best part by far.

Strange has the worst. While Chaney’s Wolf Man makeup is pretty good, Strange’s makeup seems cheap and flimsy. When he moves too much, it looks like his hair’s going to fall off. But there are decent enough sight gags for Strange in the third act; it just takes until then for him to figure into the plot.

Abbott and Costello are baggage handlers in sunny Florida, where local haunted house owner Frank Ferguson has just bought the original corpses of Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster from Europe. Ferguson’s an obnoxious blowhard, and the film’s best early joke has Costello treating him appropriately. Costello’s better in the workaday scenes than when he’s doing the horror dating comedy—see, new-to-the-area, glamourpuss Lenore Aubert has taken a liking to Costello (frustrating Abbott), but then Jane Randolph starts cozying up to him as well. The second act is basically Costello juggling unlikely girlfriends; Aubert’s a mad scientist after his brain and Randolph’s an insurance investigator trying to figure out if the boys stole the infamous corpses.

Then throw in Charles Bradstreet as Aubert’s assistant, who doesn’t know anything about his boss’s nefarious plans, but Randolph needs to be able to smile at a cute guy occasionally instead of Costello.

The finale’s a madcap haunted castle romp with Abbott and Costello trying to escape but being foiled by monsters at every turn. Of course, Lugosi has the best material, including throwing potted plants at his adversaries. The movie does need to do something with all the monsters, which it resolves pretty well for half of them. The other half gets shrugged off, with the last one hurried so there can be the final, funny gag.

All things considered, it’s far from a failure. It’d be nice if Abbott and Costello were strong together instead of apart, and Randolph seems like she’s going to have a good comic part then gets an immediate downgrade. It’s probably worst for Chaney, who always seems like he’ll get something, but then the full moon interrupts. Lugosi’s a delight.

The special effects—outside Strange’s makeup—are decent. They use a cartoon bat for Dracula, but the transformation scenes aren’t bad, and there’s at least one really good composite shot. Unfortunately, the exteriors are all soundstages, and while Charles Van Enger’s photography does okay, they’re visibly sets. Any related problems seem to be more director Barton’s.

Good music from Frank Skinner.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein doesn’t set itself a very high bar, but it does clear it. Lugosi alone makes it worth it.

Apartment for Peggy (1948, George Seaton)

Apartment for Peggy has a protagonist problem. It’s also got what seems to be a Production Code problem, but more on that one later (especially since it gets tangled with the protagonist problem). The film opens with retired university philosophy professor Edmund Gwenn dispassionately deciding he’s going to kill himself. He’s been working on his post-retirement book for eight years, and it’s almost done, his wife has passed away, and his son died in World War II. So he’s just taking up space.

Gwenn makes this decision no secret to his friends, who are all still teaching; the university’s dealing with the influx of G.I. Bill students and their wives (and sometimes families), so everything’s hopping. The friends are mortified, but what can they do. This plotline and character arc seem entirely problematic with the Code, so, right off, Peggy is making big swings.

Then Gwenn meets Jeanne Crain (Peggy). She’s a G.I. bride with a bun in the oven, and she’s about to lose her place to live. Her husband, William Holden, wants to be a school teacher and try to help make sure the next generation doesn’t end up in a war, too–Peggy will, at different times, be about generational clashes, classism, capitalism, and gender expectations; Seaton’s all over the place and gloriously so. Except Holden also wants to be able to put a roof over his family’s head, so he’s thinking about dropping out and going to Chicago to sell used cars.

The film never identifies its location, but it’s not far from Chicago, not even in 1948. A couple hours tops.

It turns out Gwenn’s got an empty attic—where he roomed soldiers during the war—and even though it’s a dirty disaster, Crain’s willing to clean it up to keep Holden in school and their dreams intact.

The film will go from being Gwenn’s story to—very, very briefly—Crain’s story, then back to Gwenn’s story, then, finally, Holden’s story. The finale is a narrative shrug where Seaton just relies on goodwill and humor, though the film’s punchline didn’t make it past the censors. You’ve just got to assume from body language and vague implications. Unless they were referencing some kind of contemporary advertising campaign for a product. But there are a few times scenes end early, like fading out mid-sentence; someone hacked at Apartment.

In addition to his surrogate family arc, Gwenn also gets a renewed professional interest one as the “Lost Generation” discovers the G.I. Brides are just as smart—if not smarter—than their husbands. It’s an excellent informed versus intelligent bit, and it’s probably the most successful plot in the film. Maybe because, even though it’s somewhat truncated too, it’s the most complete.

