GIRL, INTERRUPTED

 Check out my review of Supergirl...

...online at Phoenix Magazine.

THE MOLE SHEBANG

Available to stream:

Superman and the Mole Men--The new Superman flick is "too woke," or so I'm hearing, in the opinion of Fox News and other commentators, mostly because of writer-director James Gunn pointing out in an interview that the Man of Steel is an immigrant. Fox host Tomi Lahren pronounced, without seeing the film, that it "went woke and will probably flop!"

She also sneered that "in his comments Gunn conveniently forgot to delineate between IMMIGRANTS and ILLEGALS, but that's par for the course..." [caps her's] This would be a more withering criticism if Lahren hadn't "conveniently forgot" that, um, Clark Kent aka Superman certainly is an illegal, undocumented alien, by any standard.

Other voices from around the MAGA-verse have similarly squawked, I understand. Why am I taking note of these dimwits rising to Gunn's well-dangled bait? Because I shudder to think what howling accusations of wokeness they would direct at the very first Superman feature film, 1951's Superman and the Mole Men. This very low-budget, 58-minute saga, produced for Lippert Pictures, was intended essentially as a pilot for the long-running syndicated TV series The Adventures of Superman (1952-1958) starring George Reeves. In terms of liberal social and civic values, this movie is woke like a grad student on Red Bull.

The story here unfolds not in Metropolis but in the small town of Silsby, "home of  the world's deepest oil well." Indeed, they've drilled so deep in Silsby that they've encroached upon the underground civilization of the Mole Men. These dome-headed, furry little goobers, who have come to the surface to explore, make whatever they touch glow with phosphoresence (they're played, by the way, by little people including Munchkin veterans Jerry Maren, Billy Curtis and John T. Bambury, and "Philip Morris Bellboy" Johnny Roventini).

Clark Kent (George Reeves) and Lois Lane (Phyllis Coates) arrive in town to do a story for the Daily Planet about the well, only to find the company shutting it down, fearing radioactivity. As word spreads about the Mole Men, the townies quickly start to organize into a mob. Before long, it's clearly a job for Superman. 

While movies don't come much more cinematically bare-bones than Superman and the Mole Men, it's heart-lifting to watch in the context of our current times, because it's clear-eyed about where the real threat in our society lies, when it it comes to aliens and other outsiders: with ourselves. Clark/Superman is sympathetic to the Mole People, and the villains in the story are the reckless, bloodthirsty, xenophobic townspeople, led by a gun-wielding bigmouth played by the great Jeff Corey. It's very easy to picture this guy in a red cap.

The conflict that this movie depicts, however crudely, between seething, reflexive hatred and fear of strangers and openminded welcome of them to our immigrant-made republic seems every bit as ingrained now as it was then, and of course that's depressing. What's cheering, however, is that Superman, at least this vintage of him, has been on the right side of this divide from the start: the side of Truth, Justice and the very best version of The American Way.

TAKE THIS JAW AND SHOVE IT

With Jurassic World Dominion opening this weekend, Your Humble Narrator has been more than usually preoccupied with dinosaurs, which is surely saying something. Thus, going through stacks of my old comics, I've noticed a recurrent motif:

Kona, Monarch of Monster Isle; Dell 1965:

Fantastic Four; Marvel 1975:

Jungle Action Featuring The Black Panther; Marvel 1975:

Marvel Two-in-One, Marvel, 1983:

Judge Dredd; Eagle Comics 1984:

Aquaman; DC 1992:

Shanna the She-Devil; Marvel 2005:

And finally, Superman in Action Comics; DC 1991:

So, just as Anaïs Nin chronicled her erotic adventures in Paris, and as George Orwell recorded his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, I will here thrill you with a tale from the world of obsessive comic hoarding: I had long sought a copy of that Action Comics issue with the beautiful Kerry Gammill cover, and spent hours in various comic stores and junkshops digging through dusty boxes of old funnybooks hoping to turn one up, without success. I resisted the temptation to simply order one from Amazon or eBay on the grounds that it would be far more satisfying to find one through honest rummaging, and that if I cheated and ordered a copy online I would soon face the bitter comeuppance of then finding it, probably for less money.

But one day, with the kind birthday present of an Amazon gift certificate further weakening me, I broke down and ordered. No joke, TWO DAYS LATER, as I strolled the aisles of a junkshop, I spotted a box of comics, idly flipped through the first two or three in it, and...there it was. For about four dollars less.

