Because I liked the first Superman serial so much I whet out and bought the second serial on dvd. I had downloaded the 1948 Superman serial from the Internet Archive but they did not have the 1950 sequel Atom Man Vs Superman. It might not be in the public domain. Both of them are packaged together in one set. I watched most of the first serial again when I got the dvd a couple of weeks ago. It looks much better than the Internet Archive version. I finally slotted in the sequel this AM. The same cast is back, Kirk Allen as Superman, Noel Neill as Lois Lane, Tommy Bond as Jimmy Olson and Pierre Watkin as Perry White. Lyle Talbot in a bald wig, plays villian Lex Luthor, the genius with the whacky plan to blackmail Metropolis by freakin' everybody out. He's got some high tech gear to help with his domestic terrorism. Besides a ray gun that can cause earthquakes and shake buildings, Luthor has perfected human teleportation and synthetic Kryptonite. He hides behind the mask of Atom Man when doin' his nefarious activities. That's partially because in the first few episodes he's actually running his criminal gang by teleporting from prison to his secret mountain cave hideout. A few chapters into the 15 Luther is paroled and he buys a tv station. We know he's posing as a past villian now on the straight and narrow path but he's got some people hoodwinked, like the Daily Planet's Managing Editor Perry White. There's all the usual stuff that happens in a serial and most of it looks pretty good. Superman is still animated when he flies and it doesn't look too bad.
The two serials are spread out over 4 discs. There's a couple of short featurettes but they aren't much. Worth a gander, Allen makes a good Superman. Almost makes me want to watch the tv series.
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