DVD Review: The Adventures of Superman
By John Seal
May 21, 2007
BoxOfficeProphets.com
There are few, if any, more iconic fictional characters in American pop culture than Superman, and few more iconic thespians than George Reeves, the actor who portrayed The Man of Steel for six seasons during the early days of television. Reeves, whose career had gone into swift decline after a brief appearance in 1939's Gone With the Wind, was a second feature stalwart who suddenly rocketed to fame after donning the iconic cape and tights in 1951. Reeves wasn't a particularly good actor, but his chiseled good looks were tailor made for the role, and his ability to connect with the television audience each week with a knowing wink to the camera made him a star virtually overnight. Superman was both lifesaver and curse for the actor, who found himself in a creative straitjacket that ultimately led to the tragic circumstances recreated in the recent biopic Hollywoodland - and with the recent release by Warner Home Video of the final two seasons of The Adventures of Superman on DVD, we can fully explore all 104 episodes and begin to appreciate the crushing limitations placed on Reeves by the role.
The first package, Seasons 1 and 2, collects the glorious black and white episodes that most fans consider the best of the Superman series. It's difficult to mount a convincing counter-argument: there's definitely a harder edge to these adventures, with Superman trying to solve the mystery of The Haunted Lighthouse (the genuinely creepy Episode 1.2), abandoning a pair of baddies atop a snow-capped mountain (Episode 1.13, The Stolen Costume), and confronting some mighty strange characters in a rundown hotel (Episode 1.19, The Evil Three). By Season 2, the rougher edges were being sanded off the scripts, and there are more of the lightweight adventures that would dominate Seasons 3 and 4, including the insipid morality tale The Boy Who Hated Superman (Episode 2.17), in which aspiring juvenile delinquent Frankie is taught a valuable lesson by our hero, and the super saccharine Around the World With Superman (Episode 2.26), in which Supes gives a crippled girl a very special flight around the world - and some very dubious geography lessons. The first two seasons also featured Phyllis Coates as Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane, and in my opinion - which will be considered anathema by some - she's far better in the role than her perky replacement, Noel Neill.
In Seasons 3 and 4, the show made the transition to color - though the episodes still aired in black and white - and the 'kid-oriented' subject matter was ratcheted up further, alternately emphasizing the comic misadventures of cub reporter Jimmy Olsen (Episode 3.4, Superman Week; Episode 3.7, Olsen's Millions; and others) and tugging at the heartstrings via the plight of abandoned animals (Episode 4.1, Joey) or children in peril (Episode 4.2, The Unlucky Number). This mawkish turn saw the series reach low ebb, and many of the episodes also suffer from an over-reliance on routine crime-solving, begging the question: why would any gang of hoodlums, no matter how dim-witted, try to commit a crime in Metropolis with Superman lurking inside every utility closet? Though the novelty of color offers some consolation, Seasons 3 and 4 certainly suffer in comparison to Seasons 1 and 2. Nonetheless, patient viewers will be rewarded by a few sterling efforts, including the memorable Episode 4.8, The Wedding of Superman, wherein Lois nearly gets to tie the knot with Krypton's most eligible bachelor.
Seasons 5 and 6 mark a subtle but welcome shift away from police procedural towards threats more befitting the attention of a super hero. Though there are still a number of routine episodes centered around garden variety felonies, even something as bland as an arson investigation (Episode 5.7, Money to Burn) is rendered intriguing by the twist: two villains use the cover of a mobile lunch wagon, 'The Fireman's Friend', to steal $12,000 from The Daily Planet payroll. In The Town That Wasn't (Episode 5.3), writer Wilton Schiller constructed a plot device that would have made The Avengers' Brian Clemens green with envy - a mobile town used by crooks as a speed trap - and in the very last episode of them all, All That Glitters, Jimmy and Lois bend steel with their bare hands and leap across tall buildings thanks to some very special 'anti-Kryptonite' tablets!
Considerable - some might say over-effusive - praise has been heaped on the series' beloved cast members over the years, including upon my own personal favorite, John Hamilton (lovable sourpuss editor Perry White). As mentioned above, I prefer the icy Phyllis Coates to Noel Neill as Lois Lane, but you won't hear a word of criticism from me about Jack Larson, perfectly cast as clueless shutterbug Jimmy Olsen. As for Robert Shayne (Inspector Henderson), he must have had a pretty sweet contract deal, as his name appears in every credit crawl, though he only actually appears in 25 of the series' 104 episodes. Some of the other actors who helped make the series a successful one also deserve belated acknowledgement, including plug ugly Ben Welden (eight appearances as thick-skulled but ultimately kindly henchmen), Sterling Holloway (briefly a series regular in Seasons 2 & 3), and dear old Phil Tead (Professor Pepperwinkle in half a dozen Season 5 & 6 outings.)
As far as extras go, they're lean on the Season 1 and 2 set and near non-existent by Season 5 and 6. Commentaries featured on several of the black and white episodes (The Haunted Lighthouse, The Stolen Costume) are provided by super-fans Gary Grossman and Chuck Harter, as well as by Noel Neill and Jack Larson, but there are no commentaries after Season 2. That may be a blessing of sorts, however, as the commentary tracks we DO get are strictly of the fawning variety, and provide very little in the way of interesting production information or backstage tidbits. The Season 3/4 box includes a pair of brief featurettes, Faster Than A Speeding Bullet: The Special Effects, and Adventures of Superman: The Color Era, and the Season 5/6 box includes a short but fairly interesting segment entitled The Boy Who Knew Superman, which focuses on the career of actor Jack Larson. After that, all we get is a teaser for a new videogame, which probably isn't going to interest most of the baby boomers who are the target demographic for these sets.
These attractively packaged discs are sunnily nostalgic tributes to Superman and George Reeves, with nary a hint of the actor's untimely demise and no discussion of interesting if arcane technical quirks such as the tattered and torn intro sequence or the color 'dimming' that marks scene transitions. For fans of Superman, Reeves, or early television in general, however, these discs remain essential purchases. Others, however, will still get a kick out of some of Superman's more outre adventures, and for those folks, a rental will probably suffice.