I never paid much attention to the scene years ago but.....it's amazing how after the scene in the girl's room with the mole men, Clark finds what looks like a city alleyway in a rural town to change into Superman!!!
The actor who played Luke Benson, Jeff Corey, had a long career in movies, radio, and TV. It ran from 1939, with some uncredited roles (his first was in 1941), until 1998...with a 10 year break, for being blacklisted for being non-cooperative with the House Un-American Activities Committee...two other actors connected to the series, Robert Shayne(Inspector Henderson), and Peter Brocc(who would play bad guys in 3 episodes of the TV series) would also be blacklisted. While blacklisted, Corey would become an acting teacher. resuming acting in 1962.
Thou art the man! Yes indeed. He's all over old time radio. He would appear on Star Trek ("The Cloud Minders") and on "Night Court", which made a point of getting old stars new roles. Thank you!
Oh this promises to be a fun new review series. I haven't seen much of the George Reeves series so I look forward to this. For a 1951 production it does feel very progressive for its time, more than might have even been expected, which isn't a bad thing. It also illustrates the sheer patience Superman has, since he's powerful enough to be extremely dangerous to humanity if he were to cut loose and use his powers on an angry mob(or his usual villains)- as we saw with the alternate timeline "Injustice" series where he does finally lose it and becomes a murderer in the name of "protecting" humanity.
Superman debuted in September,1952 in a few select markets, notably Chicago.. It debuted. In Los Angeles in February 1953 and in New York two months later .
This is inserted at the end of the first season in two parts as The Unknown People I and II, and is treated with a better music score utiluzed throughout Season One.
Lois' heart was able to withstand the stress of the shock of seeing the Mole Men better than the old watchman. I think being about 50 years younger than him helped a lot!
In the edited television version she does not refer to them as "Mole Men's.. This was probably due to the Movie version being called "Superman and the Mole Men" whereas the television version is called "The Unknown People.." Also the scene where Superman tells Lois not to report the story about the Mole Men is excluded from the television version..
I was a little kid when I first saw this. I thought to myself "Benson and men must be deaf!!!! Superman just told them why they should not shoot the Mole Men because if they fall into the town's reservoir the Molemen's dead bodies could easily contaminate the town's water supply!!! I asked my mother what does this mean? She told me it could make anyone who drinks the water seriously ill or even die!!!! It made me feel that Benson and his men were not the brightest bulbs in the box!!! Lol!!!
I wish more people did know about Kirk Alyn because his portrayal was great. He knew how to keep Clark and Superman different enough that you could believe the identity worked. A good Superman/Clark actor knows it's not just the glasses. There are also mannerisms and ways of conducting yourself, plus the fact that nobody believes Superman has a secret identity much less suspect someone so powerful would run around as someone like Clark. (Just like real life really, which is why the guise works.)
One of the problems is that actors don't get to decide. Producers and studio owners make the call. After the dead of George Reeves. The producers thought about the posibility of Kirk Alyn as replacement. But at the end they decided it was over. Kirk Alyn made a cameo if the first Christopher Reeve movie. Too litle too late? I guess so. But still somebody involved in that movie remembered that others played the role first
They was gonna make Clark more timid but George felt it didn't look right for a reporter to meek and shy that's why his portrayal of Clark is more assertive than kirk's
The underground Mole men reminds me of the Morlocks in the 1959 movie THE TIME MACHINES. Not in appearance but because they, for some reason, had to live underground.
I don't think Luke ever saw "The Wizard of Oz". The Munchkins were short, and some of them were bald. Of course, they spoke English and were in color. But given Luke, nobody should take him to see "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" either. Those Oompa-Loompas might shatter what brain he has. I'm actually impressed by the flying effects. Or, rather, the use of the "Superman perspective" gimmick where they had an overhead camera tracking what Superman would have seen in flight. It's a cheap way to convey the flying effect. I do wonder about the mob and their use of guns. Superman no-selled the bullets. So, did they just keep firing because they were thinking the next one would kill him, or did they always want to fire at a human-like target and thought they'd never get another chance to do so without getting a murder rap?
I'm pretty sure they were under the mentality of "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again". Either that, or they just wanted target practice. Or both.
