Batman - The Complete 1943 Movie Serial Collection | 
 enlarge | Director: Lambert Hillyer
Actors: Lewis Wilson, Douglas Croft, J. Carrol Naish, Shirley Patterson, George Robotham
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.94
Buy New: $6.14
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Rating:  48 reviews
Sales Rank: 2559
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dvd-video, Full Screen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Unrated
Number Of Items: 2
Running Time: 259
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 043396119291
UPC: 043396119291
EAN: 0043396119291
ASIN: B000AQOHNA
Theatrical Release Date: April 15, 1943
Release Date: October 18, 2005
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Product Description
Collection of Batman films from 1943.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: UN
Release Date: 2-MAY-2006
Media Type: DVD
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| Customer Reviews: Read 43 more reviews...
An Over-looked Classic July 20, 2008
I guess I love this serial so much because it takes me back to Batman's roots. Those silly, formulaic stories (always ending in a life or death cliff-hangar), the `40s cars, fedoras, suits, and gangster slang, all take me back to the core of Batman with an unfiltered lens. Unlike the Tim Burton film or Bruce Timm animated series, both of which tried to recreate a sort of 1940s Gotham City, this serial was actually there, filming as the 1940s were happening. In a way, that makes this feel like a more genuine Batman story to me, like the "real" Batman might actually swing by in the background while the episode is being filmed. The fact that Bob Kane assisted on these scripts only adds to this feeling of seeing it as it happened.
On top of that, the casting is brilliant for Batman and Robin. Lewis Wilson plays the best Bruce Wayne I've ever seen. He's adorably contemptible as a slacker who complains that he was only able to sleep until noon with a devilish smile. More importantly, his chemistry with Douglas Croft (playing Robin) is priceless. The two have that mischievous father/son relationship that always should have been in the classic Batman and Robin stories, but never came across quite right (even with West and Ward).
Finally, there's the over-arching plot. While the anti-Japanese hysteria in these episodes is downright embarrassing and absurdly racist, it captures the post-Pearl Harbor paranoia beautifully. Batman isn't just stopping the bad guys in these stories. He's trying to make America safe again. As campy as that sounds, it comes across quite genuinely in these episodes. Batman feels like more of a hero here than in any other context, waging a one man war against a terrifying enemy that made 1940s America shake in their beds at night.
Don't approach this serial looking for complexity or depth of character. Rather, what this film has to offer is rich period tone and, more importantly, a bright and cheery Batman/Robin team-up that offers more substance and a little less cheese than the 1960s TV series. If you can look past the blatant racial insensitivities and formulaic plot structure, you'll find a unique and highly rewarding interpretation of the Dark Knight.
Politically incorrect July 7, 2008
Besides the normal fun of a serial, the politically incorrect terms used for the Japanese during the war and the wise government view of "internment" was shocking at first, but considering the fact we were at war with Japan and the Japanese had attacked before a formal declaration of war made the view understandable for the time. I loved the cars and dress of the time.
 batman movie serial April 8, 2008
Fascinating movie serial of Batman and Robin serial.Robin looks very young and Batman plays the bored always tired rich playboy to perfection.Look out for J.Carol Naish as the Asian evil doer.Note this was filmed during World War 2 and the film studios knew nothing of political correctness.
World War II Batman April 3, 2008
The 1943 Batman serial is the first rendition on screen of the famed Caped Crusader. Generally, the film quality is good with occasional picture contrast instability (as where dark shades appear as if the brightness dial has been turned up).
Chapter One is a disappointment as it seems to have been lifted from a VHS copy with the contrast too strong as faces appear white with loss of detail. Fortunately, the subsequent chapters were derived from better-preserved (though not perfect) film materials taken perhaps from the studio or a collector's vault. .
The plot line is too "comicky" to be taken seriously. Racist references and comments toward the Japanese are common, but heck, this was produced during the Second World War where Japan was vilified to the extreme, the way that Bin Laden and his ilk are vilified today.