Crain’s turn as protagonist usually involves her doing something to help someone else. The film’s very big on altruism and how it clashes with post-war malaise and despondence. It’s fascinating, especially as Gwenn gives the impression of austere academic scholarship, and Crain’s back at him with big ideas and lots of slang. Seaton’s direction of Crain is to turn it up to eleven. Then he just lets the energy ricochet around the frame (which, obviously, is noticeably absent when Crain’s got her mostly offscreen character arc).

When Holden finally gets to play the lead, he too does most of his character developing offscreen, but since he’s the focus of Crain’s attention—no matter what’s happening in her life—and she and Gwenn are surrogate family now, Holden’s everyone’s attention. As a result, the movie goes from being about an old white guy realizing white guys shouldn’t be the focus only to focus on the young white guy. It’s unfortunate and very noticeably reductive.

It might just be the second act being too short. The film only runs ninety-six minutes. They could’ve done a bit more with Crain and Gwenn’s bonding, Gwenn and Holden’s bonding (they’ve got a great, long comedy scene assembling furniture together), and Gwenn’s professional pursuit. Not to mention Crain and Holden rarely get to be a couple when they’re not moving the plot along.

While some footage is clearly missing, the plotting’s occasionally jerky, and there are a handful of awkwardly composed one-shots (director Seaton and cinematographer Harry Jackson keep doing these bad higher angle shots), the first two acts of Peggy are entirely solid. By the increasingly troubled third act, the film’s got more than enough goodwill to carry it. And the performances aren’t all of a sudden bad; the parts just fail the actors. The changes affect everyone, from Crain being demoted when her story’s the most compelling, to a rash change in personality for Gwenn (though, arguably, the most reasonable change), to Holden finally having to confront his chemistry class problems.

They appear to be a lack of eye-hand coordination, an unlikely memory issue, and a complete inability to read his professor (an uncredited and very good Charles Lane).

The finish only works because the cast works so well. And worked so well for the previous ninety-five minutes.

The three leads are outstanding, with occasional hiccups, and it takes Seaton a while to reveal enough about Crain to explain her exuberant, boisterous personality. The main supporting cast is Gwenn’s pals, mainly Gene Lockhart and Griff Barnett; they’re good. And survive Seaton making them carry a bunch of the third act so he can avoid certain Code-unfriendly scenes with the main cast.

Apartment for Peggy could have been great, a singular mix of comedy and contemporary social issues affecting a wide demographical array. But, instead, it’s just good. It’s a success; it’s just not the success it seems like Seaton wanted it to be.

This post is part of the 5th William Holden Golden Boy Blogathon hosted by Emily of The Flapper Dame, Virginie of The Wonderful World of Cinema, and Michaela of Love Letters to Old Hollywood.

The Amazing Mr. X (1948, Bernard Vorhaus)

Around the halfway mark, The Amazing Mr. X gets a whole lot more interesting without ever being able to get much better. The film starts as a supernatural thriller, with widow Lynn Bari convinced her dead husband is calling to her, pissed off she’s getting close to accepting suitor Richard Carlson’s marriage proposal. Bari’s little sister, Cathy O’Donnell, is pressing her into accepting, while Bari secretly finds Carlson super-annoying. We know she finds him annoying because when she meets mentalist Turhan Bey on the beach, he can read her subconscious and reveal those grievances to her.

It’s a particular sequence with terrible composite shots—not just poorly matched as far as lighting. However, cinematographer John Alton’s achievement is basically never having a well-lighted scene or a well-composed angle on the composite shot. The angles on the backgrounds are wildly off, which might lend to an otherworldly, impressionist vibe, but director Vorhaus never goes for one. And then Bari’s terrible. Lots will change through Mr. X; the film’s got three major big twists, a couple big reveals, but the constant will always be Bari’s terrible performance. It’s not entirely her fault—Muriel Roy Bolton and Ian McLellan Hunter’s script is a combination of mysticism, deception, and light comedy; Vorhaus is particularly inept at the light comedy—but she’s still terrible. She’s never sympathetic, and pretty much everyone else, regardless of performance, manages to be sympathetic at one point or another.

If Bari were good, Mr. X. might be able to overcome its other failings like O’Donnell, Carlson, and Harry Mendoza. O’Donnell’s never good, but she’s enthusiastic; surprisingly, she was twenty-five in the film, she seems younger, not quite teenage but definitely not twenty-five. She’s particularly bad at the supernatural sequences. Actually, Bari’s better at them. O’Donnell plays them like there’s eventually going to be a punchline, which never arrives because it’s not actually light comedy no matter how much the script tries. Bari at least takes them seriously. But there’s some charm to O’Donnell’s failed approach, which gives Mr. X personality.

