Clark Kent is a seemingly ordinary reporter for the Daily Planet newspaper, but in reality he can change into Superman and use his superpowers to stop crime and save people, mostly his colleague, Lois Lane. 1st story: a mad scientist wants to use a laser gun from his laboratory on a hill to destroy the city, but Superman stops him. 2nd story: another scientist uses his inventions, a dozen 10ft tall robots, to rob banks and jewels. 3rd story: a giant, frozen Dinosaur is found in Siberia and brought to Metropolis. However, the machine keeping it frozen malfunctions, the ice melts and the unleashed Dinosaur starts wrecking havoc in the city, until Superman stops him and brings him to a Zoo.
Not even three years after its debut in DC Comics, Superman already enjoyed its first media adaptation in Dave and Max Fleischer's eponymous animated series in 1941, which paved the way for numerous superhero films, while also establishing some of Superman's trademarks, including his flying abilities. The three short animated films, each with around a 10 minute of running time, are an interesting example of Fleischers' skills, though with a restrained imagination, since they seem to have a rather too simplistic, too schematic storyline: a villain shows up; Lois Lane is in trouble; Superman saves the day, the end. It thus leaves only 2-3 lines for each of the characters, which feels like a 'rump' edition of their characters. The traces of rotoscopic animation have their charms, yet not all scenes are equally as fluid: for instance, the green Tyrannosaurus in "The Arctic Giant" is as goofy looking as a Donald Duck cartoon, especially in its "rubbery" interaction with a bridge or a dam. The Fleischers' do not reach their high levels from "Popeye Meets Ali Baba's 40 Thieves" or "Gulliver's Travels", yet some moments here display their "director's instinct": for instance, "The Mechanical Monsters" starts off in medias res, showing a broken window of a bank and the shadow of the perpetrator, a plane-robot, flying over the city until the door opens to invite him into the castle of the bad guy. The 1st film, "The Mad Scientist", is done with the most care, carefully establishing the set-up, while also featuring at least one memorable image (the laser ray, fired from a laboratory on a hill at night, chops away the bottom of the building, but Superman prevents its fall), yet all these adventures lack humor, wit and energy to truly come to full expression, in the full sense of the word.
Grade:++
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