In this precursor to the Superman series, Superman comes to the defense of subterranean creatures who are under attack from local townspeople. The script is good as is George Reeves' acting, but all others are one-dimensional. The creatures look like little people (either midgets or children) with skull caps on. There are no interesting visuals or props, except for a weapon that looks like a child's toy only larger and it is really too large for the creatures to handle. The high point in the movie is George Reeves' performance, both his acting and superhuman feats.
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dstillman-8938315 April 2019
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This film is notable for three reasons.
First, apparently capitalizing on the success of the two 'Superman' serials, this low budget feature was made and released to theaters, marking George Reeves' and Phyllis Coates' initial appearances as Clark Kent / Superman and Lois Lane. Part of the opening is re-used in the series. Outside the town of Silby, a six-mile deep oil well penetrates the 'hollow Earth' allowing the 'Mole-Men' to come to the surface. Forget about the other holes (those in the plot).
Second, unlike most SF invasion films of the fifties, the hero plays a dominant (and controlling) force in preaching and enforcing tolerance and acceptance of difference against a raging mob of segregationist vigilantes. No 'mild mannered reporter' here! Clark Kent, knowledgeable and self-assertive, grabs control of the situation throughout ("I'll handle this!"), even assisting in a hospital gown in the removal of a bullet from a Mole-Man! As Superman, he is gentler than Clark towards the feisty Lois, but is also the voice of reason and tolerance as he rails against the vigilantes as "Nazi storm troopers."
Third, you will notice that the transition from the Fleisher-like cartoon animated flying of Superman in the two serials to the 'live action' flying in the 'Adventures of Superman' had not yet been made. -
AlsExGal22 December 2019Daily Planet reporters Clark Kent (George Reeves) and Lois Lane (Phyllis Coates) arrive in the small town of Silsby to do a story on the closing of the world's deepest oil well. Not long after, a group of small, glowing beings emerge from the well tunnel and strike fear in the hearts of the locals, who soon form a vigilante posse in order to kill the strange invaders. It's up to Kent, in his guise as Superman, to stop the mob violence before it's too late.
This was an independently produced presentation piece intended to sell local stations on buying the Adventures of Superman TV series. Lippert thought it was good enough for a theatrical release. It was later aired as a two-part episode of the show. Despite being the first episode, the filmmakers forego a Superman origin story, and instead present this rather meager story. Superman in costume is actually present very little. Jeff Corey, as the detestable leader of the vigilante mob, seems to be on screen longer Reeves. This runs less than an hour. -
cariart21 September 2003In anticipation of the television series, 'The Adventures of Superman', this third 'live-action' Superman was the first 'feature' film (the previous entries had been serials). Replacing serial 'King' Kirk Alyn as the 'Man of Steel' was George Reeves, a gifted 37-year old actor who had been impressive in such 'A'-list productions as 'Gone With the Wind', 'The Strawberry Blonde', 'Lydia', and 'So Proudly We Hail!' Returning from the war, however, his career, as was the case with so many other young actors, had stalled. Reduced to supporting roles, or leads in 'B' films and serials, 'Superman and the Mole Men' represented yet another minor film, but Reeves hoped the exposure from both film and television might jump-start his flagging career...
He little anticipated what impact Superman was about to have on his life!
A cautionary tale, with elements 'lifted' from 'Frankenstein' and 'The Day The Earth Stood Still', begins as miners drill the world's deepest shaft, and break through to an underground world. Two of it's inhabitants, bald, radioactive midgets, decide to secretly investigate our world. Doing a feature story on the well for the 'Daily Planet', reporters Lois Lane (Phyllis Coates, inheriting the role from the serials' Noel Neill), and Clark Kent (Reeves), finds a town gripped with fear and prejudice, as an old man had suffered a heart attack after seeing the 'visitors'. Despite pleas for tolerance, the residents arm themselves, and plan to 'shoot first and ask questions later', particularly after the ball of a little girl who sees them (and has an innocent encounter), has enough residual radioactivity to glow in the dark. Shots are fired, the aliens bring up their own weapons, and it's up to Superman to 'save the day'!
