Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

alexanderdavies-99382 This "Superman" cartoon from 1941, was the first out of 17 altogether and they remain highly enjoyable and influential. Each cartoon cost "Paramount Studios" about $50,000 which was quite a sum of money in those days for a cartoon show. The running time of each one is within 10 minutes but there is quite a bit of story included and plenty of thrills. The actor who provides the voice of Clark Kent and Superman, is the same person who played the duel role on a radio show. He has the right kind of voice for the cartoon show and I like it when his intonation is deeper when he says those immortal words: This is a job for Superman." I bet every young fan cheered upon hearing those words. The first episode deals with a mad scientist who threatens to destroy Metropolis unless his demands are met. There is hardly any reference made to the planet Krypton and Superman being adapted by Jonathan and Martha Kent is completely omitted. I can highly recommend this great show.

Foreverisacastironmess Wow, when I first ever saw a couple of these vintage animated Superman shorts on late night public domain TV years ago I was so struck by the rich visual design and structure of them, and I can see why this first one in particular seems to have struck a chord with a lot of people over the years. The story is a little basic, but it's a fun little scenario that serves its purpose as a kind of pilot for this seventeen episode series. There's something simple yet profoundly appealing and beautiful about the way the animation looks and moves, it's so dynamic and bright and vivid, the shadows, angles and images are so sharp and well thought out, it's like the old comics of the 40s come to life, and is a marvellous little work of art and animation. You can almost feel the love and sweat that must have been painstakingly put into it, and it was all by hand back in 1941, no computers for a long time to come. The Fleischer Studios must have had a lot depending on them making a strong impression with this first episode of a specially commissioned series and I think they put the vastly increased budget that they had to develop these shorts to excellent use, as it's some of the most fluid and clean animation I've ever seen, and not just by the standards of the time. For what it is, it's pretty flawless. It's a world apart from the trademark bizarre surrealism of a lot of the earlier Betty Boop toon shorts. I'm fascinated by all the small details that are put into every frame of it, like all the dials and lenses that are on the mad scientist's giant laser cannon. My favourite part is when Superman pushes back the laser beam and wrecks the weapon, it really spectacularly demonstrates his strength and determination. How noble of Mr Superman to also save the bad guy along with Lois at the last second as his observatory lair is exploding. Too bad about the scientist's pet crow though, after the blast it doesn't show him again, I think he may have crowed his last kaw! Some of the short is a little silly, like when the headstrong Lois Lane knocks right on the villain's front door and is promptly swept up and taken hostage, and it made me laugh how daintily Clarke Kent sneaks into the closet with the window on the door to change into Superman right in front of everybody, and sneaks back out and politely closes the door behind him! The music is nice and charming to hear in an old fashioned saving-the-day kind of way, I had no idea that the reason Superman flies is due to an idea by Max Fleischer who felt that it would be more practical and easier to animate a flying Superman instead of him leaping around like a flea everywhere, and thus a new iconic superpower was born! Nice going Max, but when you look at how natural it looks when Superman is flying, it makes you wonder why they didn't have him doing it from the very beginning.. Still pretty dang great stuff, there remains something quite special about these classics, they have a timeless sort of quality, and this short is positively a must-see for fans of the early days of animation or admirers of the Superman character, and 1941 or not, he never looked better.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) Animation was really at a high during the times of World War II. Disney delivered some of their finest and most relevant pieces back then and here and there, occasionally, even some other companies managed good works. One of them is Fleischer Studios who started its Superman franchise back in 1941 with this one, sometimes also known as "The Mad Scientist".However, I believe it's definitely inferior to Disney at that point also not on the same level quality-wise with some of the later Superman cartoons by Fleischer, even if the "Lane gets caught. Superman comes to the rescue."-story-line is pretty repetitive in almost all the films. The villain was fine, but Superman fighting the destructive beam for a large part of the film just wasn't interesting enough and it almost felt like the story did not warrant a running time of 10 minutes. However, I did like Kent's winking near the end, definitely an interesting way of breaking the fourth wall. As a whole, this one is only worth a watch for big animation fans and nostalgics.

sbibb1 This is the first of what would turn out to be 17 Superman cartoons produced by the Fleischer brothers for Paramount Studios. This cartoon was released on September 26, 1941. The plot is as follows: An evil mad scientist threatens to attack the city at midnight. Lois Lane hops in her airplane and flies to the scientists hide out. The scientist captures her, and then procedes to attack Gotham. Blowing up a bridge, and attempting to topple the Empire State Building, until Superman arrives and saves the day.The New York Times said of this cartoon " {this cartoon} is among the brothers' less successful efforts. The Fleischers show so little aptitude for -or interest in-realistic animation styles. Superman and Lois Lane are at their most wooden. So is the story's villain, a mad scientist. But the scientist's raven is wildly alive, like any real Fleischer creation, and the film sneaks in as many raven's-eye glimpses as possible. Heroic human figures have little to do with the grim, witty hallmarks of the Fleischers' imagination."I must disagree with the Times' opinion. If one was to look at Superman comic strips from this point of time, one would see that the Superman of the comic books and the Superman of the cartoons, looks essentially the same. Yes, the raven is the most "cartoon" like character in the cartoon, but the film is still enjoyable, and is a snapshot of what cartoons were like right before the start of WWII.