Atom Man vs. Superman (1950)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Most reviewers appear to give this serial the edge over it's forerunner, 1948's "Superman" with most of the same principals involved. Quite honestly, I found little difference between the two except for the inclusion of Superman's arch-enemy Lex Luthor, ably portrayed by Lyle Talbot, who takes on a dual role as the title character Atom Man. With his shaved head, Talbot epitomized the classic look of Luthor from the Silver Age comic book era, and just like Clark Kent and Superman, you never saw Luthor and Atom Man in the same place at the same time.But gee, wasn't Atom Man just the goofiest looking screen villain ever? I mean he was just laughably ridiculous looking with no hint of menace whatsoever to my thinking. The opening chapter had the head of Atom Man superimposed over newspaper headlines of various crimes being committed across Metropolis, along with images of atomic bomb blasts to further heighten the connection with the character.Just as in the first serial, animation is used to simulate Superman's power of flight but the film makers also used close-ups of Kirk Alyn to simulate various flying poses. What cracked me up however were some of the decisions regarding Superman's heroics in the story. In the first chapter for example, Superman prevents a bridge from swaying so a woman in her car can be rescued by the police when he could just as well have saved her himself. The bridge wound up falling down anyway.Perhaps even funnier, at least to me and it happened a couple of times, was when there would be the usual group of reporters in Perry White's (Pierre Watkin) office, and with his phone within arm's reach, Perry would ask Jimmy Olsen (Tommy Bond) to dial a number. So Jimmy would walk all the way around the desk and bystanders to make the call. You really had to wonder what the rationale was for decisions like this to be made.Moving from chapter to chapter, one would be hard pressed to make sense of any continuity in the story. The over riding concept here had to do with some type of special coin Luthor invented that allowed for the transmission of solid objects and people over short distances, a neat precursor to TV Star Trek's transporter beam a couple decades later. Atom Man himself fades from the scene well before the final chapter so the ultimate battle against the Man of Steel one might have expected never comes to pass. By then though, so much goofy stuff happened already you might not even notice.

Favorite Movie Quote: "The kindest thing that I ever did was not bumping you off right away, Miss Lois Lane." This classic Superman flick from 1950 contains some of the most hilarious, unintentional humour that I've ever come across. In this flick things get blown up, real good, especially trucks and cars. And with the added bonus of super-cheap special effects, it all serves to heighten every minute of the B-Grade Fun.In Atom Man Vs. Superman we find Lex Luthor (secretly Atom Man) once again blackmailing the city of Metropolis. This time Luthor threatens to destroy the entire community by carefully aiming his powerful Thermo Gun (with its suction ray) on the city's skyscrapers.Perry White, editor of The Daily Planet Newspaper, assigns Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Clark Kent to cover the story. Naturally, it's our hero Superman who ends up saving the day.

This serial has some great positives, but also some very strong negatives as well. First, its relation to the source material. It's based on a comic book (and supposedly the radio serial). For a movie serial, it is fairly true to its source. We have a good Superman who shows us many of his special talents -- stopping bullets, holding a bridge and building to keep them from collapsing, inhaling toxic fumes to save Lois and Jimmy (who are given actual real parts not just being 'follow behind the hero' non entities), smashing thru mountains, etc. etc. Good! We get a strong Lex Luthor (Lyle Talbot) who every chapter is displaying his evil genius for scientific inventions, nefarious activities and desire to destroy Superman. Great! It gets a plus for being close to the source like the great 'Flash Gordon' (1936).Unfortunately the 'Atom Man' theme, except for the name, has nothing to do with the original radio Atom Man. According to Anthony Tollin, an authority on broadcast history, the evil Nazi scientist Der Teufel ("the Devil") created the kryptonite-powered Atom Man, who became Superman's greatest foe during the radio serial run. In fact, Superman needed Batman and Robin's help to finally defeat Atom Man. Perhaps here in 1950 the script writers were trying to capitalize on the radio version's popularity, but the whole concept is totally misused, confusing and needless. From his earliest appearance, we have no doubt that Luthor is Atom Man, a fact off handedly confirmed in later chapters when Luthor refers to himself as Atom Man. Atom Man has no reason for being, story wise, since he is given no rationale for his presence or purpose, and does nothing but stand around giving orders to his henchmen. The presence of Atom Man is a glaring weak point of the serial--what do we need him for since Luthor is already so capably evil? A big negative, like the 'Captain America' (1944) or 'Dick Tracy' serials (1937,1938, 1939, 1941) that also bear name only similarities to their source material.Secondly, in movies in which the villain has a double identity, there has to be some reason for it. Beginning with Fritz Lang's 'Spies' (1928), the super criminal mastermind who wanted to ruin German's economy, was disguised as a bank president, but also as a circus clown. Usually in the serials the villain plays a double role to gain information access to the doings of the hero, often as member of a council as in 'Zorro's Fighting Legion' (1939), 'The Adventures of Captain Marvel' (1941), 'The Crimson Ghost' (1946) or 'Dick Tracy Vs. Crime Inc.' (1941). In this serial the double identity of Luthor has no convincing rhyme or reason.A real strong point of the serial is Luthor's attempt to destroy Superman by sending him into "The Empty Doom." In other serials where the villain has a dastardly device that you know he will try to put on the hero, it operates as a cliff hanger only, with the hero escaping at the beginning of the next chapter, as in 'Buck Rogers' (1939), 'Batman' (1943) and the heroine in 'The Crimson Ghost' (1946). But not here! Luthor sends Superman into "The Empty Doom" and he's stuck there! Not until Marvel Comics in the 60s when the Red Skull captures the Cosmic Cube and uses it to miniaturize Captain America to fit in the palm of his hand do we get such a "Now how is he ever going to get out of this?" heroic predicament. The entire development of "The Main Arc" and its use to eliminate Superman takes six chapters (chapter 4-9)! This story 'arc' is clearly the best part of the serial, and is why I'd rate the serial highly despite its other glaring faults.Some other glaring faults include: no hand to hand combat with the villain, and needless chapters (10-15) that have no continuity or purpose. You only get climaxing hand to hand battles between the hero and villain in the western and police serials. When Superman finally captures Luthor in the last chapter, it takes him about two seconds to rush over, grab and put the cuffs on him. Very weak. We have Marvel Comics to thank for re-introducing and basing their whole post 50s output on making hand to hand battles with super villains the main theme of virtually all their stories, so that now we expect to see epic battles between the Fantastic Four vs. Dr. Doom, Spider Man vs. Dr. Octopus, or the X-Men vs. Magneto. But in the old science fiction genre serials, we never see it.Finally, since the serial really climaxes in Chapter 9, when Superman after having spent the whole chapter "Lost in the Empty Doom" finally escapes, where else is this serial to go? The 'Atom Man' theme is going nowhere, the Empty Doom is dropped, so we get Lois Lane covering a flood! Then suddenly we have the appearance of Luthor's 'flying saucers,' and an A-bomb to destroy Metropolis. The last five chapters seem like time fillers, since there is no clear continuity between them as we had in chapters 4-9.Too bad it couldn't have been as well scripted for the entire serial as it was for the "Lost in the Empty Doom" chapters. Well, we can't get everything; especially in serials and particularly those from Columbia. So we can just be thankful that almost half of it is really high standard. I give it a 7 (as a serial).

People say George Reeves looked bad in his costume. Wait till you see the lace up boots and the abdomen that sticks out further than his chest.Noel Neill displays absolutely none of the acting ability or charm she would on TV. Tommy ("Butch" from the little rascals) makes a great Jimmy.The last chapter is by far the most fun with Superman riding astride a rocket armed with an A-Bomb.