Tyrannosaurus Wrecks
Our favorite interplanetary immigrant (he gave new meaning to the term “illegal alien”), a female reporter who is foolhardiness incarnate, Sammy Timberg’s psuedo-Sousa theme music, and a rampaging dinosaur that seems to triple his proportions with every succeeding shot — what’s not to love in Max Fleischer’s “Arctic Giant?” After an expository minute or two, this 1942 Superman cartoon starts to move at a pretty good clip. The title critter demolishes a godzillion dollars worth of prime Metropolis real estate before Supe even shows up (I’m not quite sure why Clark Kent has to take a taxi to Monster Central, but the cab does serve as a handy dressing room.)
Lots of action and lots of fabulous wide angle shots of the wide hipped reptile doing his destructive thing. To get her story, Lois Lane all but jumps into the critter’s jaws before being rescued at the absolutely, positively last nanosecond. And, oh yeah, this time Superman really does leap tall buildings in a single bound — in this earlyish episode, the Man of Steel spends more time hopping from point to point than actual flying.
We’re really digging our special all-Krypton, all-week “Strictly Super” film festival. What do you think? Give us a holler at ReFrederator.com.
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On June 28th, 2006 at 12:00 am
1. Nice to see Ted(d) Pierce’s name in the story credits.
2. I would like to know if there’s any evidence that this cartoon inspired Godzilla’s creator. Godzilla’s size, destructive ability (minus the radioactive fire breath), and screech are identical to this T Rex.
3. Superman’s starting point is the Daily Planet Building. Doesn’t anybody wonder why Superman flies out of the building but not into it?
On June 28th, 2006 at 12:00 am
1. Yeah, it’s neat to see that cross pollination of the animation community way back then. 2. I dunno… they both have the same alligator pear body shape for sure 3. Well, let’s face it, the eye glasses/no eye glasses issue alone would tend to suggest the good folk of Metropolis, and specifically the staff of the Daily Planet, and specifically, specifically Lois Lane had a pretty unsure grasp of the obvious.