Reeves' interpretation of 'Clark Kent/Superman' was far less jovial and buoyant than Alyn's; decisive, serious, and nearly combative, this was a 'Superman' you didn't mess with (the characterization would be toned down, for television). Square-jawed and more muscular (aided by a tee shirt with sewn-in shoulder pads, beneath the costume, to make him even more formidable-looking), the greatest variance between his interpretation and the comic books' was in his 'take' on Clark Kent. Reeves gave the reporter courage and integrity, as opposed to the 'meek, mild-mannered' geek that readers were familiar with (and who would be revived by Christopher Reeve, 26 years later). While some critics complained that he made Kent and Superman's personalities too similar, Reeves and the producers wisely realized that as budgetary restraints kept Superman's presence in the movie (with the FX required to show his 'super powers') to a minimum (there aren't ANY flying sequences in 'Superman and the Mole Men, only cast comments..."Look, up in the sky"... and a close-up of his 'catching' a falling alien), Clark Kent would be on-screen more, 'standing in' for the Man of Steel. Kent 'had' to be stronger, to fill the void.
Phyllis Coates was fabulous, as Lois Lane. No longer the serials' air-headed girl reporter who kept getting into trouble, Coates' Lois was strong, smart, and every bit Clark Kent's equal. She redefined the role, and when Noel Neill returned to the part, on TV several years later, she had big shoes to fill!
Aided by an excellent supporting cast (including screen veterans Jeff Corey, Walter Reed, and J. Farrell MacDonald), 'Superman and the Mole Men', despite its small budget, offered excellent performances, and a theme of tolerance that still rings true, today.
With the success of the film, 'Superman' moved on to television...and history was about to be made! -
ashfordofficial11 April 2023The first feature film based on any DC Comics character.
Originally served as a trial balloon release for the syndicated Adventures of Superman TV series, for which it became the only two-part episode, "The Unknown People". A science fiction mystery starring Man of Steel. A story with themes of mob lynching and radiation poisoning. One of the best Clark Kent / Superman and Lois Lane live-action portrayals. I liked how they made Superman's flight very creatively.
The movie started as okay but then it gets really tiresome. It's not a bad movie, it's just boring.
The first feature film based on any DC Comics character. -
Before Henry Cavill, before Brandon Routh, before Dean Cain, even before Christopher Reeve but after Kirk Alyn we had George Reeves as Superman. Make no mistake the man was iconic and many would argue the real Superman as he was in over 100 episodes of the original Superman television series.
Here in his first and sadly due to his passing last big screen adventure Superman has to tackle mysterious creatures that have come up through a drilling site.
This "Movie" is actually a two parter from the television series that they stuck together and released in cinemas. For that reason it's only an hour long but is just the right length for such a brief story.
It's not action packed, the creatures aren't super villians and no super powers are really seen. This is a more subtle approach and see's the citizens as the antagonists as they rally together into a mob (As people probably would in such a situation)
I didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did but it's a nice short bit of take your brain out entertainment and considerably better than anything Cavill has done as the worlds most famous superhero.
The Good:
Simple story
Well written
A more realistic approach
The Bad:
The Mole People look ridiculous -
ericstevenson1 April 2017Yep, this is in fact the first superhero movie ever made! The movie itself isn't that good, but it's great to watch if only because I got to see literally the only black and white superhero movie ever made. Superman was the original comic book superhero so it only fits it would be about him. I'm launching Superhero Month and will try to spend April watching every superhero movie ever made! Well, the ones I haven't seen. Anyway, besides that, the movie itself isn't really that good. It was actually originally a two or three part episode of the George Reeves Superman show.
Could this also be the first movie based on a TV show? No, because this led up to the TV show. Anyway, the movie itself has pretty bad special effects. The worst scene is probably when Superman is rescuing one of the mole men and it just looks awful. This had no appearance by Lex Luthor or any other Superman villain or any Superman character besides him and Lois Lane. Still, I couldn't help but have fun watching such an old superhero movie. It's just great to know how far we've come and I do love my superheroes. ** -
mstomaso27 August 2009I rented this film from Netflix for two reasons - I was in the mood for what I thought would be a silly '50s sci-fi-asco and because it is the first feature-length Superman film. Needless to say, after about 15 minutes I found myself thoroughly engaged and very pleasantly surprised.
