Men of Steel

Here is a photo of the actor Kirk Alyn as Superman in the 1948 Columbia serial Superman; Alyn also appeared in its 1950 sequel, Atom Man vs. Superman.

I mention this because, in all of the hullabaloo about Man of Steel, which had its premiere today, one keeps reading references to George Reeves as the “original” screen Superman. Not just in fanboy blogs, either: a Salon article about the “curse” of Superman movies leads off by calling Reeves “the first actor to portray the beloved superhero on the screen”, and my childhood chum and fellow comic-book aficionado tells me that Entertainment Weekly commits the same sin.


If only there was some way to, I dunno, check facts before publishing articles. If only there was some resource to which one might turn to look up such information, perhaps some kind of movie database on the internet. If only the writers of such articles had sense enough to pause for a moment and ask themselves if what they “know” is in fact at all accurate. If only editors would examine articles with jaundiced eye. If only publishers would view fact-checkers as essential to their business, not extravagent frills that fall to the axe during the first round of budget cuts.

If only...

I am very fond of George Reeves; for me and most of my peer group of the so-called Silver Age of Comics, Reeves is Superman, even more than Christopher Reeve, and likely always will be. But to carelessly claim he was the first filmic Superman is just plain wrong, and does a disservice to Kirk Alyn. Reeves did not step into the cape until the 1951 feature film, Superman and the Mole Men, which served as a kind of pilot film to the TV series Adventures of Superman, which aired the following year.

Were one of such a mind (as I shared with my aforementioned childhood chum yesterday), one could in fact make the case that radio actor and announcer Bud Collyer was in fact the screen’s first Superman: Having voiced the character and his alter ego on the radio series The Adventures of Superman, beginning in 1940, Collyer provided the voice of Superman and Clark Kent in a series of cartoons that began in 1941. (Collyer reprised the dual roles in 1960s Saturday morning cartoons.) Although of course never seen in the Superman role, one might claim that Collyer was the first to portray the character.

However, I am content to give the credit to Kirk Alyn. It is, after all, where the credit is due.

Meanwhile, I perceive that I am sounding a little like someone from The Big Bang Theory. Sorry about that. My point here is more about getting facts straight that showing off my comic-book geekiness. But whatever works.

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Who's on First?

Just finished watching a nice video of Adam West talking about, of course, Batman. Having been a kid during the 1960s Batmania, I have a fondness for West as Batman, even if I find the old shows difficult to watch today. But as a comic-book geek of some duration, and perhaps something of a purist, I always cringe when I see West referred to as "the original Batman," because he was in fact the third actor to portray Batman on film.

Here's a photo of the first Batman, Lewis Wilson, in the 1943 serial Batman:

And here's a photo of the second Batman, Robert Lowery, in the sequel serial Batman and Robin, 1949:

And of course here's Adam West in the mid-1960s:

The Batman serials are, by today's standards, pretty slow-paced; and given that they were released on a weekly basis, awfully repetitious to watch back-to-back. (Sort of like reading collections of daily newspaper comic strips with continuing story lines.) But they're worth watching, and readily available on DVD.

Oh, and for the record, here's the first filmic James Bond, Barry Nelson, in a 1954 TV adaptation of Casino Royale. However, purist though I may be, I am prepared to make allowances for the fact that Nelson's version of Bond was Americanized, and referred to as "Jimmy Bond." Thus I object only slightly if at all to Sean Connery's being called the first James Bond.

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They Do Understand it's Just a Comic Book, Right?

Although I read Marvel Comics’ Thor comic book back in the day—the heyday, I should say, the late 1960s and early 1970s when it was being rendered with a good deal of over-the-top pseudo-mythological seriousness by the great team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and the often-maligned Vince Coletta—I wasn’t that big a fan. (Big enough to note that the actual title of the book was The Mighty Thor, since in those days nearly all Marvel heroes had an official adjective: The Amazing Spider-Man; The Incredible Hulk; The Invincible Iron Man. And a big enough fan to note that, early on, the book was titled Journey into Mystery, and so by the time I came along the cover line was, confusingly, Journey into Mystery with The Mighty Thor. So maybe I was a biggish fan.)

Anyhow, I have noted with some interest the development of a Major Motion Picture based on Marvel’s Thor...including this interesting tidbit from from Right Wing Watch:

Council of Conservative Citizens To Boycott "Thor" Over Casting of Black Actor

Well, of course. Who wouldn’t?

Naturally, having never heard of the Council of Conservative Citizens before, I hied on over to the right-wingnut organization’s website to see what it was that had them so worked up. And, well, who could blame them? It seems that Marvel Comics—my beloved Marvel Comics of old—has declared war on the gods of Asgard! By Odin’s beard!