So you don't believe in the Superman Curse, do you? How brave of you Irving! LOL!!! I barely remember this Superman from the 50s.I know I have watched a few episodes during my childhood (that was late 70s/early 80s) But this show along side the first two Christopher Reeve movies, Super friends and League Of Justice cartoons are the reason why I love Superman. Btw in the Christopher Reeve movies (1st or 2nd of them) he also said the line "Truth, Justice and the American way"
Sorry Irving within the first 3 minutes you made a mistake, as the Earth's diameter is definitely NOT 12 miles, it's way way way more, closer to 8000 miles.
You are reviewing my three favorite TV Series as a kid. The Adventures of Superman, Lost in Space and Batman. I thought they were all serious shows until I rewatched them as an adult. What I found interesting was the The Adventures of Superman and Lost in Space started out with exciting and a more serious theme when they were produced in black and white but changed to a campy theme when they were produced in color. I wonder, since Superman was produced prior to Batman, whether Batman copied Superman's color episodes campy format and as a result of Batman's popularity in 1966, Lost in Space followed Batman's campy format. What do you think?
@@BingCherry11 I looked into it, and in another thread, someone else told me that Metropolis in the DC universe is in the Delaware state, so I used that for my current little "research" session. I could be wrong, since I have never been near a single law school in my life. Meaning, I could be DEAD WRONG here. So far, we've got: -Resisting arrest (twice!) (30 years, two rounds of 15 years for those two charges) -Arson (another 15 years) -Assaulting an officer (up to 8 year max) -Inciting a riot (up to 3 years) So, in total, if Benny stands trial and gets the book(s) thrown at him for ALL of these offenses, he would be looking at approximately 56 years behind bars.
But knowing him, he'd probably get hit with MORE charges on his record, too. It wouldn't really be surprising if he got hit with Contempt Of Court and likely also threats of violence for angrily yelling at the judge and everyone in the courtroom, and attempting to resist arrest AGAIN.
I'm sorry you didn't include the line where Superman tells them to "stop acting like N@#i st0rm tr00pers." I see this movie (later released as a 2 part episode) less as pro-integration and more as plea for tolerance in contrast to the McCarthy hearings. I would be curious to know how many of the people who worked on this movie & the series ended up on the Black List. I saw The Boy With Green Hair on AMC back when they actually aired old, classic movies. The host said that the movie ended up not getting much play because its anti-war message was seen as "soft on Communism." I liked your intro, because the first year of the series had a lot of spy stories from unnamed Eastern block countries. Later on, it became a lot more cartoony. I loved this series as a kid, didn't notice the primitive special effects, and have the complete dvd box set. Nice review! P. S. - I regard all of Clark Kent's winks and hints as breaking the fourth wall, letting the kids in the audience feel good that they knew something Lois didn't know. When someone asked Noel Neill why she wasn't able to figure out it was the same guy, she replied, "Because we wanted to keep our jobs!"
When you get down to it, Superman was used in a lot of medium back then that would be considered pushing a liberal agenda by the far right today. Superman began going up against corrupt businessmen, uncaring employers, physical abusers and war profiteers along with the typical gangsters and mad scientists. Then Superman went up against racist groups on the radio show in two stories, one of them was the famous Clan Of The Fiery Cross serial where Superman takes on the KKK, which is currently being adapted into a 3 issue comic mini-series at the moment along with the voice of radio's Superman himself Bud Collyer doing a special Christmas message before an episodes where Superman preached about tolerance and even mentioned the black community as being equal to everyone, back when such a statement would be considered controversial and finally during the height of the Red Scare, the Anti-Defamation League commissioned DC Comics to do a poster of Superman lecturing children of different backgrounds on tolerance and how intolerance was Un-American (which was a shot at McCarthyism and the HUAC, the latter once accusing the Anti-Defamation League of promoting a Communist agenda in the past)
"Clark Kent is Superman! Hello! Duuuuh!". I'm 24 and I saw a large chunk of "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" when I was in high school via the defunct TV channel called the Hub. It has some major issues, such as there being no Fortress of Solitude, there being no AI clone of Jor-El for Clark to talk to and learn things about his heritage and Krypton from, and the way that Lex Luthor was handled, but I appreciated the things that they did well, like Clark's relationship with Ma & Pa Kent, Perry White(the version of him in "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" is the best version of him), and Clark's relationship with Lois.