Especially after O’Donnell falls for Bey. She and Carlson have hired private investigator Mendoza (a real-life magician they presumably cast for his card tricks and not his screen presence; another mistake for the pile). His big idea to snoop on Bey is to get O’Donnell to go undercover for a reading. Except Bey’s able to see right through her subterfuge and instead seduces her.

That plot development—O’Donnell killing the investigation momentum—ought to stall out the picture but instead, Mr. X. does a deep dive into Bey. So the narrative focus goes from Bari to O’Donnell to Bey. It dollies back and widens the narrative in the third act, but it always keeps Bey in the proverbial shot. Partially because he’s the only one who knows everything going on once the third plot twist arrives, partially because he’s the only main actor giving a compelling performance. At the start, it seems like Bey’s going to be a stunt cast, an extended “exotic” cameo, with the focus being on Bari and Carlson… until the plot starts twisting and turning and Mr. X ceases to be predictable.

Even when there’s clarification and revelation, the film’s got another big twist waiting. It’s a neat plot. Shame the script’s bad; with a good script, Mr. X could probably get away with Vorhaus’s mostly inept direction, though it’d still need a better lead performance than Bari. Not even a great one, just a not always bad one.

Mr. X (which is a terrible title, especially since Bey’s name is “Alexis” and they never once lean on the “X”) is neat without ever being cute; a good idea victim of a too low budget, with a surprisingly excellent performance from Bey. He does a whole lot without any help from the director, the script, or his costars. Though O’Donnell’s mooning is believable enough, given the object of her affection.

Macbeth (1948, Orson Welles)

There are two classes of performance in Macbeth, those who can only handle a double r-rolling and those who go for a triple r-rolling. Director, star and screenwriter Welles gets to do the triple. As does Jeannette Nolan as Lady Macbeth. Everyone else is only doing the double r-roll for their Scottish accent. Like much of Macbeth, it’s a puzzling directorial decision from Welles. Though nothing’s more baffling than him taking the lead role. When Dan O’Herlihy gets his incredible monologue—I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Macbeth or read it because I think I’d remember the Holy Father (Alan Napier, in the film’s best performance) telling O’Herlihy his family’s “well” only to say “jk, Macbeth killed them all, why are you upset”—but when O’Herlihy gets that moment, it’s clear it’s the better part. At least in how Welles made Macbeth.

The film has a bunch of apparent constraints. Budget is the first and most obvious. The film’s primary location is a paper machete castle. Welles and cinematographer John L. Russell play with contrast throughout to compensate, and it often works. Macbeth’s often well-directed. It’s always cheap, but it’s often well-directed. One of the problems is when you visibly see Welles chafe against the budget. Instead of working through the specific constraint, he comes up with a universal fix (the lighting, dubbing the entire thing), and it might work for that one scene, but it sure doesn’t work everywhere. Welles hasn’t figured out how to be a low-budget filmmaker at this point.

Another significant constraint is the play itself. It’s not Welles’s fault Nolan goes from having a transfixing part in the first act to getting upstaged at every turn in the second and third. She’s one actor Welles trusts with the power of the triple r-roll (outside himself), and she gets looped by Peggy Webber and Lurene Tuttle. Webber, playing O’Herlihy’s doomed wife, has a meaty part, but Tuttle’s literally just describing Nolan’s behavior and ends up getting the better scene. Of course, by the third act, it’s clear Welles doesn’t have anything else up his sleeve, filmmaking-wise, but, unfortunately, Nolan is lashed tight to the film’s wanting ambitions.

Because the first act of Macbeth is ambitious as all hell. Another reason I don’t think I’ve read or seen Macbeth is not knowing how many common phrases come from the play, but also because it hopefully would’ve occurred to me Macbeth, at least in the first act (here and then the first two acts of the play itself), is film noir, actually. So much I thought it’s weird no one ever tried calling film noirs Macbeths. Obviously, by the finish, it doesn’t work; heck, it doesn’t work immediately after Macbeth starts losing it, but until then… it’s the best noir ever.

