Browse: Home / Movie Gifts Unwrapped

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • Attention Must Be Paid: Gracie Allen
  • Disney Byways: KING OF THE GRIZZLIES
  • Flashback Comics Rack: Highlights of August 1970
  • The Friday Article Roundup: Arms Wide Open
  • Flashback Comics Rack: Highlights of July 1970

Movie Gifts Unwrapped

Posted By Gillianren on July 23, 2018 in News | 221 Responses

It’s time! We all watched our gifts, right? We know what we’re going to say? Remember, someone thought about giving you a movie to watch, and even if it was generic and not “because I thought [user] would really have interesting things to say about it,” it’s always at least a way of getting to know one another better when we find out what people suggest.

Since this is my article, and the whole thing is set to go up Really Stupid Early my time, I’m going to put my reaction here, and that’s just how things are going to go.

 

Babalugats very kindly gave me not one movie but a collection of shorts—the Max Fleischer Superman shorts, to be precise. Only the first nine of them are technically produced by Fleischer; the remaining were from Famous Studios. They are all in the public domain, though Superman and all his merchandising are owned by Warner Bros. The collection is on Amazon Prime—and any number of other places, including YouTube, because public domain. The set on Amazon are in pretty decent quality, though.

At the time, Superman was only fighting his never-ending battle for Truth and Justice; the American Way would come in the ’50s. This is in the old days, when Lois was way more competent than he was at the whole newspaper thing, but he balanced it out by using the Superman bit to his journalistic advantage. Though with Lois, he needs to take all he can get—she flat-out steals his press pass in one episode after specifically being told by Perry to work with Clark.

What’s interesting to me is that the nine Fleischer shorts are all the sort of vague “Superman fights some scientist or natural disaster or something” stories that we know so well from older Superman stories. However, more than half the Famous shorts are “Superman helps the war effort” sort of thing, generally with Racist Japanese Caricature villains. None of them feature Lex Luthor as a villain, but I believe this was before he became quite as iconic as he would in later years.

Despite Superman’s pop culture status, these cartoons are not the best remembered of the theatrical release cartoons. The Fleischers asked for, and got, a budget considerably higher than that for Disney cartoons, and the budget is definitely visible—if you’ve got a good enough transfer, of course; some of the transfers out there are terrible. Interestingly, the only of these to be nominated for Best Animated Short lost to a Pluto cartoon, the only time Mickey won a competitive Oscar. (It’s technically a Mickey cartoon, but really, Pluto.) They are visually striking, and each story is self-contained and holds together. It’s not my favourite iteration of the characters, but it’s good stuff.

It’s also true that a lot of the iconography of Superman is from these cartoons. Oh, it’s hard to piece a lot of it together—who first said he was more powerful than a speeding locomotive? Action Comics 1 declared him able to run faster than an express train, which is not the same and doesn’t have the same flow! But it’s believed that this is where Superman first flew, and you do kind of have to admire the work the title sequence goes through, because he no longer just Leaps Tall Buildings In A Single Bound. Unless that’s what the story requires, of course!

Posted in News | Tagged movie gifts

About the Author

gillianmadeira@hotmail.com'

Gillianren

Gillianren is a forty-something bipolar woman living in the Pacific Northwest after growing up in Los Angeles County. She and her boyfriend have one son and one daughter, and she gave a daughter up for adoption. She fills her days by watching her local library system’s DVD collection in alphabetical order, watching everything that looks interesting. She particularly enjoys pre-Code films, blaxploitation, and live-action Disney movies of the ’60s and ’70s. She has a Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/gillianren

Related Posts

Did you get what you want or a bunny suit?Movie Gifts 2023: Unwrap ‘Em If You’ve Got ‘Em→

Not one of the committees he chairs.Movie Gifts July 2023: The List→

Hopefully this cake has the wax off.Movie Gifts July 2023!→

Not pictured: bad toxinsThis Will Clear Out All the Bad Toxins: J. John Aquino’s Solute Gifts Soundtracks feat. STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE and THE FAREWELL→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    35436 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    28139 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    26694 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • Gordon with Mr. Looper

    Attention Must Be Paid: Will Lee

    26627 views / Posted January 7, 2023
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    20685 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • Such an adorable couple!

    Attention Must Be Paid: Gracie Allen

    September 23, 2023 / Gillianren
  • Every movie gets the Dropo it deserves

    Disney Byways: KING OF THE GRIZZLIES

    September 22, 2023 / Gillianren
  • Flashback Comics Rack: Highlights of August 1970

    September 22, 2023 / Sam "Burgundy Suit" Scott
  • Lucha Liberache

    The Friday Article Roundup: Arms Wide Open

    September 22, 2023 / The Ploughman
  • Flashback Comics Rack: Highlights of July 1970

    September 21, 2023 / Sam "Burgundy Suit" Scott

Last Tweets

    ©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

    Menu

    • Home
    • Who We Are
    • About
    • Privacy
    • Contact Us
    • Login
    Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!