An experimental oil well has penetrated about six miles into the earth and is being shut down by the sponsor. Lois and Clark show up to get the scoop but are disappointed that the deepest well ever drilled will no longer be in operation. A day later, strange events at the well make for a story more appropriate for Superman than Clark Kent. It seems that the radioactive Mole Men have invaded from their six-mile deep home near the earth's core.
Supermen and the Mole Men is a simplistic but well-made piece of social realism. Released in 1951, starring a lead actor who served in World War II, the moral of the story seems to be that Americans are just as capable of becoming fascists as anybody else. To drive this point home in a typically straightforward Superman manner, Reeves even accuses the lynch mob hunting the Mole Men of being 'Nazis' at one point.
Even in the 1950s, the science underlying this film was nonexistent. Six miles of drilling through continental crust would not have even penetrated the upper mantle, let alone the "hollow center of the earth" - which, in any case does not exist. Forgivable - keep in mind that this film is based on a golden age comic book.
The film is a little unevenly paced. Although the Molemen are interesting, a bit creepy, and nicely portrayed, there are several Corman-esquire scenes which spend too much time redundantly showing us their odd behavior. The script is intelligent and economical. By today's standards, the costuming is poor to fair, but for its time, this film's special effects and costuming were quite good. The cinematography is also generally very good, and the acting is much better than one might expect. I was particularly impressed with Reeves, Jeff Corey and Walter Reed. -
secondtake7 December 2018Superman and the Mole-Men (1951)
You don't have to be a Superman fan to like the campy, cheesy quality of this B-movie. But don't go into it thinking it's a great movie, of course. It is, for certain, the first feature film using the DC comics hero, Superman, and it's played by George Reeves (no relation to Christopher, such is coincidence). The mole men of the title are played by either children or midgets (they are truly small, and wear funny masks that make their heads a little larger and expressionless). For some reason, when this was cut for t.v. release, all mention of "mole-men" was cut from the script. I don't know what politically correct boundary is approached here, but mole-men works in the comic book sense--they live deep underground. Okay, it's a creaky enterprise. The townspeople go into a predictable panic, Lois Lane is more a 50s housewife than vigorous reporter/photographer, and Clark Kent himself, though big and impressive, is not quite what we think of as a Superman. There are some things to notice and appreciate from seven decades later, about being American (the clichés) and about the 1950s. First of all, in a post-WWII nuclear age, there is a wonderful compassion shown to the "aliens" from down below. It's kind of like: we have differences, but if we keep apart, we can just live separately. (Lois Lane spells this out with great drama at the end.) And second, there is a feeling that our technology is pushing us into areas we don't understand, and we need to be cautious at the very least. (The whole crisis was started by an experimental oil well that had drilled down farther than ever before, some six miles.) There are better movies of this sort from this period ("The Blob" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" are all far better). But this was more "fun" than I expected. And less than an hour "wasted." -
redryan6427 November 2016DESIGNED AS SORT of a big screen kick-off for the ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN TV Series, the MOLE MEN feature is somewhat mixed bag of a film. On the one hand , it has an obvious look of a frugal budget. As a feature accompanying the bottom line, the picture was released by Hollywood's "Poverty Row" member, Lippert Pictures, Inc.
BEING THAT THIS is the first on screen teaming of George Reeves with Phyllis Coates as Kent/Superman and Lois Lane, it came across very well and convincingly. When the feature is viewed by a true aficionado of the TV Series, there is little evidence as to its being the initial paring; save for the intensity displayed by George. He obviously was still growing into the role and developing his own interpretation. (You know, "What's my motivation Lee?" to director Sholem.)
THERE ARE NO scenes depicting the Man of Steel flying over us in the sky; which would become so popular and expected in the series. They did have him shown taking off sand landing and one shot depicts his point of view of the land below; an interesting and effective process that was never used again. Also, animation is used to portray Superman's rescue of a wounded Mole Man from a fall off of the dam. (This was similar to the cartoon flying effect used in the two Columbia serials, SUPERMAN (1948) and ATOM MAN VS. SUPERMAN (1950).