From the Council’s website:

Marvel Studios declares war on Norse mythology

Norse mythology gets a multi-cultural remake in the upcoming movie titled “Thor,” by Marvel studios. It’s not enough that Marvel attacks conservative values and promotes the left-wing, now mythological Gods must be re-invented with black skin.

It seems that Marvel Studios believes that white people should have nothing that is unique to themselves. An upcoming movie, based on the comic book Thor, will give Norse mythology an insulting multi-cultural make-over. One of the Gods will be played by Hip Hop DJ Idris Elba.

Setting aside for the moment the interesting fact that the Council chooses to capitalize “God” in reference to mythological gods—a practice that I would expect Conservative Citizens to decry, leading me to conclude they must of course be anti-Christian Conservative Citizens, since they obviously uphold other gods besides the God of Abraham—I’m left with one single burning question:

Don’t they know that Thor is a movie based on a comic book?

Which is to say, it is not a movie about Norse mythology. The producers have not gone to ancient source materials for a rollicking retelling of the legends of Odin, Thor, Baldr, Heimdall, and the rest of that jolly crew. It’s a movie based on a comic book that pulls some characters, places, and themes from the mythos and recasts them in a superhero mold. (Indeed, in the early days Thor had a secret identity and everything—including an interesting slant on the old Clark Kent-Lois Lane-Superman triangle, in which Thor’s love interest thought that his human alter-ego, Donald Blake, was a dreamboat and didn’t really seem to give two hoots about Thor.)

Given that, the moronic objection to Heimdall being portrayed by a black actor obviously isn’t so much about protecting Norse mythology as it is complaining about the casting of an actor who is...well, not white.

Racist claptrap, in other words. These clowns are “insulted” because a movie studio cast a black man to play-act in a flick based on a comic book.

As my wife commented when I shared this, The Most Idiotic Thing I’ve Read all Week, with her: “Some people need to get jobs.”

Naturally, the wingnuts have begun a campaign to boycott the movie. I wasn’t too sure I’d bother to see Thor in a theatre—you know how it is: sometimes you just wait for the DVD to appear—but now I’m pretty sure I’ll spring for a ticket, just on principle.

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Oh Well, They're Only Facts

So my eye is caught by the headline

Victor Spinetti tells how he saved Ringo Starr from drowning

and off I go to WalesOnline to read a fluffy bit of an article in which the actor Victor Spinetti is quoted reminiscing about his encounters with the Beatles. All very nice and whatnot, until I encounter this:

...the only actor to star in all four of the band’s legendary films.

Really?

For one thing, if you stretch a bit, you come up with five films. The stretch is Magical Mystery Tour, which was made for television, but we'll be generous. That gives you:

A Hard Day's Night
Help!
Magical Mystery Tour
Yellow Submarine
Let it Be

(You might argue that Yellow Submarine shouldn't be on the list, since the band's involvement was minimal. But there it is anyway. If I let in Magical Mystery Tour, you have to let in Yellow Submarine.)

I immediately recalled Spinetti from the first two, and assumed he must have had a part in the third--an almost completely forgettable bit of nonsense with none of the charm or wit of the two feature films that preceded it (and I say that as a big fan of the Beatles)...an assumption that I verified with the Internet Movie Database. But what of the fourth film in the "all four" assertion? Well, certainly he wasn't in Let it Be. Did he supply a voice for Yellow Submarine? Doesn't show up in his IMDB listing.

I think we must conclude that Spinetti appeared not in "all four of the band’s legendary films" but in fact in three of the band's five movies...and one of them not exactly deserving of "legendary" status, either.

But it's so hard to keep things straight! The article's author seems unable to keep the films in order, and unwilling to take a moment to consult, say, IMDB to avoid making stupid mistakes such as appears in this section:

“I recall in Help! having to say the line, ‘With this ring, I could rule the world,’ and the four of them lying on the floor beside me screaming with laughter and stoned out of their minds.

“So they had to quickly put the camera close up on me to keep the film going. But that’s ok. That’s what I was there for.”

His skill for keeping a straight face was something that also came in handy on later Fab Four films like Hard Day’s Night, where he played a nervous TV producer.

Um, what? A Hard Day's Night is the Beatles' first film, from 1964. Help! is their second, from 1965. Whence comes this "later films like Hard Day's Night"? (The writer also can't be bothered with indefinite articles, even when they're part of the film's title.)

Although we're fortunate that Spinetti saved Ringo from drowning on the set of Help!, but it's too bad he couldn't save the Wales On Sunday writer from making careless, amateur mistakes. Oh well, they're only facts.

New for the New Year!

It appears that that which, in my youth, were known as "blaxploitation films" now have a new, less provocative, but easier-to-spell name. Witness this, from "The Lion's Roar," e-mail newsletter (well, okay, ad flyer) from MGM Studios:


It's important that the Marketing Department doesn't run out of things to do...