The series finale of ‘Adventures of Superman’ aired 65 years ago, April 28, 1958
Rest In Peace last surviving cast member Phyllis Coates (January 15, 1927 - October 11, 2023)
05:03 "They wacked him! They wacked him! (I know, bad mole joke here)
I never paid much attention to the scene years ago but.....it's amazing how after the scene in the girl's room with the mole men, Clark finds what looks like a city alleyway in a rural town to change into Superman!!!
I think he took that alley with him.
Happy 109th birthday to the late, great George Reeves!
This was a great episode. But u had to wonder if with all the digging of oil, the Mole People would be discovered again.
The actor who played Luke Benson, Jeff Corey, had a long career in movies, radio, and TV. It ran from 1939, with some uncredited roles (his first was in 1941), until 1998...with a 10 year break, for being blacklisted for being non-cooperative with the House Un-American Activities Committee...two other actors connected to the series, Robert Shayne(Inspector Henderson), and Peter Brocc(who would play bad guys in 3 episodes of the TV series) would also be blacklisted. While blacklisted, Corey would become an acting teacher. resuming acting in 1962.
Thou art the man! Yes indeed. He's all over old time radio. He would appear on Star Trek ("The Cloud Minders") and on "Night Court", which made a point of getting old stars new roles. Thank you!
Oh this promises to be a fun new review series. I haven't seen much of the George Reeves series so I look forward to this.
For a 1951 production it does feel very progressive for its time, more than might have even been expected, which isn't a bad thing. It also illustrates the sheer patience Superman has, since he's powerful enough to be extremely dangerous to humanity if he were to cut loose and use his powers on an angry mob(or his usual villains)- as we saw with the alternate timeline "Injustice" series where he does finally lose it and becomes a murderer in the name of "protecting" humanity.
Yes, when he hit Benson I wondered how much he had to pull the punch to keep from breaking Benson's neck.
The Mole man espresso machine!!!.
1951, original title " The unknown people" changed to " Superman and the mole men" .an RKO Radio Picture. Thank you.😊😊😊😊
Superman debuted in September,1952 in a few select markets, notably Chicago.. It debuted. In Los Angeles in February 1953 and in New York two months later .
This is the movie version and not the modified television version . The background music is entirely different .
This is inserted at the end of the first season in two parts as The Unknown People I and II, and is treated with a better music score utiluzed throughout Season One.
Absolutely!
15:05 - The next morning that guy was found wearing old Betsy as a suppository.
Superman was careful to unload old Betsy first...
@@dwashbur lol😄
You gotta give Lois credit!!! Benson is about 1 foot taller than her and she still took him on!!!! Wow!!!!
Lois Lane don't take nuttin' from nobody, no matter how bit they might be! If she has to grow a foot, she'll do it!
@@dwashbur Lol!!!!!!!!
Scared the crap out of me when I was a kid
Sorry this is a little late but The Adventures of #Superman premiered on TV 70 years ago, on Sept 19, 1952...
I've never seen The Mole Men or the two Kirk Alyn Superman movies.
Thank you, Irving for bringing them into our attention! Keep em coming!
Lois' heart was able to withstand the stress of the shock of seeing the Mole Men better than the old watchman. I think being about 50 years younger than him helped a lot!
In the edited television version she does not refer to them as "Mole Men's.. This was probably due to the Movie version being called "Superman and the Mole Men" whereas the television version is called "The Unknown People.." Also the scene where Superman tells Lois not to report the story about the Mole Men is excluded from the television version..
'Cause she has no heart! 😂
That was so cool the way Superman told Benson "That's more than you deserve!!!!" Good old Benson is headed for jail before this is all over.
Clark goes through the hospital front door and Superman comes out a minute or two later. They could. not be the same person, could they!?
If the gunmen had bullets made of kryptonite, or red sunlight (or both), this would have turned out very differently.
True, although kryptonite wasn't introduced into the series until the second season.
@@christiandenault7606 Yeah.
Just got through all of Irving's Batmans. Now Superman!
Don't forget Wonder Woman and the Green Hornet!
You'll love all of them!
Although anything the Mole Men touched started to glow, they were not radioactive.
I was a little kid when I first saw this. I thought to myself "Benson and men must be deaf!!!! Superman just told them why they should not shoot the Mole Men because if they fall into the town's reservoir the Molemen's dead bodies could easily contaminate the town's water supply!!! I asked my mother what does this mean? She told me it could make anyone who drinks the water seriously ill or even die!!!! It made me feel that Benson and his men were not the brightest bulbs in the box!!! Lol!!!