So now I have two...

SUPERMAN TO ELVIS, BY WAY OF THE WACKY SHACK

The Wife, The Kid and I made a hectic, way-too-short trip back east to the homeland for a family reunion, a tour of Penn State Behrend, etc. Here are some travelogue pix, starting with me at Cleveland Hopkins Airport posing with one of Cleveland's favorite sons (I'm in the foreground)...

Next is me in Conneaut, Ohio, outside The White Turkey, from which a root beer float may have been consumed...

Friday evening we went with friends Lory Anne and Tom to UPMC Park (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Park; formerly Jerry Uht Park) in downtown Erie, Pa, to see our beloved Erie Seawolves (AA affiliate of the Detroit Tigers) play the second of two seven-inning double header games, a makeup game from the previous night's rainout. The Seawolves lost to the Bowie (MD) Baysox, alas, but Dippin' Dots were consumed, The Kid got to hang out with mascot C. Wolf...

...and after the game there was a fireworks show that sounded like the invasion of Bagdad.

Great baseball weather, too.

We made a pilgrimage to Mighty Fine Donuts on Parade Street in Erie; the name is not false advertising... 

We drove over to Meeder's in Ripley, New York, and bought a jar of their grape jelly...

...but as we were going through security at Cleveland Hopkins on the way home, the TSA agent flagged my suitcase, dug out the jar of jelly and said "Sir, this can't go through." "Just toss it," I said. What else could I say? Very disappointing. Pretty drive, anyway.

The Wife, The Kid and I also made it, along with our friend Lory Anne, to Waldameer Park in Erie, arriving only about an hour before closing time. The Kid, guilting me for being too chicken to take her on the roller coaster at New York New York in Vegas a few years ago, talked me into riding the Ravine Flyer 2, the gigantic terrifying wooden roller coaster there. I had ridden it a few years earlier with Lory's husband Tom, and would have thought nothing could have induced me back on. But when I saw kids of 8 and 10 eager to get aboard, I felt ashamed of my craven cowardice; this did not, however, stop me from bellowing like a wounded moose through the ride's brief duration.

Afterwards, I had the honor of accompanying The Wife on my favorite ride at Waldameer, the Wacky Shack (Lory Anne, who took these photos, rode with The Kid)...

One of my most treasured memories of the first couple of years of our marriage was of The Wife throwing her arms around my neck and saying "Kiss me in the Wacky Shack..." Pretty much sums up a successful marriage, if you ask me.

A few more random images: Me with some of the rather patriotic dinosaurs at Peters Welding on Bartlett Road in Harborcreek, PA...

...my fellow Harbor Creek Marching Husky and pal Pete Geanous and his sister Liz made me a delicious Greek omelet at Coney Island Lunch in Wesleyville...

...I got to see my pal Stan, very briefly (and my pal Ron, only a bit less briefly, but didn't get a pic)...

The Kid at Presque Isle, at "Kite Beach," at Glass Growers Gallery and at the top of the tower at Dobbins Landing...

The Wife & Lory Anne at the Presque Isle Lighthouse...

...and a pierogi burger at Union Station in Erie...

Family reunion pics...

And finally...Elvis!

The hotel at which The Wife and I stayed (The Kid, mercifully, stayed with Lory Anne and Tom) was, I think, the grossest, divey-est hotel at which I've ever stayed, which is certainly saying something. Due (supposedly) to COVID, no changed bedding or room cleaning, no clean towels, and--not due to COVID--no elevators, and rusted-out stairwells that looked, potentially, due for collapse. Having said that, the staff was nice, the continental breakfast offered excellent scrambled eggs, there was a party atmosphere among the guests, particularly the Western PA Retreads, a motorcycle club for bikers 40 and older. And...on our last night there, there was live entertainment! Rudy Elvis, an impersonator of The King from Canvas, West Virginia (near Summerville), played to a seriously packed ballroom of aging bikers...

I wandered by, loitered in the doorway long enough to hear Rudy E. perform two Hank Williams songs "which Elvis made his own, to a degree": "Your Cheatin' Heart" and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." A nice lady spotted me and offered me a chair. I also heard a pretty respectable "Return to Sender" before I had to step away. A while later, I was in the lobby again and two middle aged Rudy-heads (who had followed him up from WVA for the show) asked me what I thought; I was able to honestly say I enjoyed it. About this time Rudy himself stepped into the lobby, saw me, and told me that he noticed me singing along with "Your Cheatin' Heart." "You're one of those guys who, if I forgot the words, I'd just look at your mouth."

