Holy Homage!

Holy Homage!

Saturday, 6 September 2014

"With these bells we better get out of here. We don't want the police to catch us in these outfits." - Robin


BATMAN - The 1943 Serial
1943 - imdb (link) 

In his first screen appearance, the Caped Crusader of Gotham City (belying the lethargic facade of his alter ego Bruce Wayne) battles Dr. Daka, Japanese mastermind of a wartime espionage-sabotage group.


Cast

Batman/Bruce Wayne - Lewis Wilson
Robin/Dick Grayson - Douglas Croft
Alfred Pennyworth - William Austin
Dr Tito Daka - J. Carrol Nash
Linda Page - Shirley Patterson

Director - Lambert Hillyer

Writers - Victor McCloed, Leslie Swabacker & Harry L. Fraser



"High atop one of the hills which ring the teaming metropolis of Gotham City, a large house rears its bulk against the dark sky. Outwardly there's nothing to distinguish this house from many others, but deep in the cavernous basements of this house is a chamber hewn from the living rock of the mountainside, strange, dimly lighted, mysteriously secret bat cave headquarters of America's #1 crimefighter, Batman! Yes, Batman, clad in the somber costume which has struck terror to the heart of many swaggering denizens of the Underworld. Batman, who is even now pondering a plan of a new assault against the forces of crime, a crushing blow against evil, in which he will have the valuable aid of his young, two-fisted assistant, Robin, the Boy Wonder. They represent American youth who love their country and are glad to fight for it, whereever crime raises its ugly head to strike with the venom of a maddened rattlesnake. Batman and Robin strike also, and in this very hour when the Axis criminals are spreading their evil over the world, even in our own land, Batman and Robin stand ready to fight them to the death" - The Narrator


26 comments:

  1. Suddenly it becomes war-time propaganda. "For youths who are proud to fight for their country!"

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like this early 40s Batman - he only operates in daylight!

    ReplyDelete
  3. The House of Horrors appears to be less a ghost train, more a Japanese soldier train.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This series first a couple of Batfirsts - 'The Bat's Cave' - very nice it is too - and the pencil tached Alfred, super-chauffeur.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The World's Greatest Detective getting a bit of a hand there by the bad guys just coincidentally walking past him in the street.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Although to be fair they probably needed to shave some plot to make way for that 6 hour villain introduction

      Delete
  6. Well...Batman got a sound pasting!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Alfred's reading 'Detective Magazine'...lovely fourth wall break.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Bullying in the workplace. Poor Alfred.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'd like to think that the 'Batman' mark that he leaves on the foreheads of the criminals is a permanent tattoo.

    ReplyDelete
  10. If all else fails, speed up the footage.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Can't believe Bale's Batman didn't use the put-an-advert-in-the-paper ploy.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Into part three and the villain's becoming far more scientific supervillain - while Wayne and Grayson are making the most of their lounging round Wayne Manor. Very Bob Kane, but without the pipe-smoking.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Robin comes across as a massive liability in all this.

    ReplyDelete
  14. They do wall-scale far better than the TV series would 2 decades later...

    ReplyDelete
  15. Easy to see, but also quite difficult, why this Alfred became so iconic they've used him in the comic ever since!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Chapter 5 - The Living Corpse.

    ReplyDelete
  17. It's good of the Japanese to all speak English, even when talking to each other.

    ReplyDelete
  18. So that's Japanese, Indian and Native American checked off the casual racism list. Who's next?

    ReplyDelete
  19. I can't imagine Michael Caine's Alfred would put up with this shit.

    ReplyDelete