Superman is a 15-part black-and-white Columbia film serial based on Superman. It stars an uncredited Kirk Alyn (billed only by his character name, Superman; but credited on the promotional posters) and Noel Neill as Lois Lane. It is notable as the first live-action appearance of Superman on film. It was originally screened at movie matinées and after the first three scene-setting chapters, every episode ends in a cliffhanger. The Superman-in-flight scenes are animations, in part due to the small production budget. It was followed in 1950 with Atom Man vs. Superman.
Plot[]
Superman is sent to Earth by his parents just as the planet Krypton blows up and is later raised as Clark Kent by a farm couple. After his foster parents die, the Man of Steel heads to Metropolis under the bespectacled guise of Kent and joins the staff of the Daily Planet in order to be close to the news. Whenever emergencies happen, he responds in his true identity as Superman. This first serial revolves around the nefarious plot of a villain who calls herself the Spider Lady.
Summary[]
Superman Comes to Earth[]
Krypton and its ring of moons, seen from space.
The Kryptonian skyline.
Clark, as a young boy, using his super-strength to help his father work.
Jor-El discovers that the planet Krypton is being drawn closer to its star, which is creating gravitational pressure that will soon tear the planet apart. He tries to convince the council that the planet is doomed, but they vote against his proposal to create a fleet of ships to escape the planet.
Jor-El and his wife Lara send their son, Kal-El to Earth on the prototype space ship Jor-El had been building.
When the baby arrives on Earth, he is adopted by Mary and Eben Kent. As he gets older, it becomes apparent young Clark is not an ordinary child, displaying incredible feats.
When Clark reaches adulthood, his parents have a talk with him, telling him to leave the farm and go to Metropolis, where his powers will be the most beneficial. Mary gives him the Superman costume she made from his impervious Kryptonian fabrics.
Clark heads for Metropolis, just as Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane take the train to cover a mine accident. Clark spots their train, and notices that the rail is broken. He changes to Superman and prepares to go into action.
Depths of the Earth[]
Superman.
Superman fixes the rail and then goes clear underneath the train. Before anyone can find him, he changes to Clark and resumes his trip to Metropolis.
There, he rescues some victims of a fire, before finding the Daily Planet, the city's biggest and best newspaper, and barging into Managing Editor Perry White's office.
He asks for a job, and White interrupts to take a phone call. The call is from Lois, who's trying to get into a collapsed mine. Clark claims he can get into the mine, and Perry agrees to give him a job if he can.
Clark arrives at the scene, where he meets Jimmy Olsen. Lois, meanwhile, has followed a local man who's showed her a way into the tunnel, and now she's trapped as well. Clark changes to Superman to intervene.
The Reducer Ray[]
The Spider Lady.
Superman manages to save Lois and the others trapped in the mine, carrying them to safety one at a time. As Clark, he then scoops Lois on the story.
Time goes by, with Superman becoming a more established hero. He defeats many crooks and other villains.
The government gives Superman the assignment of protecting the Relativity Reducer Ray, which is a new weapon being tested in the desert. Superman agrees, and interferes with some criminals' attempt to steal it using a magnetic ray.
The criminals work for The Spider Lady, who is apparently the queen of the Metropolis underworld. She plans to find a way to defeat Superman.
Man of Steel[]
A meteor comes to Earth, and it falls into the hands of Dr. Leeds, a scientist and astronomer, who examines it and classifies it as a piece of the destroyed planet Krypton.
Clark Kent, having been ditched by Lois, meets with Dr. Leeds who shows him the meteor. The meteor is a glowing rock which immediately causes Kent to collapse. Leeds sees that he is not breathing and thinks him dead, but when the cover is replaced he revives.
Clark reveals that he is Superman and asks the Leeds' help by destroying the rock. Leeds agrees to discard it after two days of scientific study.
Leeds' assistant overhears this, and reports to The Spider Lady, expecting to be paid for the information. Lois Lane sees him getting into a car with the criminals and interferes, thinking he's being kidnapped. She, too, is kidnapped, and taken to the Spider Lady.
After the Spider Lady gets the information, she pays him one dollar. The man is insulted, so she has him killed, electrocuted on her spider's web. She then orders Lois killed in the same manner.
