The

'S

(1943) Columbia Pictures  15 chapter serial  Director: Lambert Hilyer  Starring: Douglas Wilson, Lewis Croft, and J. Carrol Naish

Y'know...I mentioned before in a review (in my piece on "Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula") that there are certain subgenres of film that are lost to us. The cliffhanger serial of the Saturday matinee being the one most missed....by me at least. In  the days before television (my father likes to refer to this era as being "the Good Ol' " days, but according to him, they did alot of walking to school uphill both directions in the snow, and manual labor was encouraged amongst the minors of one's family unit...so I fail to see how they were any better than today), back when they waved Ol' Glory down at the courthouse and they didn't take their trips on LSD, one recieved entertainment through the media of radio and the moving picture show. Now, in this Nintendo and BetaMax-less enviroment, kids were fairly easily amused.  My father speaks of his ball glove and Boy's Life magazines in much the same tones that I speak of AFX racetracks and Pong.  Basically, they were pretty good time-killers.  But for real excitement, one went on Saturday mornings to see the Cliffhangers...

Cliffhangers were...well, pretty much what we take for granted in episodic television today.  Each week, your local theatre would present one chapter of the on-going saga of the era's favorite heroes (so...comic book characters and radio show vigilantes were fodder for the Hollywood machine of the time....just like today, only cheaper).  Imagine, if you will, the STAR WARS saga being played one episode at a time once a week at the local cinaplex.  Lucas's little brainchild is the closest thing to the serials we have today.  Anyways, the Plot:

Batman (Lewis Wilson) and Robin (Douglas Croft) have a pretty good set-up, the millionaire playboy gig and all.  Add one goofy butler for comic relief and ya pretty much have their story.  This time around (remember, it's 1943 and the Big One is still on) they are special agents for the U.S. government, not only striking fear into the criminal element of Gotham City, but bashing up sabotuers real good for a side job.  Enter one Doctor Daka, Stereotypical Yellow Terror Menace, portrayed by J. Carrol Naish, who would later go on to become part of Al Adamson's magnum opus, Dracula versus Frankenstein.  He's creating an army of zombies (not as thrilling as you'd think) for Imperial Japan to overrun the good ol' U.S. of A. and smash our defenses.  Daka, in his insane quest to see domination of America by the Land of the Rising Sun, uses said zombies, mind-control helmets, atomic ray pistols (which are always the best kind, because steam powered ray pistols just don't have the range and alot more recoil), and some typical tweed suit and fedora wearing hench-guys in 15 thrilling chapters against the Dynamic Duo...who always escape to win out in the end. The End. Irony Dept.:  It seems that this particular BATMAN is one of the few film adaptation of DC Comics' characters that DC's parent company, Warner Bros., doesn't have the video release rights to.  Who does?  Columbia Pictures, whose parent company is Sony, straight from the land of sushi and Ultraman...aka Japan.  During the big Batmania revival of 1989, Sony decides is gonna re-release this flick on VHS (this would be the Goodtimes Home Video 2 tape set, I believe), but.... The original version of this serial is laced to the brim with wartime, anti-Japanese propaganda, so Sony decides to alter it somewhat.  Check out the first chapter for some unintentionally hilarious re-dubbed dialouge...hell, if ya get a chance to see an unaltered version of this thing, you'll notice there's a good 3 to 4 minutes of missing from the first chapter, mostly a voiceover proclaiming in no short words Japanese people of the time to be almost less than human!  Probably one of the skeletons in the Cave (don't get me started on Aunt Harriette and the idea of a grown running around with a boy in tights...hee hee) that Bats would rather forget, but highly reccommended for fans of super-heroic adventure...just please, view it with an open mind.  Can't we all just get along?