a5c7b9f00b The Man of Steel fights crime with help from his friends at the Daily Planet. &quot;Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound!&quot; Mild-mannered reporter for the Daily Planet is really the greatest superhero of them all who &quot;fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way!&quot; So I&#39;m on Amazon and i notice that there is now a DVD of the original Superman TV series that I loveda kid. I went to the reviews, and they were resoundingly 5 Stars. Andi thought back, i remembered how much i loved George ReevesSuperman, and how much simpler things were back then. I thought about the changing room and him flying out of the Daily Planet. Then i remembered Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane and Perry White. There was a quiet strength in George Reeves that to me has always been the &#39;real&#39; Superman though i was a big fan of Christopher Reevewell. And when i realized i had a credit balance at Amazon, i ordered it.<br/><br/>Last night my wife and i watched the pilot episode ( Jor-El being laughed out of the science hearings, andKrypton explodes prematurely, off goes Kal-El), and we both kept saying how we remembered each momentif it was yesterday ( which of course, it was far from…haha). <br/><br/>Superman is a great storywellan exciting adventure. It was so well done considering it was over 60 years ago, and who would have thought back then how huge, i mean HUGE, the franchise would becomewellbe culturally ground breaking in some ways like the Beatles. The Adventures of Superman changed everything about TV and ultimately, the movies.<br/><br/>Watching Pa Kent open the rocket brought me back in time and i reveled in the innocence, and was still so very happy for the Kents to have the child they always wanted. Seeing him grow up and question why he was different, and then fast forwarding to his adult hood was just so much fun, and yes, we were little kids again watching the show. One of the things we noticed was how this version does not take itself so seriously, and how there was frequent comic relief, usually in the form of Jimmy Olsen, or the frustrations of Perry White.<br/><br/>Of course we remembered the entire beginning, andgeekyit is, we both recited the entire, &quot;Look up in the air, it&#39;s a bird…&quot; That episode was truly great, and the next one was a Jimmy Olsen one. As goodit was, there were times we were laughing at the campinesswellhow incredibly naive and well, stupid, Jimmy was. And that was part of the charm of the show. <br/><br/>No crazy super-villains from other galaxies, just normal bad guys and criminals that our hero Superman would first solve the crime, and then find and put the bad guys away. Very simple, very entertaining, and we had such a nice evening that we are ready to watch it two more episodes tonight.<br/><br/>Highly recommended to any fan of Superman who grew up in that time, or who didn&#39;t,it is a whole new look at our number one Super Hero of all time. It also will give you a look at our society back then that no newspaper or book can showwell. <br/><br/>George Reeves is Superman, and this DVD is well, yeah, Super! The first season was originally broadcast in the evenings, not in the afternoons for children. 1952 was not that far away from the &#39;film noir&#39; style of film making from the 1940s that we love, even though much of it was developed in low budget films to save on costs.<br/><br/>What does this have to do with &quot;The Adventures of Superman&quot;? Most of the episodes of the first season are suggestively, or deliberately noir: darkly lit stories peppered with deviant characters and low life villains with dire situations for our heroes to be trapped in. Others have commented on how the series degenerated into silliness later on, but here in the first season we have well photographed, written and acted and often suspenseful episodes.<br/><br/>For me, the best episodes of the first season are: &#39;Superman on Earth&#39;, the noirish &#39;The Haunted Lighthouse&#39;, &#39;The Monkey Mystery&#39; (many of these early episodes actually were mysteries), &#39;Night of Terror&#39; with the feisty Phyllis Coates, the great science fictional &#39;The Mind Machine&#39;, &#39;Rescue&#39; with Phyllis Coates in a kind of &#39;Ace in the Hole&#39; (1951) episode, &#39;The Secret of Superman&#39;, &#39;The Stolen Costume&#39;, the two ultra-noirish episodes &#39;Mystery in Wax&#39; (with a great performance by Myra McKinney) and &#39;The Evil Three&#39; and finally &#39;Crime Wave&#39;.<br/><br/>What is noteworthy about this first year is the demonstrated craft of the lead actors in taking their roles seriously. Of course, they had no idea of how actors in their far future would play the same and other comic book characters and be respected and lauded for their efforts –in the year 2009 Heath Ledger was nominated for an Academy Award for playing DC&#39;s &#39;The Joker,&#39; and Christopher Reeve played Superman in four successful films that also featured Marlon Brando, Gene Hackett, Susanna York, Terence Stamp, Jackie Cooper, Robert Vaughn and Richard Pryor among many stars.<br/><br/>The first season has well done ensemble acting. The episodes featured different pairings of the four leads. You get Clark and Jimmy in &#39;The Haunted Lighthouse,&#39; Perry and Jimmy in &#39;The Evil Three,&#39; and other episodes featuring Clark, Lois and Jimmy, or Clark and Perry, Clark and Lois, Clark, Jimmy and Perry, and even Clark and Inspector Henderson. Although Noel Neill was fine in the two &#39;Superman&#39; serials, Phyllis Coates is strong and feisty in this, her only year. Kudos to &#39;method&#39; actor (and James Dean&#39;s friend) Jack LarsonJimmy–an adult playing a teenager with such lines&quot;Jeepers!&quot; &quot;Golly! (he says it &quot;Gah-lee&quot;), &quot;Gleeps!&quot; and &quot;Gosh, Mr. Kent!&quot;<br/><br/>24 first season episodes in all, actually 26. The others were the two-part &#39;The Unknown People,&#39; which was actually a short 1951 theatrical film, &#39;Superman and the Mole People,&#39; which just features Lois and Clark. In it, George Reeves plays Clark Kentnot mild mannered, but a tough, two fisted fighter of small town prejudice directed against those who are different (in this case, mole men from inside the Earth). Clark even assists in a surgery to save a mole man&#39;s life! Reeves continues to play Clarksmart and tough throughout the series. (The feautre film is also highly recommended.)<br/><br/>A thoroughly enjoyable first year of a television series. I&#39;ll give it an 8.
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