While the later post-war Batman and Robin serial, also released by Sony, is top notch in picture quality and sound quality compared to this, the 1943 serial gives the viewer a flavor of the times then.
 Wartime Bat-trocities; or Dynamic Didacticism March 20, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Despite the overt racism, low budget, and low quality Batman suit, this serial was much, much better than I expected. It is vastly, vastly superior to the almost unwatchably bad 1949 serial, `Batman and Robin'(some would say that the 1949 serial is not `almost' unwatchable). This serial should be very enjoyable to fans of old movies, B-pictures, golden age comics, as well as serials. I rate it as one of my top 5 favorite serials.
Admittedly, Lewis Wilson's Batman suit leaves a lot to be desired. Anyone who has seen the stills available on the net can see that for himself. But director Lambert Hiller was pretty savvy regarding this deficiency and is pretty adept at limiting and controlling the audience's visual exposure to the suit (and it's the mask that has the most problems) so that the giggle factor is minimized. You tend to see Batman's mask only for a few seconds at a time. In a lot of frames, Batman is seen mostly from behind, so that you only see the pointy -eared head, and scalloped bat-cape. This makes Batman seem more mysterious and formidable, and follows a tradition from the comic books.
I found that the serial was so engaging and the directing so skillful, that by the middle of the 2nd chapter I didn't think the suit was silly anymore.
A lot of the credit goes to the cast. Lewis Wilson was very credible as both Bruce Wayne and Batman. As Bruce Wayne, he is suave and upper class, and as Batman he is tough, brainy, and no-nonsense. I especially enjoyed hearing him chastise, and then hang up on, a slow-witted policeman when Batman is debriefing him via phone.
There's a couple scenes in which Batman takes crooks to the Batcave, tries to browbeat them for information, then locks them inside alone with his pet bats. In one very clever sequence, he employs a nice bit of deception on one of these thugs. But even though it is WWII, the fate of the world us up for grabs, U.S. terroritory has been attacked on 3 fronts and U.S. citizens are interned at camps in the Phillipines, Batman never employs torture, waterboarding, simulated suffocation, sexual humiliation, electric shock, or dog attacks, or other `enhanced interrogation methods' to extract information from these traitors and saboteurs. That is because, even though he is a weird figure of the dark, striking terror into the hearts of criminals, Batman is not willing to degrade himself by torture, he is not willing to sacrifice his own humanity. Novel thought, eh?
The fight scenes range from so-so to pretty cool. Sometimes the cape gets in Batman's way, which is why if you really were a masked vigilante you wouldn't survive your first week on the job if you wore a cape. But there really are some good moves in some of the fight scenes, like when a bunch of thugs knocks Batman down and pile on, the stuntmen handled it really well when Batman throws the thugs off. Also, the stuntman who played Batman was able to do a really convincing knockout punch, there are times when he really looks like he is putting all his weight into it, and you know the thug's jaw shoulda been busted. Batman jumps down on crooks through windows and skylights a lot, which is what Batman should do.
I also liked the moments when Batman pulled Bruce Wayne's fiance, Linda Page, out of danger: from his voice it sounds like he actually cares about her, and is not just using her to dispel rumors about his sexual preferences. Unlike a modern Batman, however, Bruce Wayne never succumbs to the temptation of revealing his double identity to his love interest. Speaking of Linda, she is a quite a fox and a good actress as well.
Douglas Croft made an excellent Robin, once you get used to his big hair (this is the 1st cinematic `afro' hair style, 25 years before Linc from `The Mod Squad'!), valiant, good in a fight, not the least bit obnoxious. Croft was 17 when this was filmed, appearing to be about 14 or 15, which is about how old the real Robin would have been, so Croft had the honor of being the only real boy to play the boy wonder.
