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Date: 10/5/2017
On Blu-ray: The Adventures of Captain Marvel
Although movie serials are available on DVD, this is the first time in many years that a commercial company, Kino-Lorber, has taken the time and effort to present a restored edition of a serial. They chose what is commonly thought as the best serial ever made, “The Adventures of Captain Marvel” (1941) and did a great job in delivering a crystal clear picture.
I should back up for a moment, as some of you may not have any idea of just what a movie serial was. From the silent era until the mid-1950s studios produced adventure or mystery films that were shown in 15-minute chapters each ending with an unresolved bit of narrative – a cliffhanger. The idea was that you would want to come back to the theater next week to see if the hero or heroine was able to get out of the jam in which the villain had placed them.
Silent serials enjoyed a wide audience but by the time the format made it to sound, they were aimed mostly at kids, although I’m sure there were adults who liked them too.
Three studios made the bulk of the serials from 1930 to 1956: Universal, Columbia and Republic. Generally most serial fans would tell you today the Universal serials were long on talk and short on action, the Columbias always looked cheap, and the Republics were the best.
Republic was known for its B- Westerns – it discovered both Gene Autry and Roy Rogers – but it was the industry leader in serials. The little studio made some great ones, including “Spy Smasher,” Daredevils of the Red Circle,” and “The Mysterious Dr. Satan, among others, but it’s best was also its most unusual: “The Adventures of Captain Marvel.”
The serial came about in a convoluted way. Republic sought the rights to make a “Superman” serial as in 1941 Superman was a red hot pop culture phenomena. The problem is that DC Comics, Superman’s publishers, wanted too much script control and the deal feel apart. The publishers of “Captain Marvel,” which was closely rivaling “Superman” in sales, contacted Republic when he heard the news and offered his superhero.
Republic’s writers now had a challenge in that they had a hero who couldn’t be destroyed apparently, which made those cliffhangers a bit more difficult. They succeeded as the serial is probably one of the best written in the genre.
Captain Marvel is actually teenaged Billy Batson, who with the utterance of the word “Shazam” transforms into a super-powered hero for good. In the film, Captain Marvel appears to battle the villain The Scorpion who wants to get his hands on an ancient devise that turns rocks into gold or can be a death ray.
Casting veteran child actor Frank Coughlin Jr. as Billy Batson was great, but casting action star Tom Tyler as the Captain was sublime. Unlike the comic books in which Captain Marvel was a good-natured sort, cracking jokes as he defeated bad guys, Tyler’s Marvel was an angel of vengeance who didn’t balk at throwing a car engine at a thug. Both Coughlin and Tyler give solid performances.
Captain Marvel could fly in the comics and thanks to the amazing special effects by Howard and Theodore Lydecker as well as the work of the crown prince of Hollywood stuntmen David Sharpe, the illusion of flight remains impressive to this day.
This was the first live action adaptation of comic book superhero in the movies and it doesn’t have the in-fighting or the angst of today’s superhero movies. Instead it is simplistic joy: good guys versus bad guys.
The extras are commentary from a variety of film historians with Tom Weaver, Jerry Beck, Boyd Majers, Leonard Maltin and Bob Burns as the best.
So if you would like some retro superhero thrills in warm black and white and paced 15 minutes at time, seek out this great serial.
On DVD and streaming: Batman and Harley Quinn
I’ve long been a fan of the “Batman: The Animated Series,” and this new feature continues the look and some of the voice actors from the original series.
It is, though, conceivably the first animated Batman film that could be rated at least a “PG-13,” if not “R.”
In the film, Poison Ivy has teamed up with the Floronic Man in a scheme to turn every non-plant living thing on earth into a plant. The only way for Batman and Nightwing – the grown-up Robin – to find Poison Ivy is to enlist the aid of her former best friend, Harley Quinn, who is now out of prison and working as a waitress.
Okay. That sounds like a standard superhero adventure, right? Well in this one, Harley Quinn and Nightwing get “busy” in way that certainly surprised me.
The middle of the film takes a sudden departure in tone when an entire sequence pays homage to the Adam West version of “Batman.”
The result of the fairly explicit material plus the campy moments makes this production a little odd to say the least. That’s not saying I didn’t enjoy it, but then I’ve been a Batman fan since age six and I’ll give most any Batman a chance.
Be aware this production is definitely not for children.