Welles plays Macbeth’s descent into madness as drunken guilt. Nolan’s concerned, but the guilt part doesn’t occur to her, so she just sees it as weakness. She’s not wrong, of course. Macbeth’s all about men with drinking problems and a variety of complexes at play. One big problem with Welles’s adaptation here is the lack of engagement in the descent. He and Nolan don’t deserve any sympathy, but Welles’s performance isn’t good enough to make it interesting without. Though—and I’ll admit I thought about the technology required to visualize it—if you imagine Welles is an original “Star Trek” Klingon dubbed in English… well, it kind of works. Especially since the cheap 1948 historical costume design, made for black and white, does look a lot like 1960s color TV costumes. Fred A. Ritter and Welles did the costumes. The guards look like Little Caesar. As in, pizza pizza. The capes and cloaks look like thin throw blankets or table clothes. The gowns are good, and Napier’s get-up is solid, but otherwise, not good. Sometimes silly.

Macbeth just can’t sustain itself. The other constraint—the Production Code—figures in a whole bunch, too; Welles’s take on the Weird Sisters is terrifying and effective, but it clearly could go so much further. And Welles knows it. Some of the shots are intentionally blurry to appease sensibilities, which sort of sums up the entire experience. If you broaden sensibilities enough to include the clear budget limitations.

The film does have its moments. Sadly none really for Welles after the first act; the trip out to see the Weird Sisters is lackluster, though the transition to it is solid and some of the direction is good, just unrealized. He’s boring as a guilt-ridden incompetent drunk. Nolan never gets to do anything anywhere near as good as in the first act, though her sleepwalking scene is still good. The first act stuff is too excellent to overcome. O’Herlihy’s fine. I kept wishing he’d be better. Great hair. Roddy McDowell’s disappointing, but it doesn’t seem to be his fault; Welles told him to lay into the rhyming.

I somehow managed to forget the rhyming stuff. Starting in the second act with McDowell trying to comfort O’Herlihy about his dead family (“bro, why you sad”), Welles all of a sudden decided the double r-roll class should try to emphasize rhymes when possible. They don’t do it until that point in the film but then do it for the rest. It’s like Welles figured the audience would have gotten used to the Scottish accents and would need something else to cringe through. Leveraging the rhyming really doesn’t work. Though would it be worth going all rhyming to get rid of the accents? The unanswerable questions.

There’s some excellent filmmaking in Macbeth, there’s some interesting filmmaking in Macbeth, but there’s mostly unsuccessful filmmaking in Macbeth. Welles does what he can with what he’s got; he later rationalized the project as an attempt to encourage other filmmakers to “tackle difficult subjects at greater speed” (it only took twenty-three days to shoot), but—and here’s the big problem—Welles just isn’t very good making a cheap, quick movie here. All of his impulses beg for big budget.

And when he doesn’t have it, he just gives up, and it’s a bummer.

This post is part of the No True Scotsman Blogathon hosted by Gill Of Realweegiemidget Reviews.

Superman (1948, Spencer Gordon Bennet and Thomas Carr)

Superman is a long fifteen chapters. The first two chapters are the “pilot.” They set up Kirk Alyn as Superman. He comes to Earth as a baby–with the Krypton sequences in the first chapter the most impressive thing in the entire serial–and grows up through montage to become Alyn. The first chapter has him heading off to Metropolis, intent on becoming a reporter so he can keep his ear to the ground for trouble. Except there’s trouble–a runaway train; wouldn’t you know it, Lois Lane (Noel Neill) and Jimmy Olsen (Tommy Bond) are on that very same train.

For a while, Superman keeps up the pretense its a special effects spectacular. Sure, Superman flying is just a cartoon, but there’s a lot of super-action. And then there’s less. And then there’s less. And the script doesn’t make up for it. Screenwriters Arthur Hoerl, Lewis Clay, and Royal K. Cole take away from Alyn and, eventually, Neill and Bond to focus on the villains. Because only the bad guys get any developments. They’ve got the schemes, they have all the new characters, they have all the action. Alyn, Neill, and Bond are mostly just cliffhanger bait.

The first two chapters of Superman set up the ground situation. They also introduce Perry White (Pierre Watkin), the Daily Planet, whatever else. Third chapter brings in villain Carol Forman. She’s playing the Spider Lady. Most of the cast is her gang of interchangeable thugs. Except George Meeker and Charles Quigley. Quigley because he’s a mad scientist, Meeker because he never gets to do anything except bicker with Forman. Wait; he does torture the good scientist (Herbert Rawlinson), but it’s offscreen. Chapter three also introduces the “Reducer Ray.” Superman has a mission from the government to protect it. But Forman wants to steal it.

At one point, she tries to steal it using a ray more powerful than the reducer ray. Superman’s short on sense.