A Job for Superman![]
At the last second, Spider Lady spares Lois' life. Lois meets the Spider Lady's henchmen, who are impersonating the Reducer Ray's inventor and his assistant. Lois sees them photographing the machine and tries make a to call, but is seized by one of the crooks before she can finish. They tie her to a chair and gag her, planning to destroy the machine with a short-circuit so they can have the only one. Lois is left in the room as the pressure on the machine increases, which will soon cause an explosion.
Superman In Danger[]
Superman saves Lois in Leeds' office from being hurt by an electric device used by the crooks, then flies after the crooks. They use the kryptonite to escape from him. The Spider Lady decides she will need scientific help using the kryptonite and Reducer Ray, so she arranges a jail break for Dr. Hackett, a brilliant scientist with a twisted mind. Clark tries to get Hawkins to give a tip about the doctor, but Hawkins hesitates when spotting men from the Spider Lady. Clark pursues the men, while Lois manages to get a tip from Hawkins. The crooks go to a summer cabin where Hackett is holed up. They say they will return to pick him up disguised by bandages. Clark ties up the doctor and in disguise is taken by the crooks in an ambulance. Lois arrives and unties Hackett, who forces her into her car. The crooks discover Clark, and stun him on a rural road. Hackett spots them and stuns Lois, then jumps from her car as it roars towards the edge of the road and a mountain!
Into The Electric Furnace[]
Superman finds Hackett's cabin empty, then spots Lois' car in time to save her. The Spider Lady reveals her plan to Hackett. They plan to capture Clark Kent to trap Superman. Hawkins is forced to phone a tip to Kent, but Lois answers and instead she and Jimmy go to the meeting place. There Jimmy is kidnapped. At the Daily Planet, Clark gets a call about Jimmy, and goes to meet a crook, secretly followed by Lois. Clark offers to have Superman show up if Jimmy is freed. Instead the crooks have Clark locked up in a room in a warehouse, while Jimmy is left unconscious on a conveyor belt headed into a blast furnace.
Superman To The Rescue[]
Superman rescues Jimmy, but the crooks escape when they toss a piece of the kryptonite at Superman, which ends up in the furnace releasing kryptonite fumes. Lois arrives and blows a police whistle making the crooks leave. Hackett complains about the failed caper, and the Spider Lady learns he is willing to betray her. In Washington, Superman arranges a trap by having a newspaper story say the reducer ray will be taken by truck for study at Metropolis University. The Spider Lady sends a group to hijack the truck and stop Superman with kryptonite. Superman stops the crooks, but overhears on their car radio that the Spider Lady has found out the ray really is being transported by train, and that another group plan to derail the train.
Irresistable Force[]
Superman stops the train before it reaches where the blast occurs. Perry assigns Lois to pick up Dr. Graham at the airport. The Spider Lady has Lois delayed while she poses as Lois and picks up Dr. Graham. When Lois gets to the airport she picks up Hackett disguised as Graham. While Graham is being taken to the Spider Lady's cave hideout, Lois takes Hackett and an assistant to the reducer ray at Metropolis University. When Lois becomes suspicious of Hackett studying the device, she is captured and the ray is rigged to explode. But Jimmy had photographed Hackett and Lois at the airport, so when Clark sees Lois didn't pick up Graham he leaves.
Between Two Fires[]
Superman arrives.
Superman arrives in time to save the ray machine and Lois. Jimmy spots Hackett and his assistant, and follows them. Jimmy is captured in a building where Graham is now being forced to recreate his ray device. While Hackett leaves, Graham tells Jimmy he'll use a machine to secretly signal for help. Graham's signaling causes static on the city's phones. Clark and Lois are sent to investigate the cause of the static. Clark figures out it is a coded message. Lois is sent off to locate the source of the signal, while Clark stays with two phone employees. The crooks spot Graham's signals, and leave after rigging the building. Jimmy escapes their moving car, while Lois enters the building which erupts in flames.