THE TONE AND mood of the movie was the same as that which permeated the entire first season of television. Some thought them to be just a trifle too serious and violent for the small fry viewers, sort of Film Noir. This was changed in season number two. The shift in content's emotional tone was accomplished by replacing producer Robert Maxwell with DC Comics editor, Whitney Ellsworth.
WITH THE RUNNING time of 58 minutes, it was the perfect length to cut into two episodes of the television series (the only two part story they had). The titles were "The Unknown People" parts one and two; which were wisely made into the last two episodes of season one. The regular characters of Jimmy Olsen and Perry White did not appear and weren't mentioned in the credits.
ALTHOUGH THERE WERE certainly some short comings, the over all effect was a good one. Lois Lane, Clark Kent and Superman all hit the ground running and are still doing so on television outlets like METV and Heroes & Icons. -
TVholic4 December 2005Back in the 1970s, WPIX ran "The Adventures of Superman" every weekday afternoon for quite a few years. Every once in a while, we'd get a treat when they would preempt neighboring shows to air "Superman and the Mole Men." I always looked forward to those days. Watching it recently, I was surprised at just how bad it really was.
It wasn't bad because of the special effects, or lack thereof. True, George Reeves' Superman costume was pretty bad, the edges of the foam padding used to make him look more imposing being plainly visible. And true, the Mole Men's costumes were even worse. What was supposed to be a furry covering wouldn't have fooled a ten year-old, since the zippers, sleeve hems and badly pilling fabric badly tailored into baggy costumes were all painfully obvious. But these were forgivable shortcomings.
No, what made it bad were the contrived plot devices. Time and again, Superman failed to do anything to keep the situation from deteriorating. A lynch mob is searching for the creatures? Rather than round up the hysterical crowd or search for the creatures himself, he stands around explaining the dangers of the situation to Lois and the PR man. The creatures are cornered? Again, he stands around watching and talking but doesn't save them until they're shot. Luke Benson, the town's rabble-rouser, shoots at him? Attempted murder to any reasonable person, but Superman releases the man over and over to cause more problems. Superman had quite a few opportunities to nip the problem in the bud, but never once took advantage of them.
That said, both George Reeves and Phyllis Coates played their characters well, seemingly instantly comfortable in the roles. If only they had been given a better script to work with. -
It must have been several years after it was released, so don't know why it was at the movies. But as a kid I enjoyed it. I just found a VHS tape of Superman and the Mole Men at the flea market and decided to watch it again (it's been a lot of years). I wasn't expecting much, now knowing how the B movies were made at that time. But I was pleasantly surprised to find the movie very watchable and the acting by all outstanding. Usual acting in these type movies leaves a lot to be desired. Surprisingly, the writing wasn't bad either. Forget the fact that Superman went from sequence to sequence and could have kicked all their butts in the beginning, because then the story would have ended, right?! OK, the mole men costumes were hokey and not very scary (they didn't even scare me as a kid). However, making allowances for the probable low budget for background and costumes, it was a job well done by all. I recognized the sheriff right away as The Old Ranger from Death Valley Days and plenty of supporting roles in TV westerns. J. Farrell MacDonald played old Pop and was always a great supporting actor in more movies than I can count. Walter Reed and Jeff Corey were familiar faces as well from other movies. Did you recognize the old doctor as the captain of the ship that went to get King Kong? Did you recognize the little girl rolling the ball to the mole men as Lisbeth Searcy in Old Yeller? Some of the mole men were famous too. Jerry Maren has played Mayor McCheese for McDonalds, Little Oscar Mayer, was the Munchkin that handed Dorothy the lollipop, was on a Seifeld episode and a wealth of other work. Billy Curtis played an unforgettable part with Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter, was one of the friends met by the star in Incredible Shrinking Man, he had a part in a movie I just luckily grabbed at a flea market titled My Gal Sal with Rita Hayworth, Wizard of Oz and plenty of other parts - great actor. John Brambury was also a Munchkin. Phillis Coates, who played Lois Lane in this movie, was without question wonderful in the part and George Reeves as Superman/Clark Kent WAS Superman. He did a great job of playing the strong man. Bottom line to all I've said is that this movie is worth watching because of the cast and writing in dealing with a pretty flimsy idea for a movie. But it was the 50's and anything was possible from intruders from outer space to mole men from inner space. It is definitely worth seeing, there isn't a bad actor in the group. Whomever put the cast together was very, very fortunate to get so many gifted actors into a B type film. Some already had a wealth of experience and some were about to obtain a wealth of experience - but all were gifted. So if you get a chance to see the film, forget the dopey costumes and just enjoy the excitement and acting. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, just a good, old fashioned movie to enjoy!