Alyn foils most of Forman’s early schemes. Then she discovers Kryptonite. For a while, Alyn versus Kryptonite is a big part of Superman. He can’t rescue Bond because of Kryptonite, he can’t rescue Neill, whatever. Bond or Neill. One of them is always in trouble, usually for doing the exact same stupid thing they did to get in trouble before. By the end of the serial, Bond ought to have more rapport with the bad guys; he spends most of his screentime their captive.

After the Kryptonite plotline, Superman just becomes about Forman trying to get Quigley to try to get Rawlinson to do something with the reducer ray. Steal it, duplicate it, destroy it, something. And Watkin wants Neill, Bond, and Alyn to get to Quigley before the cops–even though everyone’s aware of Forman’s Spider Lady, she’s not the target of the investigation. There aren’t really any cops in Superman. The occasional flatfoot or jail guard, but otherwise, it’s all either Neill, Bond, and Alyn or Forman and her goons. Even when Alyn–as Superman–captures a goon, he’ll deliver them to the Daily Planet for interrogation instead of the cops. It’s a very, very strange system of criminal justice they’ve got in Metropolis. It’s also incredibly ineffective because, while Watkin can fight, Bond can’t. Neill can’t. Alyn can’t. Alyn’s never Superman when he needs to be. He’s always Clark Kent at the worst times. Sometimes intentionally. Alyn goes on the reducer ray transport mission–the one Superman’s supposed to be doing–as Clark Kent to cover the story.

Four screenwriters and they couldn’t come up with anything better. Directors Bennet and Carr wouldn’t have been able to handle much better though. Not with action. Their problems shooting action–specifically rising action and tension–are clear from the second chapter. They never improve. They may even get worse once the serial gets into the treading water portion of its chapters. Chapters nine through fifteen are pretty much indistinguishable from one another; the set pieces are never significant (except for Watkin’s fight scene). Superman frontloads its superhero action. Alyn gets a little bit more to do at the end–in chapter fifteen, not fourteen, they really wait for the end in fifteen–but it’s not spectacular. In fact, his great scheme to put a stop to Forman once and for all is something he could’ve done in chapter five. And spared us the rest of the serial.

Bennet and Carr end up showing a lot of aptitude for comedy. The bickering between Neill and Alyn is narratively problematic–even though there’s an indeterminate but at least a few months flashforward in chapter three, Neill and Alyn never act like they know each other any better than after they first meet. Four screenwriters and none of them can figure out how to write a scene for the two top-billed actors. Not even when Alyn’s Superman. Neill is passed out for nearly all of her rescues and only really gets to chitchat once. Before Alyn tells her to scoot off to her office. Because with the good guys, Alyn’s Superman is authoritative. With the bad guys he’s either vicious (which is at least interesting) or a complete goof. Alyn’s showdown with Forman is utterly anti-climatic. He’s grinning like a moron, she’s barely paying attention to him; not a great showdown.

And Forman’s been a lousy villain. Her grand plan isn’t even clear. She wants to extort money or maybe she doesn’t. In the first few chapters, Meeker and then Quigley tell her how wrong she is about everything and question all her orders. The scenes aren’t good but at least they have some energy. After Forman consolidates her power, things just get even more boring. Because then it’s just about waiting for things like raw materials for the reducer ray or just waiting for the ray’s battery to charge. And her underground lair, complete with an electrified spider web for unwanted visitors, is a boring set. Superman’s got a lot of boring sets, but Forman’s spider-cave is the worst. It might just be because the serial wastes so much time there.

Most of the acting is okay, without any of it being standout. Alyn, for instance, gets into a good groove as Clark Kent while Superman is getting less to do, but it doesn’t go anywhere. Same goes for Neill. She’s better than anyone else–except maybe Watkin, who’s awesome–but she’s still not able to get any momentum out of the role. The script doesn’t do character development. The best it does for the actors is one-off scenes; there’s one scene of screwball for Neill and Alyn and it’s great. There’s one scene of dread for Neill, as a reporter, and it’s great. The actors make the scenes happen–though the directors get both those examples too–but they’re just filler.

Bond is all right for a while but gets tiring. Towards the end he gets to be the crusading reporter–including threatening poor Mexican immigrants (Metropolis in this Superman, incidentally, is L.A.) and flying the Daily Planet airplane. He bosses Neill around, dives headfirst into dangerous situations, gets his ass kicked time and again. He was a lot more likable as Neill’s sidekick.