His groupies explained to me that Rudy had taken up Elvising just ten years ago; this, they said, was his 218th performance--Monday night at the ironically-named Quality Inn, at State Street and I-90 in Erie. Good gig; living the dream!

Then it was back to the airport in Cleveland, with this lovely view out the window of the Great Lakes Brewery where we had lunch. A memorable voyage!

LANE PASSING

RIP to the ever-perky Noel Neill, passed on at 95…

Neill was the first screen Lois Lane, playing the role opposite Kirk Alyn in the movies and George Reeves on TV. Just a few weeks ago I happened to be reading this Giant Lois Lane Annual #2 from 1963…

…and among the wonderfully bizarre (and deeply condescending!) stories, reprints from Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane, was a full-page bio of Neill, noting that, ironically, her original ambition was to be a journalist.

Anyway, in Neill’s honor…

Monster-of-the-Week: …this week the nod goes to this off-the-wall creature, probably drawn by DC’s Kurt Schaffenberger, from the set of a sci-fi movie in one of the tales in that comic...

THE CAPES OF WRATH

Opening this week:

  
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice—The title sounds like a Supreme Court Case, but it just refers to a spat between the two biggest names in the DC superhero stable. The Man of Steel thinks Gotham’s Dark Knight is a creepy vigilante, while the Caped Crusader thinks that the near-omnipotence of Krypton’s Favorite Son represents an existential threat to all humankind. Can either be called wrong with perfect confidence?

This had possibilities, certainly, and a deft director in Zack Snyder. And the film has its moments. The acting is quite strong—Ben Affleck makes a brooding, intriguing, suavely attractive Bruce Wayne, and his costume gives a perfectly competent performance as Batman. He’s far more credible as a superhero here than he was as Daredevil back in 2003.

Henry Cavill makes a serviceable Superman—like most actors who have played this role, his charm doubles whenever he’s in Clark Kent drag—and Jesse Eisenberg darkens his persona as a manic, nattering Lex Luthor. A young Israeli actress named Gal Gadot is introduced as Wonder Woman; she doesn’t get much to do, but she is unquestionably a wonder.

Parts of the clash between the title icons are amusing, but mostly Batman v Superman is an overwrought, laborious, punishingly heavy slog. The conflict is muddled and lacking in urgency, there isn’t nearly enough humor, and, above all, the movie is too freakin’ long. It’s TOO. FREAKIN’. LONG. By at least twenty minutes, probably more.

Various theories can be advanced as to why so many blockbuster action movies insist on being so outrageously overlong. But I would rather this review, unlike Batman v Superman itself, remain brief. 

City of Gold—This documentary challenges the commonplace that good stories require conflict. It’s a portrait of Pulitzer-Prize-winning L.A. Times restaurant critic Jonathan Gold, and it has almost none.

For an hour and a half, we watch the pleasant fellow galumph around the Greater L.A. area, going to Mom and Pop ethnic restaurants where adoring owners serve him plates of delicious-looking food. He takes a brief side trip to New York to dine with his idol Calvin Trillin, but otherwise that’s pretty much the whole movie, in terms of content. None of the talking heads have an unkind word to say about him; no appalling personal tragedies are revealed.

Of course, we do learn that Gold is a chronic procrastinator. A newspaper columnist who procrastinates? What a shocker! And his environmentalist brother gently reproves him for his fondness for overfished varieties of sushi. That’s about as much Shakespearean drama as we get.

But director Laura Gabbert, abetted by Bobby Johnston’s fine score, keeps City of Gold gliding along enjoyably. Gabbert’s bird’s-eye dissection of L.A.’s neighborhoods is fascinating and undeniably glamorous, and the movie works as genteel food porn as well. Mere humans may feel a pang of envy at seeing someone so seemingly contented with and well-rewarded by his talents, but Gold comes across so unassumingly that it doesn’t deepen into resentment.

BAD RAPTOR

With Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice opening this weekend, Your Humble Narrator is reminded of the Fleischer Superman cartoons of the ‘40s, which constitute some of the most visually beautiful superhero art ever. So…

Monster-of-the-Week: …this week our honoree is the King or Duke or Grand Poobah of the underground race of hawk-men…

 

…who try to sacrifice Lois and her Professor pal in 1943’s The Underground World.