I wish more people did know about Kirk Alyn because his portrayal was great. He knew how to keep Clark and Superman different enough that you could believe the identity worked. A good Superman/Clark actor knows it's not just the glasses. There are also mannerisms and ways of conducting yourself, plus the fact that nobody believes Superman has a secret identity much less suspect someone so powerful would run around as someone like Clark. (Just like real life really, which is why the guise works.)
One of the problems is that actors don't get to decide. Producers and studio owners make the call. After the dead of George Reeves. The producers thought about the posibility of Kirk Alyn as replacement. But at the end they decided it was over. Kirk Alyn made a cameo if the first Christopher Reeve movie. Too litle too late? I guess so. But still somebody involved in that movie remembered that others played the role first
They was gonna make Clark more timid but George felt it didn't look right for a reporter to meek and shy that's why his portrayal of Clark is more assertive than kirk's
Klingon children from TNG.
Remembering #GeorgeReeves January 5,1914_June 16,1959 (Age 45)
Wonderful review! Thanks for that!
Jeff Corey as Luke.
This is not smallie
The
The underground Mole men reminds me of the Morlocks in the 1959 movie THE TIME MACHINES. Not in appearance but because they, for some reason, had to live underground.
In this episode Lois had the last word!!!!! And on the TV Show it ends there was the always great Superman music in the closing credits!!!!
This is not the television version but the original Leppert Production version..
I don't think Luke ever saw "The Wizard of Oz". The Munchkins were short, and some of them were bald. Of course, they spoke English and were in color. But given Luke, nobody should take him to see "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" either. Those Oompa-Loompas might shatter what brain he has.
I'm actually impressed by the flying effects. Or, rather, the use of the "Superman perspective" gimmick where they had an overhead camera tracking what Superman would have seen in flight. It's a cheap way to convey the flying effect.
I do wonder about the mob and their use of guns. Superman no-selled the bullets. So, did they just keep firing because they were thinking the next one would kill him, or did they always want to fire at a human-like target and thought they'd never get another chance to do so without getting a murder rap?
I'm pretty sure they were under the mentality of "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again". Either that, or they just wanted target practice. Or both.
Little known fact; Luke Skywalker was named after this character.
This was Jeff Corey's (Luke Benson's) last acting job for 12 years because he was condemned by HUAC.
According to whom?
So you don't believe in the Superman Curse, do you? How brave of you Irving! LOL!!! I barely remember this Superman from the 50s.I know I have watched a few episodes during my childhood (that was late 70s/early 80s) But this show along side the first two Christopher Reeve movies, Super friends and League Of Justice cartoons are the reason why I love Superman. Btw in the Christopher Reeve movies (1st or 2nd of them) he also said the line "Truth, Justice and the American way"
The mole men and their electro luxe vacuum cleaner.
Girls mother asks the daughter, " Those two friends of yours need a bath."
The Mole guy brought up his own vacuum cleaner to clean up that corrupt town!
The original title was " The unknown people." Later it was " Superman and the mole men".
You have it backwards!
Sorry Irving within the first 3 minutes you made a mistake, as the Earth's diameter is definitely NOT 12 miles, it's way way way more, closer to 8000 miles.
Math never was my strong suit...
@9:39 is that the same little girl who was in the Birthday Letter episode? She looks similar, so I was just wondering.
Apparently not. You're right, they look very similar.
She's a crisis actor.
No, her name is Christine Washburn . The girl in "The Birthday Letter" is named Ira Ashdown..
It is interesting to see Harry Harvey playing a doctor . He made a career out of playing a sheriff. in Westerns.
You are reviewing my three favorite TV Series as a kid. The Adventures of Superman, Lost in Space and Batman. I thought they were all serious shows until I rewatched them as an adult. What I found interesting was the The Adventures of Superman and Lost in Space started out with exciting and a more serious theme when they were produced in black and white but changed to a campy theme when they were produced in color. I wonder, since Superman was produced prior to Batman, whether Batman copied Superman's color episodes campy format and as a result of Batman's popularity in 1966, Lost in Space followed Batman's campy format. What do you think?
Hell , the garden stores didn't even sell hammers and sickles!!! That's how anti commie we were.
The little girl is Beverly Washburn -- a lovely, sweet and talented lady.
