Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

guisreis Surprisingly good! Much better than I could expect. It is very well filmed and there are very nice action scenes, particularly for a production from the 40's: footage of fighting, climbing, spying, falling down, disguising... Although lightly plump, Lewis Wilson not only did a good job as the dark knight but also had one of the best representations of Bruce Wayne ever in my opinion, as the fake playboy. Batman was already frightening on the eyes of the criminals, as he intimidated them (the bat's cave has been created for this movie serial, though it was not his back office yet, but kind of a psychological torture and interrogation room, accessed through the clock). Batman fights a lot, most of the time against two or three thugs, but he is far from the skillful martial artist he would become in future versions; indeed, he receives lots of punches and loses the fights a lot of times, not dying by luck. There was already a charming black car, though it was not properly a batmobile, but a 1939 Cadillac, generally driven by Alfred. Douglas Croft was a typical Robin, and although his visual was true to the character, we got accustomed to the hair and the mask of Burt Ward decades afterwards, making his upright curly hair and his pointed-nose mask a bit strange. Batman and Robin were already skillful investigators, but there are two very important differences in their way of working against crime: first of all, chief of police has Bruce Wayne as a partner in law enforcement, although he does not know Batman's secret identity and has a dubious position on his vigilantism; besides that, the dynamic duo works much time spying without their masks, as Bruce and Dick, using the superhero personas much more for combat. This version of Bruce Wayne had great acting skills, like Christopher Reeve's Clark Kent, and could disguise himself deceiving even people who know him very intimately. There are other differences from more recent versions concerning other main characters. Instead of commissioner Gordon or chief O'Hara, Gotham police counted on chief Arnold. Linda Page was Batman's love interest, before the creation of Vicki Vale and other crushes. Butler Alfred appeared for the first time not as fat but as slim, what became his usual representation ever since. The main criminal here was a Japanese scientist, in a quite obvious usage of the character in order to support USA foreign policy (what always happened with the most famous superheroes, not only due to that World War); unfortunately the way characters referred to him was often racist and xenophobic against the Japanese people. The repetition of the same formula - criminals phone to the victim pretending to be someone else and setting up a meeting, but Batman and Robin suspect and go there to save the day - bores a little, as it is too much recurrent and the movie serial is too good to insist in a so simplistic solution. The same may be said about the too many times villains believe that they have killed Batman; once or twice it is OK, but in every episode?! As a matter of fact, the movie serial is nice and entertaining, but it would be better if edited shorter as a feature-length film. It worth be watched, anyway, for sure.

bob the moo Off the back of the most recent Batman film, I saw a documentary on the Batmobile that observed that the first ever film version of Batman just used a normal car and this was the point where I learnt that there was a Batman serial back in the 1940's. It took me a minute to track it but I did and I watched it as a bit of a curio piece, to see what the first film incarnation of this character looked like. As it turned out this was probably the way to approach it because essentially Batman is not too different from other serials of the time which involves a pantomime villain who is constantly outfoxed by the hero every week even though each each episode ends with a cliffhanger.In this case the episodes are barely 15 minutes long and each episode replay the final 3 of the previous episode (showing the cliffhanger) before it then moves forward. As a result each episode is very short and, although the plot generally flows, it does not have much time to set up the next stage of Daka's fiendishly Oriental plan before it is then concluding that part of his plan thanks to Batman's intervention. This means that everything moves quickly and is mostly pretty functional in the design. The one common thing is that there will be a fistfight and, mostly, Batman and Robin will get overwhelmed, leaving them in a fatal cliffhanger each week. The villains will invariably leg it back to Daka to report that Bats is a goner, meanwhile the duo escape time and time again. It gets quite samey after a very short while even if some of the episode have some better set pieces like car crashes and fires to liven things up. Mostly though it is fist fights and fairly standard plotting.Of course one thing that is also consistent is the casual and consistent racism against the, then enemy, Japanese. Although the modern viewer gets numb to it over 15 episodes, it is still hard to take the narration refer to slant-eyed treachery and other colorful and offensive terms; I understand it is of its time, but it is still weird to see how lacking in subtly it was. The episodes do at least have a good touch of darkness about them as batman has the vaguest touch of noir in the delivery and at least there is genuine death and violence in there. Wilson is less Batman and more just a standard serial hero – all chin, chest and brave clean Americanism. Croft works well with him as Robin although I didn't care much for Patterson's Linda or Austin's Alfred. Naish's Daka is a wonderfully dated piece of offensive ham but he does it with such sneering energy it is hard not to enjoy it despite what it is.Overall this version of Batman is very much of its time and very much worth seeing as a curiosity and piece of history of the character. As an actual series of films to watch though it is pretty basic; it is very short but yet still pads time, it offers action but mostly it is just basic fist-fights and it's plots are basic and seem to spend most of their energy on having digs at the Japanese.

Coolestmovies Bereft of the budgets and storytelling ingenuity Republic Pictures brought to their chapter plays, Columbia's first stab at DC Comics' Batman franchise is a drab, exceedingly repetitive bore, with J. Carroll Naish's "oriental" villain Prince Tito Daka dreaming up some of the most inane--and easily survivable--traps for heroes Batman (Lewis Wilson) and Robin (Doug Croft), who change clothes so frequently in odd places together (in the backseats of cars, in alleyways, even behind trees!) that it's not surprising Frederick Wertham would later blow a head valve over this stuff. Hell, Bruce Wayne's "excuses" for missing time with girlfriend Linda Page (Shirley Patterson) are almost brazenly gay, even for the period. The cliffhangers that cap certain episodes--usually after yet another poorly staged fistfight between the heroes and Daka's goons--are woefully under-realized (a car wreck is heard but not seen, as is a building explosion), usually with the heroes simply emerging in the next episode from wreckage we never saw happen. Skip this one.

thebatman1 To think only 4 years after the creation of The Batman some one was smart enough to bring us a Movie version.Although in itself not a masterpiece considering budget and all other details I couldn't wait to see this version of The Batman.As a kid I had seen photos of this and the 1949 versions and couldn't wait.Over 20 years later and upon the release of the 89 Batman Movie someone was smart to release both 43 & 49 versions on VHS. One of the sad parts of all this is the lack of information & back photos of most of the serials produced by the studio's from that time.The 43 version is a great representation of the camaraderie between Batman (Lewis Wilson) & Robin (Douglas Croft) the costumes are far better and much more true to the comics over the 49 version. A cool blooper in the 43 version is watching a whole pack of cigarettes tumble out from The Batman's right glove while descending from a fire escape...... you have to look for the episode. Buy watch and Enjoy!