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iquine12 July 2017(Flash Review)
It clocks in at 1hr yet it has a properly thought out story. I had no idea what this would be like but I was presently surprised. Oil men drill a hole 23 miles down or something into the Earth and these hilarious little creature people living way down there ascend upon the outer crust. They makes friends with a little girl but of course the itchy trigger finger locals want them gone. Once threatened, they bring up a kickass ray gun that takes two of them to hold. Superman must come to save the day! Shot in black & white, it was a bummer not to see his costume in full color but it was interesting to see the effects they create to give the impression of him flying. One is a high POV shot from a crane over the town with a loud wind roar for the audio. Humorous. The acting is firm and dry but overall it was a solid film showing Superman's powerful traits. Films geeks should check this out. -
Cineanalyst27 September 2020The 1978 Richard Donner "Superman" film gets a lot of credit for spurring a new era of superhero movies, but the man of steel had been appearing on screens for some 37 years by the time Christopher Reeve donned the cape and wore the underwear over the tights. Indeed, these precursors were more childish. First, there were the cartoon short films, which included 17 entries between 1941 and 1943. Next came the serials (in 1948 and 1950)--the serial essentially being a theatrical format for TV shows before televisions were a common household feature. Once they became popular, Supes moved to the small screen in the "Adventures of Superman" during the 1950s. Before that, there was this pilot episode, which was first released theatrically (reportedly, to at least recoup production costs in case the TV show wasn't greenlit)--making it, I suppose, the first feature-length Superman movie.
The production and technical values here entirely belong to the era of 1950s TV (or prior serials), with nothing of particular cinematic quality to recommend it. The effects and editing to accomplish Superman's feats are basic, the stagings take place on some studio backlot, and a script full of talking (despite the story's inclusion of a mute race of men) along with an obtrusive generic score fill in the vacuum of where more cinematic scope would exist in later Superman movies. This predecessor, by contrast, is little more than a mechanically-recorded stage play. And not a particularly good one in either respect, as a play or as a recording. The sound effects are especially atrocious.
As for the play, it does a sloppy service to the dual narratives of Superman and Clark Kent--superhero and newspaper reporter. The Clark alter ego here merely serves a contrived investigative purpose, as he, once again, coincidence ad nauseam, happens upon a situation requiring his secret superpowers. The early '40s cartoons, on the other hand, integrated the duality well. The first, Oscar-nominated one, "Superman" (1941), created a meta-narrative where the story was framed as a newspaper article authored by the character Lois Lane. Not so here. Instead, Lois comes across as the most ineffectual investigative journalist on the planet. She repeatedly acknowledges Clark's absences during Superman's exploits, but fails to follow up on it. And, otherwise, she's an entirely superfluous character in this one. Even worse, Supes/Clark and Lois conspire to squash the very story we see here; that is, they plan to cover it up by not reporting on it. Way to take a stand on "truth, justice and the American way" for the fourth estate, guys.
That story involves mole men coming to the surface after an oil drill breaks through their subterranean habitat. Ridiculously, these creatures are portrayed by little people wearing obvious bald caps, silly hair pieces, claw-shaped gloves and bad makeup, while wandering about the surface with mute childlike wonder. Unfortunately for them, they're exploring a jerkwater town full of bigoted hicks eager to kill them. Literally, they form a lynch mob. Fortunately for them, there's already a secret but powerful alien living among Earth's surface dwellers and who, thus, sympathizes with their plight. Of course, the hicks shoot at and try to beat him up, too, but Supes tolerates none of that. In the end, Superman and the mole men come to the solution to resegregate the two races of man, with the little people returning to their world below and leaving the above to Superman and the residents of Silsby.