Spoiler alert! The Man of Steel shows up to discourage the birdbrains from this plan… 

STEEL-GOOD MOVIE

Playing Superman is sometimes seen as a curse for an actor. The career and life of George Reeves were blighted by his association with the role, Kirk Alyn did little else of note, and Brandon Routh, from 2006’s tepid Superman Returns, has hardly become a household name. Even Christopher Reeve, who had many fine credits apart from the tights and cape, is still chiefly remembered as the Krypton Man.

On the other hand, none of these actors had much right to grumble, in my opinion, because…well, because they got to play Superman! They had, at least at that point in their lives, the looks and the physique and the genial charm to play America’s own folk hero, our Hercules/Everyman/Immigrant-Makes-Good hybrid, not to mention the even better role of sly, likably milquetoast Clark Kent.

If you get to do that, anything else you get to do should be regarded as gravy. Besides, if you’re right for Superman there’s a decent chance you won’t be quite right for much else anyway.

That seems to have been the feeling toward the latest victim/favored son—British actor Henry Cavill, of TV’s The Tudors, was reportedly considered and passed over for James Bond, for Edward in the Twilight movies and for a key role in a Harry Potter flick. As Clark Kent/Cal-El in the current Man of Steel, he’s buff of bod and pretty of face, and if he has any personality to speak of, he doesn’t show it.

But the movie has plenty of more vibrant actors to make up for this. Russell Crowe and Ayelet Zurer as Clark’s Kryptonian parents, Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as his Kansan parents, Laurence Fishburne as Perry White, Richard Schiff as a mild-mannered scientist and Christopher Meloni and Harry Lennix as military men all contribute solid turns, and Amy Adams is beguiling as usual as Lois Lane, though in general I object to Lois Lanes that don’t wear big librarian-ish glasses.

The best performance, however, is by Michael Shannon as the villain, the exiled, enraged megalomaniac General Zod. Though Zod is from Krypton, he seems oddly flinty and Midwestern somehow—he might almost be a shady politician from Smallville. Shannon doesn’t have the weird, campy magnetism that Terence Stamp brought to the role in 1980’s Superman II—he’s a repellent figure. But he’s more dramatically substantive. Without overdoing it, he carries a hint of tragedy in his eyes.

This echoes both the merits and the downside of Man of Steel. Unlike most of Superman Returns, the new movie isn’t dull, but it’s on the heavy-handed side. Directed by Zack Snyder from a script by David S. Goyer, it retells, in its first half, Cal-El’s nativity and his escape from the dying planet Krypton, his arrival on Earth and adoption by the Kents, his discovery of his incomparable powers and his early attempts to help humankind. In its second half, it’s basically a loose remake of Superman II, with Zod and comrades, banished from Krypton just before its destruction, invading Earth with an eye to remodeling it in their home planet’s image.

The ensuing clash between Zod’s forces and Superman is a special effects spectacle, no question, with cities crumbling before the might of cool spaceships that look like robber crabs or scarabs. There are superb, imaginative scenes earlier on, also—like the young Clark unable to look at his teacher or classmates without seeing their skeletons and organs. But I found the movie a bit much—too many percussive explosions and collapsing building, too many pummeling fistfights, a little too much sturm und drang.

What Man of Steel lacked, for me, was a fun, playful side. Part of the delight of the Superman myth has always been its unabashed, primary-color cheeriness, but Man of Steel has a chilly, haunted feel.

There are a couple of episodes—one on a oil rig, one on a school bus, and one involving a waitress being harassed—where the title character simply gets to come to people’s rescue, and they’re among the best moments in the picture. Why can’t we have a whole movie of this sort of thing? They’ve already turned Batman into a Dark Knight—would it be so terrible to leave us one uncomplicated, civic-minded Bright Knight?

DINO HARD

Strictly in terms of visual beauty, the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons made in the early ‘40s are certainly among the finest superhero art ever created. So, in anticipation of Man of Steel, opening tomorrow...

Monster-of-the-Week: …let’s give the nod this week to the title character of 1942’s The Arctic Giant…

…an unfrozen dinosaur who trashes Metropolis until Krypton’s greatest Earthly expat acts as animal control.

The short may be watched here in its entirety, and is worth the nine minutes of your life.