Also, since the film is in black and white, Robin's suit shows up as a variety of gray tones, as opposed to the rather sissified red and yellow of the comics (what latent tendencies the guy who dreamed up that suit must have had!). Likewise, Batman's suit is darker in black and white, and in many scenes it's plausible that he really can frighten criminals.
Characterization is, shall we say, minimalist, at least as far as the good guys are concerned. In my opinion, this approach works well because excessive emotional exposition would slow the action down. Besides, the histrionics and hang-wringing that modern directors have impose on our childhood heroes usually just makes them look ridiculous. One nice touch here is that Bruce and Dick sometimes address each other by their given names, despite being in costume, which is something real people would do if real people moonlighted as superheroes.
Some people criticize this serial because there is not a proper Batmobile. But you have to remember, Batman only had a real Batmobile -a black hot rod with a custom batnose front end- for only about 1 year when this serial was made. Nothing, not the characters, or any of the various gimmicks, had become an institution yet. Only a year prior, Batman had been driving around in a regular car, distinguished only by a bat-shaped hood ornament. Conversely, this serial caused Alfred and the Batcave to be introduced in the comics. These contributions greatly outweigh the absence of a Batmobile.
The director, Lambert Hiller, had previously done `Dracula's Daughter,' and put in many atmospheric touches that give this serial the ambience of a 1930's Universal horror film. This is entirely appropriate, since the original Batman comics borrowed heavy from those films, and had only been created 4 years before this serial, in 1939. Having read a great many of the Batman comics of this period, it is my opinion that this serial comes the closest to the original concept of Batman, as envisioned by his 4 creators, Bill Finger, Gardner Fox, Jerry Robinson and Bob Kane (who managed to grab all the credit). The 1st year or 2 of Batman comics had a very dark, primitive, gritty feel, which this serial captures nicely. The opening musical score for each chapter, if you listen to it, contains the inspiration for Danny Elfman's 1989 Batman music.
Speaking of horror, Dr. Tito Daka has to be one of the greatest, most evil, intelligent, sadistic and insane serial villains ever. As great as, perhaps greater (?) than Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon. And the wacky happenings in Daka's lab and hideout are just some of the wildest, weirdest, pulp-fictionest stuff you've ever seen. Wait till you see the part where a Japanese soldier is put into suspended animation, dumped into a coffin, and electrically revived to deliver a secret message.
There has been much said over the years about the racism of this serial, and yes, there is considerable racism. Some of it seems too ridiculous to take seriously now: Dr. Daka was played by a Caucasian actor, and his supposed Japanese voice sounds instead like Peter Lorre trying to do a Mexican accent. But there are a couple places where the narrator talks about the WWII U.S. govt. concentration camps, wherein 120,000 U.S. citizens were unconstitutionally confined for the duration. Even after all these years, that's still offensive. But it's offensive because it really happened, the U.S. really did put 120,000 people into concentration camps.
Another touchy point are the recurring shots of a bizarre propaganda carnival ride, in which wax figures depict Japanese soldiers picking on and brutalizing Caucasians. Obviously, these images were meant to inflame anti-Japanese feelings in U.S. theater-goers, thus helping the nation retain it's `resolve.' Today, however, anyone who has read even the smallest amount of history will know that compared to the real atrocities committed by both Japan and the U.S., the wax tableaus now seem mild in comparison.
I am told that the late 1980's VHS release of this serial had been censored of much of the anti-Japanese references, possibly by the Japanese company Sony, which holds the rights to it. If that is so, then it is perhaps significant that Sony no longer feels obliged to sensor this material. Maybe this is cautionary, giving we who would inter people on the basis of religion or ethnicity (can you say `Gitmo'?) a glimpse into a previous time when, to our eventual shame, we did interr 120,000 people. Or perhaps Sony sees that the U.S. is now competing in the War Crimes Olympics, thus tacitly condoning, perhaps emulating, the Axis tactics of WWII. Maybe Sony just thinks atrocities have come back into style.
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