The only interest I find in any of this is to read it as either some sort of "Red Scare" parable along the lines of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (also from 1951) or as a perverse commentary on race relations and segregation, with the mole men either standing in for the Soviets or African Americans and other racial minorities. Regardless, it's too simplistic and poorly constructed to be especially intriguing. Order restored, Superman and the Mole Men would return to the diminutive planet of boob-tube screens (being re-released there as two episodes of the TV series), leaving theatrical venues to grander cinematic productions. -
"Superman & The Mole Men" tells a story that's way ahead of it's time for 1951. Clark Kent & Lois Lane go to the small town Silsby to do a story on "The World's Largest Oil Well". When they arrive they find out the well is being shut down due to complications that have come about. They had drilled 6 miles down, & realized the earth's center is hollow, & there may be life down there. Their suspicions are correct when small (possibly radioactive) "mole men" start coming up & roaming around the town. (They aren't very frightening, but may have been by 1951 standards). One old man, at the well, sees them & has a heart attack & dies. Lois sees them too & describes them as having, "the bodies of moles with big human heads". A child encounters them in her bedroom & plays ball with them. She demonstrates the innocence of unjaded youth who sees someone without prejudice. The majority of the small town goes ballistic & wants to destroy the unknown "visitors". This is an excellent portrayal of small town ignorance ready to snuff out something that they don't understand, is different, out of the ordinary, or "strange" in their opinion(s). These "mole men" not only signify 'out of this world' beings, but people in one's own society as well (ridiculed for one's race, sexuality, etc.) The movie "Powder" represented the same premise in 1995! I can't write this review without mentioning that Phyllis Coates was the BEST actress to play Lois Lane! She portrayed her as feisty, sassy, independent, & resilient.
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I just got the UK 4-disc special edition of Superman 1 for about $5. The additional stuff includes the 1951 feature Superman and the Mole-Men. So I slapped it into the DVD player last night, and here are my findings.
Some initial disappointment - I hadn't checked, and I think I had it mentally tagged as one of the Kirk Alyn serials. I'm not a huge fan of George Reeves as Superman, and I hadn't seen anything other than the odd clip of Kirk Alyn - but hey ho, never mind.
This black and white production runs for less than an hour. It has the feel of a couple of episodes of one of Reeves' early TV series, a two-parter, put together for cinema release, although IMDb says it was filmed as a cinema release in advance of the first TV series. In any event, it's an odd choice for reasons I'll get to later. I'm of an age where I recall TV and movie productions which are limited to one or two locations and sets, so there were no major surprises here. Even so, for a low budget movie, this one is REALLY low budget.
The story concerns the small town of Silsby - population 1,430 - which, puzzlingly, is also home to the world's deepest oil well (6 miles). The story opens with the well's foreman hurriedly taking steps to close the well down. This conflicts with the arrival of Metropolis reporters Kent and Lane to report on the well, at the behest of the oil company. As Clark is sniffing out the fact that the drill has emerged into a radioactive cavern 6 miles down, a couple of odd little guys (small in stature, big in head, black in jumpsuit, and bushy in eyebrow) emerge from the capped-off drillshaft, and start mooching round town with puzzled expressions on their faces.
A deep breath now, here is the remaining plot of the picture. The little guys scare some kids, so Jeff Corey (playing the town's rampant xenophobe) incites some pals to kill these "creatures". Superman steps in (moderately ineffectually) and catches one of the little guys who has been shot and takes him to the local hospital. Corey's pals burn down the shack the other little fellow has hidden in and assume he is killed, but he escapes and legs it down the shaft. Corey incites a lynch mob (despite the sheriff arresting him) to hang the hospitalised Mole-Man. Superman stops them entering the hospital and takes the injured chappie to the shaft to return him to his fellows. A total of 4 Mole-Men emerge with a weapon of some sort which they fire at Jeff Corey (I call this an Aargh! gun because its sole effect seems to be to make Corey go "Aargh!") and Superman saves him. He immediately changes his ways because of amazement at Superman saving him after the way he has behaved, the Mole-men go back down the shaft. The end.
