To celebrate the release of Man of Steel this month, the Flickering Myth writing team are looking back over Superman’s previous screen adventures; first up is Gary Collinson with a review of 1951’s Superman and the Mole-Men…
More than a quarter of a century before Richard Donner made us believe a man could fly, director Lee Sholem was making us believe a man could leap out of the top of the frame before landing in an entirely different shot with the 1951 feature film Superman and the Mole-Men. Whilst not Superman’s first big screen appearance (Kirk Alyn had previously donned the cape for the movie serials Superman and Atom Man vs. Superman, and Fleischer Studios had also brought the character to life in animated form with the classic Superman theatrical shorts of the 1940s), Superman and the Mole-Men marks the first full-length motion picture for the Man of Steel, with George Reeves starring as the World’s Greatest Superhero in a low-budget slice of 50s sci-fi that served as a precursor to the long-running television series Adventures of Superman.
Roving reporters Clark Kent (Reeves) and Lois Lane (Phyllis Coates) travel to the town of Silsby in order to cover the opening of the world’s deepest oil well, only to stumble upon an even greater story. Having drilled six miles beneath the Earth’s surface, the oil company has unwittingly penetrated the ‘hollow centre’ of the planet, home to a race of subterrainan creatures who have innocently climbed the drill shaft to explore this new world. But of course due to their hideous appearance – as Lois states, “they… they look… like MOLES!” (in as much as moles look like dwarves dressed in gorilla suits and bald caps) – the Mole Men send the townsfolk into a frenzy of fear and paranoia and soon Superman is all that stands between the “monsters” and an angry lynch mob hell bent on exterminating the visitors.
Shot on a studio backlot in just 12 days and on a micro-budget, Superman and the Mole-Men is certainly a product of its time and comes complete with all the typical 50s B-movie conventions, such as corny dialogue, hammy acting, ill-fitting costumes, laughable (and virtually non-existent) special effects and a plot that’s about as thin an allegory for the post-WWII ‘Red Scare’ as you can get. Nevertheless, despite its shortcomings, Superman and the Mole-Men is a step above the earlier movie serials and is actually a fairly entertaining adaptation of the Golden Age Superman. Although his confident, assertive Clark Kent is far removed from the traditional mild-mannered reporter of the comic books, Reeves makes for a decent enough Man of Steel here, despite wearing a ‘muscle vest’ which looks like it’s been constructed out of a sack of potatoes and having little to do except roll a few punches, deflect some bullets, deliver exposition and catch a Mole Man in his one – thankfully brief – flying scene.
If you’re interested in exploring the early exploits of the Man of Steel, then Superman and the Mole-Men is worth watching, although in all honesty you’d be better served delving into the Adventures of Superman television series, which also includes a reedited version of the movie as the two-part episode ‘The Unknown People’.
Gary Collinson is a writer and lecturer from the North East of England. He is the editor-in-chief of FlickeringMyth.com and the author of Holy Franchise, Batman! Bringing the Caped Crusader to the Screen.
