1940's Batman serials

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1940's Batman serials

Postby CheMateo » Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:43 pm

Hey WannaB I'm not sure if we ever touched on the original Batman films themselves. Columbia pictures released two Batman serials, one in 1943 entitled Batman and Batman & Robin in 1949. I have the 1943 serial on VHS somewhere, I got it from Toys R Us some time ago.

These serials consisted of a bunch of 15-minute "chapters" that usually left you with a cliffhanger to keep you coming back the following week. Some of the ideas in the serials were actually adapted from the comics. The Batman serials had a bit of a campy appeal to them but not the nth degree as the 60's TV show. Due to budget restrictions the Batmobile is nothing more than an ordinary car.

The 1943 Serial Batman starred Daka, a Japanese man, as the main villain. There is quite a bit of racism in this movie due to the fact it was produced around the time of World War II. But my VHS copies were changed to be more PC. I hope to pick up the uncensored DVD copies.

Here is a brief overview from IMDB...Dr. Daka is a Japanese mastermind of a wartime espionage-sabotage group. Daka has a radium-powered death ray that pulverizes walls, a classic alligator pit to dispose of enemies, and can turn men into electronic zombies who do his bidding and transmit video signals to Daka's lab! Can Batman & Robin bring down this elaborate espionage ring?

An interesting note is that this 1943 serial alludes to the fact that Batman is some sort of secret government agent.

I found a trailer for it...the best part is when Batman gets thrown down an elevator shaft! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4LD2HDCqkY

I have never seen the 1949 serial, so I look forward to getting around to watching it some time soon.
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Re: 1940's Batman serials

Postby TigerDriver98 » Wed Jan 30, 2008 4:24 pm

CheMateo wrote:The 1943 Serial Batman starred Daka, a Japanese man, as the main villain. There is quite a bit of racism in this movie due to the fact it was produced around the time of World War II. But my VHS copies were changed to be more PC. I hope to pick up the uncensored DVD copies.


Wow, were those the VHS tapes made by "GoodTimes"? I have those and used to watch both of those serials a lot as kid. I never knew that those copies were the edited versions. I'll have to get around to getting the uncensored versions someday. I wonder what was edited out exactly, as the "edited version" is still not very sensitive to the Japanese either.

One think I liked about these serials was that Batman and Robin would sometimes get their asses kicked by normal old hired goons. The main villains of both serials were real good too. Daka was an evil bastard, you were glad when he went out the way he did...
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Re: 1940's Batman serials

Postby CheMateo » Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:12 pm

TigerDriver98 wrote:Wow, were those the VHS tapes made by "GoodTimes"? I have those and used to watch both of those serials a lot as kid. I never knew that those copies were the edited versions. I'll have to get around to getting the uncensored versions someday. I wonder what was edited out exactly, as the "edited version" is still not very sensitive to the Japanese either.

One think I liked about these serials was that Batman and Robin would sometimes get their asses kicked by normal old hired goons. The main villains of both serials were real good too. Daka was an evil bastard, you were glad when he went out the way he did...
Wow! You are the only other person I know that has those same GoodTimes Batman serials. Cool.

There are so many good bits from that serial. As I've gotten older I did notice that some of those goons did seem a bit too old to be beating up a young and spry Batman & Robin.

I also liked the use of stock footage. I don't know if you recall when Chuck White was walking around, Daka's henchmen tried to run him over with a truck at night. Yet the footage of a truck crashing clearly shows that it is in broad daylight.

In the early chapters Batman is fighting off the bad guys and his cape falls off but when they cut back it has magically reattached itself. In regards to the elevator shaft, it never fails to crack me up. Batman falls down a good three or four stories. As he falls down his legs get some what entangled and he crashes face first on the concrete. Yet when he gets up there is not a mark on him, no bloody nose-nothing.

Oh in respect to the racism. I found an old Batman book I had which covered the history of Batman from his comic book origins up until the end of the 60's series and syndication. The books was released around the time the first Tim Burton movie came out. I wish I could've got the updated version which came out in conjunction with Batman Returns as it went a bit further. Anyway, the serial has heavy usage of the word Jap. In fact when one of the henchmen tries to defect from Daka, he pulls out a gun and tells Daka to open the door. Daka obliges. The henchman says something to the effect "That's the kind of answer I'd expect. The same as your skin." It is just said to be full of racial slurs and what not.
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Re: 1940's Batman serials

Postby TigerDriver98 » Fri Feb 01, 2008 6:57 pm

CheMateo wrote:I also liked the use of stock footage. I don't know if you recall when Chuck White was walking around, Daka's henchmen tried to run him over with a truck at night. Yet the footage of a truck crashing clearly shows that it is in broad daylight.

In the early chapters Batman is fighting off the bad guys and his cape falls off but when they cut back it has magically reattached itself. In regards to the elevator shaft, it never fails to crack me up. Batman falls down a good three or four stories. As he falls down his legs get some what entangled and he crashes face first on the concrete. Yet when he gets up there is not a mark on him, no bloody nose-nothing.


Yeah, flaws like that are very funny (Chuck White was awesome btw). I guess they never expected anyone to ever see this stuff again after the original run, so they didn't care too much about it.

One thing I always hated about movie serials is when they would close out the chapter with a cliffhanger that shows something terrible happening to the character (such as them actually falling to their death), but when they start the next chapter it shows something entirely different happening (like them grabbing on a ledge that wasn't there at the end of the last chapter) so they can make it out alive. But again, I guess they never expected anyone to be able to watch these back to back to tell the difference.

Serials are fun overall though. But they must have been a real bitch to follow back in the old days.
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