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George Reeves was and to me still is the only SUPERMAN. Nobody ever did it better. As others have said, this first season had grittier writing and direction than subsequent seasons. George Reeves was a terrific 'Superman/Clark Kent' as always and really got tough with the bad guys. Phyllis Coates(my all-time favorite Lois) portrayal of 'Lois Lane' was terrific!! Jack Larson and John Hamilton were at their best as 'Jimmy Olsen' and 'Perry White'. Robert Shayne as Inspector Henderson rounded out an incredible cast! - Now don't get me wrong, I like and own all six seasons and I like Noel Neill but the first season is so good, so well done, so made for adults as well as children that I just wish Robert Maxwell had been allowed to stay on and direct, etc... the remaining seasons. - The extra goodies on this DVD, commentary etc... are a really nice bonus.
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I currently own all four dvd voulmes of "The Adventures of Superman". I find that I watch season one more often than the others. There's good reason for this. Alot of tv shows are weakest in their first season due to little character development and weak stories ("The Simpsons" and "Seinfeld" come to mind) TAOS was an exception to this. Season one starts with a bang, and does not let up. It is without a doubt the best season of the show, and makes it a "must-have" for any Superman fan. Eveything clicks in these early episodes. The stories are extremely well written crime dramas, shot in a "film-noir" style...black and white, urban-based, with great backround music to heighten the drama. These early stories are much more real in feel than the later color episodes that have a more cartoonish feel to them. The characters here react as people in real life would, with anger,(Perry White in "Czar of the underworld", and panic...Clark Kent in "The Stolen Costume") In addition to the great writing, is a stellar cast. George Reeves is great here. He is in better physical shape in these episodes and is noticibly slimmer and younger looking. Reeves was a great actor who gives it his all in these episodes (by the time the series went to color, Reeves had put on weight and seemed "bored".) As mentioned in other reviews, Reeves' Kent is superb. An intelligent, hard-nosed reporter, who is rivaled only by Lois Lane, here played by Phyllis Coates, who, in my opinion , was far superior to her replacement, Noel Neil.
I could go on, but trust me...these episodes are great, playing like 30-minute mini- movies. They stand on their own (unlike the color episodes, which have a more "generic" feel to them. The best episodes of season one:
1. "The Stolen Costume"
2. "The Haunted Lighthouse"
3. "Mystey in Wax"
4. "Czar of the Underworld"
5. "Night of Terror"
6. "The Unknown people" (edited from "Superman and the Mole-Men", but better, due to the inclusion of the series background music)
7. "The Evil Three"
8. "Crime Wave"
9. "The Mind machine"
10. "The Birthday Letter"
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The Adventures of Superman (1952-1958)is one of the most warmly received and fondly remembered TV shows ever. Though lacking the science fiction elements that raged in DC Comics in the 1950s, I think this show was perfect just the way it was--Superman, a superhero who served as a crime buster against all racketeers, mobsters and gangsters in the city of Metropolis.
George Reeves makes the perfect manly Clark Kent (by no means the timid character first depicted in 1938). Phyllis Coates is rather sassy as Lois Lane, with no romance between either her or Superman. Jack Larson co-stars as the likable newsboy, Jimmy Olsen (James Bartholomew Olsen, if you want to be formal about it).
Though the film, "Superman and the Mole-Men" (1951) also included with the complete first season was a bit anticlimactic in location and plot overall, the subterranean creatures were lovable and the film's mood captured that of eerie B-movies in an age of theatrical and television innocence.
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Once again, George Reeves amazes me in this 1st season of his series. This noir-ish mix of adventures has less humor than the other seasons, and a sharper performance of Lois Lane by veteran Phyllis Coates. George Reeves seems to deliniated the Clark/Superman characters a bit more sharply, and the criminal element is much more believeable and threatening. I was pretty impressed by the origin episode, which I am convinces served as something of a template for the Richard Donner movie many years later. In short, this is a wonderfully entertaining set which shows just how good George Reeves really was.
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This is the best there was..black and white pulp realism, gangsterism,killing and murders,strong plots,great acting and charecterizon, a "cute " Louis Lane,all packed into this monster collection that still remained wonderful throughout it's 6 years but then again taken as is, this 1st season stands alone as very high art on a level all it's own.
Now, reduced in price, it remains a bargain and is a wonderful introduction not only to the TV show, which hooks you as you watch the remaining years, but into the whole gestalt of this great being who not only is a true icon of goodness for the common good but as this 1st year shows ,a real complex individual who confronts his own good and evil in his own psyche and shares in indirect responsibility for murder.
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