Forman’s not good, but she’s a lot worse at the start than by the end. Same goes for Quigley. Meeker’s pretty steady. So’s Rawlinson. Frank Lackteen is pretty good as Neill’s stoolie who dumps her to be Alyn’s stoolie. It’s more poorly written than weird, kind of like they wanted to have two characters but didn’t.

Technically, Superman’s fairly unimpressive. The cartoon flying Superman is never embraced. The set pieces rarely involve any superpowers. Sometimes super-strength. But the superpowers are usually only for when Alyn’s in the tights, meaning Clark Kent is played as a regular boring guy. Including when Alyn gets beat up by the goons while trying to save Neill. Why didn’t he change into his tights? Why didn’t he just beat up the bad guys while in his suit? Just another of Superman’s many logic mysteries.

Earl Turner’s editing is awful. Ira H. Morgan’s photography is fine. It’s either the same interiors (Superman reuses office sets a lot) or the same exteriors around the Columbia lot.

There’s clearly a lack of budget. There’s not much inventiveness to work within the constraints either.

Even with the always disappointing cliffhangers (and cliffhanger resolutions), the overemphasis on Forman and her goons, the utter lack of non-expository moments much less scenes, Superman almost gets through. For a while, the occasional Kirk Alyn Superman scenes payoff. For a while, it seems like there might be something for Neill to do.

Then, after the drag of the final six chapters, Superman rushes to a disappointing finish. The serial doesn’t just not make up for its losses, it goes out on bigger ones. Futzing the showdown with Forman should be the last straw, but somehow the screenwriters manage to make it even worse with a peculiar, “comedic” end tag. Directors Bennet and Carr, regardless of previous comedy prowess, do nothing to save it. Because it’s lost. But it’s also finally over.

Superman (1948) ch15 – The Payoff

The Payoff presumably refers to this chapter being the finale of Superman. There’s not much payoff otherwise. Spider Lady Carol Forman isn’t out to blackmail the city, she’s out to cause destruction. She’s given the Daily Planet four hours until she destroys it.

She’s has to give them four hours because the machine isn’t ready yet.

The chapter opens with Superman Kirk Alyn saving Noel Neill and her being conscious long enough to thank him. He’s let at least two people die in order to save her. After he tells her to get back to work, he cartoon flies into the building and changes outfits.

The chapter reuses a lot of Superman flying, Kirk Alyn changing clothes footage. It reuses some of it at least twice because as Neill, Tommy Bond, and Pierre Watkin try to figure out the Spider Lady’s plan, Alyn is popping in and out as Superman or Clark Kent.

The showdown between Forman and Alyn is about as impressive as one would expect for Superman, meaning not impressive at all.

The chapter ends on an odd note–a weak, mean joke. Certainly not a payoff moment.

There is, however, the best thing in the serial in terms of character development in this chapter. Neill starts writing an article about experiencing her impending doom. It’s about the only sincere thing in the serial’s fifteen chapters.

Superman (1948, Spencer Gordon Bennet and Thomas Carr), Chapter 15: The Payoff

She’s has to give them four hours because the machine isn’t ready yet.

The showdown between Forman and Alyn is about as impressive as one would expect for Superman, meaning not impressive at all.

The chapter ends on an odd note–a weak, mean joke. Certainly not a payoff moment.

Superman (1948) ch14 – Superman at Bay

Superman is never at bay in Superman at Bay. In fact, Superman’s barely in it. When Kirk Alyn does done the tights, it’s stock footage of him changing in the stock room and flying out the window. Same footage as last chapter.

The cliffhanger resolution is actually pretty good, with Pierre Watkin hanging off the side of the building, but then the chapter just switches over to Spider Lady antics. The bad guys are finally ready to do something bad, not just talk about it and prepare to do it. This time, they’re doing something, for sure.

Tommy Bond gets the most to do this chapter. He rushes into a dangerous situation (again), hides in an obvious place (again), gives himself away (again), and gets captured (again).

The only difference is he roughs up a private citizen to get the information. After he and Noel Neill chase a wanted man down the street and beat him up. This chapter of Superman stands out–there’s an actual cop or two.

It’s the penultimate chapter and Bay’s not bringing anything new to the table. It’s leaving a lot off the table–Alyn and Neill have bupkis to do–but it’s almost done. Presumably Superman will even show up next chapter.

Superman (1948, Spencer Gordon Bennet and Thomas Carr), Chapter 14: Superman at Bay

Tommy Bond gets the most to do this chapter. He rushes into a dangerous situation (again), hides in an obvious place (again), gives himself away (again), and gets captured (again).