Despite the film only being an hour long, there is an inordinate amount of creeping around, bewareing and pursuing - I have left out all the "Mole-Man 1 creeps from A to B, looking out to make sure no-one is following him" stuff. The Mole-Men are never engaged in any way whatsoever - they have no dialogue - they just turn up, get persecuted, and go back. They do look a little creepy, but they are hardly the bug-eyed monsters that the town's reaction implies.
Reeves is quite a good Clark Kent - very much a hard-nosed reporter, much more so than Phyllis Coates' rather indifferent Lois Lane. But he is a terrible, terrible Superman. Not only does he not look the part (at least his hair is dyed black in this, which is an improvement from the rather light hair he sported in some of the TV episodes), the way he plays it is all wrong in my book. I'm sure he was told to "strike the pose" (which Superman does constantly), but someone should have told him that it should be fists on hips, not fists on ribs. And he plays Superman as a rather strict and touchy schoolteacher - he doesn't actually wag his finger in remonstration, but he may as well have done.
And Superman does a huge amount of walking around (I say a huge amount - he isn't actually in it all that much), and a bit of running. He takes off and lands a couple of times, but isn't seen in flight at any point. Oh, some bullets bounce off him, and he uses telescopic vision as Clark, but with no accompanying visual effect. In fact, visual effects are conspicuous by their absence, and the few which are present aren't very good.
I've tried to consider this effort by reference to the standards of the time: but even by those standards I think it's a pretty threadbare effort. Thankfully, production standards on the TV series were higher, and at least they took the trouble to come up with stories which had a bit more to them.
Something of a disappointment - I shan't be watching it again. -
I don't think that anyone who cares about such things would deny that George Reeves brought a certain dignity and gravitas to the "Superman" role, or that the series (or this movie) wouldn't have been nearly as good without him. So let's get that issue out of the way early - yes, I am a fan of Reeves. He provided the standard that all other wearers of the tights have to be measured against.
I am also aware that the crews that put these things together back in the 50's had extremely limited budgets and shooting schedules. Given the expanded SFX capabilities, materials and budgets (and personal trainers) of the modern era, I am willing to bet that those directors and film crews could come up with products that compare favorably to any of the modern superhero movies that we laud.
Originally I thought this movie was "Superman Versus The Mole Men", so I was kind of surprised ***spoiler warning***when the Mole Men turned out to be timid, harmless midgets who were the victims of a misunderstanding, so Superman spends most of the movie trying to save them, instead of fighting them.***spoiler ends*** But that's OK - the plot had a flavor of seriousness and sincerity that has aged well; there was a strong message of tolerance and understanding between different cultures, which was pretty good writing for the 50s. Any battle scenes they could afford to stage back then would have been pretty lame anyway.
So actually, my main beef with "Superman and the Mole Men" is that it doesn't have enough of Superman in it. Whenever Reeves is on the screen, either in the tights or in his "Clark Kent" sack suit, the eight year old inside me is still tickled silly. But there are long, draggy stretches of the movie where the movie makers try to advance the plot, but actually just pad things out. ****mild spoiler**** Especially useless is a long, extended chase scene where the townspeople chase one of the Mole Men cross country with bloodhounds for at least 10 minutes, until they finally trap him in a small shack and set it on fire (the Mole Man escapes by going through the floorboards). I believe this extended scene was deleted in the two part "adaptation" of this movie to television, which shows that the editors basically agreed with me. ***end of spoiler***
The other problem with the screenplay lies with the way some of the townspeople are depicted: an older guys, "Pops", dies of a heart attack at the sight of, well, munchkins. The oil well boss doesn't warn the crews of the danger they face drilling through radioactive rocks, he just hides the drills. The leader of the lynch mob is not only a xenophobe, and by implication a racist, he's an idiot. How else can you explain the way he takes a swing at the flying bulletproof man who can bend steel in his bare hands - and who knocks him out with one punch -...and then repeatedly tries to shoot the guy in later scenes?
