The 1978 Richard Donner "Superman" film gets a lot of credit for spurring a new era of superhero movies, but the man of steel had been appearing on screens for some 37 years by the time Christopher Reeve donned the cape and wore the underwear over the tights. Indeed, these precursors were more childish. First, there were the cartoon short films, which included 17 entries between 1941 and 1943. Next came the serials (in 1948 and 1950)--the serial essentially being a theatrical format for TV shows before televisions were a common household feature. Once they became popular, Supes moved to the small screen in the "Adventures of Superman" during the 1950s. Before that, there was this pilot episode, which was first released theatrically (reportedly, to at least recoup production costs in case the TV show wasn't greenlit)--making it, I suppose, the first feature-length Superman movie.
The production and technical values here entirely belong to the era of 1950s TV (or prior serials), with nothing of particular cinematic quality to recommend it. The effects and editing to accomplish Superman's feats are basic, the stagings take place on some studio backlot, and a script full of talking (despite the story's inclusion of a mute race of men) along with an obtrusive generic score fill in the vacuum of where more cinematic scope would exist in later Superman movies. This predecessor, by contrast, is little more than a mechanically-recorded stage play. And not a particularly good one in either respect, as a play or as a recording. The sound effects are especially atrocious.
As for the play, it does a sloppy service to the dual narratives of Superman and Clark Kent--superhero and newspaper reporter. The Clark alter ego here merely serves a contrived investigative purpose, as he, once again, coincidence ad nauseam, happens upon a situation requiring his secret superpowers. The early '40s cartoons, on the other hand, integrated the duality well. The first, Oscar-nominated one, "Superman" (1941), created a meta-narrative where the story was framed as a newspaper article authored by the character Lois Lane. Not so here. Instead, Lois comes across as the most ineffectual investigative journalist on the planet. She repeatedly acknowledges Clark's absences during Superman's exploits, but fails to follow up on it. And, otherwise, she's an entirely superfluous character in this one. Even worse, Supes/Clark and Lois conspire to squash the very story we see here; that is, they plan to cover it up by not reporting on it. Way to take a stand on "truth, justice and the American way" for the fourth estate, guys.
That story involves mole men coming to the surface after an oil drill breaks through their subterranean habitat. Ridiculously, these creatures are portrayed by little people wearing obvious bald caps, silly hair pieces, claw-shaped gloves and bad makeup, while wandering about the surface with mute childlike wonder. Unfortunately for them, they're exploring a jerkwater town full of bigoted hicks eager to kill them. Literally, they form a lynch mob. Fortunately for them, there's already a secret but powerful alien living among Earth's surface dwellers and who, thus, sympathizes with their plight. Of course, the hicks shoot at and try to beat him up, too, but Supes tolerates none of that. In the end, Superman and the mole men come to the solution to resegregate the two races of man, with the little people returning to their world below and leaving the above to Superman and the residents of Silsby.
The only interest I find in any of this is to read it as either some sort of "Red Scare" parable along the lines of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (also from 1951) or as a perverse commentary on race relations and segregation, with the mole men either standing in for the Soviets or African Americans and other racial minorities. Regardless, it's too simplistic and poorly constructed to be especially intriguing. Order restored, Superman and the Mole Men would return to the diminutive planet of boob-tube screens (being re-released there as two episodes of the TV series), leaving theatrical venues to grander cinematic productions.
The production and technical values here entirely belong to the era of 1950s TV (or prior serials), with nothing of particular cinematic quality to recommend it. The effects and editing to accomplish Superman's feats are basic, the stagings take place on some studio backlot, and a script full of talking (despite the story's inclusion of a mute race of men) along with an obtrusive generic score fill in the vacuum of where more cinematic scope would exist in later Superman movies. This predecessor, by contrast, is little more than a mechanically-recorded stage play. And not a particularly good one in either respect, as a play or as a recording. The sound effects are especially atrocious.
As for the play, it does a sloppy service to the dual narratives of Superman and Clark Kent--superhero and newspaper reporter. The Clark alter ego here merely serves a contrived investigative purpose, as he, once again, coincidence ad nauseam, happens upon a situation requiring his secret superpowers. The early '40s cartoons, on the other hand, integrated the duality well. The first, Oscar-nominated one, "Superman" (1941), created a meta-narrative where the story was framed as a newspaper article authored by the character Lois Lane. Not so here. Instead, Lois comes across as the most ineffectual investigative journalist on the planet. She repeatedly acknowledges Clark's absences during Superman's exploits, but fails to follow up on it. And, otherwise, she's an entirely superfluous character in this one. Even worse, Supes/Clark and Lois conspire to squash the very story we see here; that is, they plan to cover it up by not reporting on it. Way to take a stand on "truth, justice and the American way" for the fourth estate, guys.
That story involves mole men coming to the surface after an oil drill breaks through their subterranean habitat. Ridiculously, these creatures are portrayed by little people wearing obvious bald caps, silly hair pieces, claw-shaped gloves and bad makeup, while wandering about the surface with mute childlike wonder. Unfortunately for them, they're exploring a jerkwater town full of bigoted hicks eager to kill them. Literally, they form a lynch mob. Fortunately for them, there's already a secret but powerful alien living among Earth's surface dwellers and who, thus, sympathizes with their plight. Of course, the hicks shoot at and try to beat him up, too, but Supes tolerates none of that. In the end, Superman and the mole men come to the solution to resegregate the two races of man, with the little people returning to their world below and leaving the above to Superman and the residents of Silsby.
The only interest I find in any of this is to read it as either some sort of "Red Scare" parable along the lines of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (also from 1951) or as a perverse commentary on race relations and segregation, with the mole men either standing in for the Soviets or African Americans and other racial minorities. Regardless, it's too simplistic and poorly constructed to be especially intriguing. Order restored, Superman and the Mole Men would return to the diminutive planet of boob-tube screens (being re-released there as two episodes of the TV series), leaving theatrical venues to grander cinematic productions.