21:30 I mean... At least all those heads each contain a fully functional brain.
Good old Benson is going to be doing some serious jail time for resisting arrest two times, assaulting a Sheriff, inciting a riot, etc.!!!
And arson, don't forget the arson.
@@GreenBoy9000 Good point! Lol!!!!!!!
@@BingCherry11 I looked into it, and in another thread, someone else told me that Metropolis in the DC universe is in the Delaware state, so I used that for my current little "research" session. I could be wrong, since I have never been near a single law school in my life. Meaning, I could be DEAD WRONG here.
So far, we've got:
-Resisting arrest (twice!) (30 years, two rounds of 15 years for those two charges)
-Arson (another 15 years)
-Assaulting an officer (up to 8 year max)
-Inciting a riot (up to 3 years)
So, in total, if Benny stands trial and gets the book(s) thrown at him for ALL of these offenses, he would be looking at approximately 56 years behind bars.
But knowing him, he'd probably get hit with MORE charges on his record, too. It wouldn't really be surprising if he got hit with Contempt Of Court and likely also threats of violence for angrily yelling at the judge and everyone in the courtroom, and attempting to resist arrest AGAIN.
I'm sorry you didn't include the line where Superman tells them to "stop acting like N@#i st0rm tr00pers." I see this movie (later released as a 2 part episode) less as pro-integration and more as plea for tolerance in contrast to the McCarthy hearings. I would be curious to know how many of the people who worked on this movie & the series ended up on the Black List. I saw The Boy With Green Hair on AMC back when they actually aired old, classic movies. The host said that the movie ended up not getting much play because its anti-war message was seen as "soft on Communism." I liked your intro, because the first year of the series had a lot of spy stories from unnamed Eastern block countries. Later on, it became a lot more cartoony. I loved this series as a kid, didn't notice the primitive special effects, and have the complete dvd box set. Nice review!
P. S. - I regard all of Clark Kent's winks and hints as breaking the fourth wall, letting the kids in the audience feel good that they knew something Lois didn't know. When someone asked Noel Neill why she wasn't able to figure out it was the same guy, she replied, "Because we wanted to keep our jobs!"
Those are sides of a coin; I used integration simply as an example. But you're correct. It's an indictment of that whole mentality.
When you get down to it, Superman was used in a lot of medium back then that would be considered pushing a liberal agenda by the far right today.
Superman began going up against corrupt businessmen, uncaring employers, physical abusers and war profiteers along with the typical gangsters and mad scientists. Then Superman went up against racist groups on the radio show in two stories, one of them was the famous Clan Of The Fiery Cross serial where Superman takes on the KKK, which is currently being adapted into a 3 issue comic mini-series at the moment along with the voice of radio's Superman himself Bud Collyer doing a special Christmas message before an episodes where Superman preached about tolerance and even mentioned the black community as being equal to everyone, back when such a statement would be considered controversial and finally during the height of the Red Scare, the Anti-Defamation League commissioned DC Comics to do a poster of Superman lecturing children of different backgrounds on tolerance and how intolerance was Un-American (which was a shot at McCarthyism and the HUAC, the latter once accusing the Anti-Defamation League of promoting a Communist agenda in the past)
"You don't tug on Superman's Cape".
You don't have to be"far-right to realize that this is fodder for left propaganda.
19:53 This Lois is a prime example of Tempus' question: "How dumb was she?" Points if you get that reference.
"Clark Kent is Superman! Hello! Duuuuh!".
I'm 24 and I saw a large chunk of "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" when I was in high school via the defunct TV channel called the Hub. It has some major issues, such as there being no Fortress of Solitude, there being no AI clone of Jor-El for Clark to talk to and learn things about his heritage and Krypton from, and the way that Lex Luthor was handled, but I appreciated the things that they did well, like Clark's relationship with Ma & Pa Kent, Perry White(the version of him in "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" is the best version of him), and Clark's relationship with Lois.
Awww how cute, Klingon children!!.
Just a bunch of.Klingon children, what's to be afraid of?.
" Look, I'm. from planet Krypton, why don't you fear me??" Superman.
"That. S!! Gotta shoot that S!!-".
With the way things are today, I'd choose the way of life back in 1951! Lol
And they swam and swam all over the damn.
I just love left-wing cant, don't you?
Yes, I do.