Superman's Dilemma[]
Superman manages to save Lois again. Dr. Graham is forced to agree to finish another reducer ray machine that Hackett has built. Graham says he'll need a new chemical compound called mono-chromite. The Spider Lady's men find a chemical engineer Fred Larkin to supply it. After looking it up and seeing it is a restricted compound, Larkin tells them to come back for it, and calls Perry White for advice. Perry assigns Clark to see Larkin, but an angry Lois arranges for Clark to end up arrested for driving a stolen car, while she and Jimmy visit Larkin. The crooks pick up from Larkin a crate that Jimmy is hiding in. They punch out Larkin and lock Lois in Larkin's vault. Superman leaves his jail cell to get to Larkin's office where he saves Lois from suffocating. On route, the crooks spot someone is in the crate and shoot at the crate.
Blast In The Depths[]
Luckily, Superman had earlier found the truck, and replaced Jimmy. Superman leaves Jimmy with the crooks trussed up, and returns to the jail, where Clark is released. Hackett decides to try another engineer. Men are sent to try mining engineer Fred Collier to get ore to make mono chromite, but Collier resists and is shot. Perry has Lois check Collier's office, where she finds a mining map. The crooks return and kidnap her. Clark and Jimmy arrive too late, but Clark spots a mark Lois left (?+) that Clark figures out refers to a mine at Questionmark Crossing. At the mine, while the crooks carry out ore, Clark is captured and left handcuffed to Lois. The crooks rig an explosion in the mine, and outside punch out Jimmy.
Hurled To Destruction[]
The explosion stuns Lois long enough for Superman to get them outside. Meanwhile, Graham is forced to reveal more about his machine. It will need a special tube that takes months to build. The Spider Lady has her men go to Metropolis University, posing as reporters to steal the original tube. Perry has Clark and Jimmy go to the university, but Jimmy goes ahead while Clark checks on something. At the university, two crooks drive off with the tube while another forces Jimmy to drive in his car. Clark arrives and spots Jimmy. Superman appears and stops the car. Jimmy asks Superman to leave the crook with Perry for an exclusive. At the Daily Planet, while Superman changes to Clark, Perry ends up struggling with the crook who ends up knocking Perry out of the window to fall to his death!.
Superman At Bay[]
Clark enters the outer offices in time to capture the crook, Anton, and then rescues Perry who is hanging on the window ledge. Anton's capture makes headlines, since he is an aide of the Spider Lady. She and Hackett agree to have him allow himself to be arrested, so he can talk with Anton. Lois and Jimmy capture Hackett outside the Daily Planet. Outside the jail they spot a crook pickup a cigarette butt tossed out by Hackett. It has a coded message. Jimmy takes over delivering the message to a store. At the store after Jimmy hides and hears a crook radio the Spider Lady, he is captured and the crooks rig the store to explode if someone uses the door. Meanwhile, Graham now has the second ray machine ready. The Spider Lady has him target the location where Hackett and Anton (and Lois) are in the jail. After Clark is phoned by Lois, Superman rescues Jimmy who warns about the plan to target the jail.
The Payoff[]
Superman saves Lois from the explosion but the other two are killed. The ray's use causes headlines. The Spider lady publicly says that because it is Superman's ally, she will soon destroy the Daily Planet building. Superman reconstructs a recording of Hackett talking to Anton. The recording mentions somewhere called the Dog's Eye. Lois and Jimmy go off to investigate reports of stalled cars in the foothills, thinking it may be related to the ray's use at the jail. They get captured and taken to the Spider Lady's cave hideout. Meanwhile, Clark figures out where the Dog's Eye refers to. It is a mine near Metropolis. Superman goes and finds one of the Spider Lady's men who uses kryptonite. Superman is dragged into the Spider Lady's hideout where she holds another piece of kryptonite to prevent him from stopping the ray machine. But Superman is wearing a lead-lined costume and faking being unconscious. He resists the ray's beam and Dr. Graham turns it on the fleeing Spider Lady killing her.
Trivia[]
- First time ever in any media where Ma Kent is named Martha Kent and where she makes costume for Clark from the invulnerable blankets he was wrapped in as a baby.
- Also first time ever in any media where both Kents were alive into Superman's adulthood. Which will make its way into comics only 34 years later with John Byrne's The Man of Steel comics reboot in 1986.