Also, no one ever seems to notice that for a "mild mannered reporter", Clark Kent is a very decisive, take-charge kind of guy. He is, in fact, larger than life even in his secret identity, and it defies belief that no one in this movie, or over the years of the series, ever gives "Clark Kent" credit for his deeds and pivotal roles as a reporter. They really did add up. The character of "Superman" requires a suspension of disbelief in the laws of biology and physics, but the character of "Clark Kent" requires a weird kind of suspension of disbelief in human character and motivation. Lois Lane (no matter who played her), for all her charms, must have actually been dumber than a bag of hammers.
Anyway; Reeves is the only reason to watch the movie, and there isn't enough Reeves in it. That's why only six stars. -
First Superman movie, and probably the first superhero movie at all, is complete crap. There are just two positive sides to it. Acting is relatively good and there is bunch of experienced faces for B production movie. Bunch of them you can see in A production movies which is rare. Second good thing is message that it sends against racism, guns and oil exploitation. Other than that this movie is total failure. Fact that it's made almost 70 years ago isn't valid excuse for any of its flaws. Screenplay is one of the very worst I have ever seen. Not only full of holes but extremely stupid as well. Costumes, effects and complete production are terrible. Light years below average even for B production of 50's. This is probably the lowest budgeted thing I ever saw. If you think I am exaggerating, feel free to watch Batman from 1943. Eight years older and still much better in every possible way. I do not recommend this even to hard core DC fans. Complete waste of time.
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Hitchcoc12 December 2016This was included in a boxed set of "The Adventures of Superman." If one is not perceptive, he might think it was part of the series. It is not but it fits nicely into the whole thing. Some miners have invaded an underground society where "mole people" live. They are odd looking little guys who really mean no harm. They are merely trying to survive and have been threatened. They could be obliterated because the miners decide to kill any of these creatures that make an appearance. This is a job for Superman as we hear so many times later. He steps forward and challenges anyone who threatens the little guys. If this was an audition for the series, George Reeves did a good job as the benevolent Man of Steel.
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guisreis21 May 2014This was probably the first feature-length superhero film ever made. It has some serious flaws, that are not related to the unsophisticated visual effects of that time (which are not a problem; indeed, they are interesting to see).
First of all, it had not a great story. Do not expect an interesting opponent like Lex Luthor or the Kryptonian criminals from the Phantom Zone.
Besides that, it is amazing how little was the time spent to show Superman. We see Clark Kent all the time, but the caped superhero, perhaps because of technical difficulties to show him flying, does not appear very much.
The third serious flaw is just related to Clark Kent. George Reeves portrays him so proud that one cannot be convinced that the journalist was a disguise to avoid people knowing he was Superman.
The film is historically significant, but it is certainly not good. When we see George Reeves as the man of steel, the importance of Christopher Reeve for the superhero becomes really flagrant. -
brchthethird8 June 2015Where to even begin? For starters, this is more of a B-grade science-fiction picture that happens to feature Superman than a "Superman" movie outright. Whatever the intentions of the producers, it certainly is a product of its time. By that, and given its low budget, I mean that it's kind of what you'd expect from a sci-fi film in the 1950's: shoddy production values, questionable acting, and overt message-making. Still despite all of this there is a certain B-movie charm, and of course George Reeves has a great screen presence as the Man of Steel (not so much Clark Kent, who is played too similarly). Other than Clark Kent/Superman and Lois Lane, though, there isn't much else here that ties it to the Action Comics source material. Ergo, no Daily Planet, no Metropolis, etc. But I didn't really mind. As long as you do away with any expectations of what a Superman movie "should" be, this film can be a lot of fun. And, at 58 minutes, it never wears out its welcome. Considering the time in which this film was made, with liberal Hollywood under attack by fear-mongering by the likes of Joseph McCarthy and racial tensions coming to a boil, the message it conveys is actually quite radical (again, for its time). It basically says that as beings who inhabit this planet, we should all just get along regardless of who we are. There are also other things you could read into it, like anti-oil drilling and gun control, but those are secondary concerns. Did I like it? Well, yes and no. It isn't my idea of what a comic movie should be, but taken as a cheesy sci-movie, it has its charms. I wouldn't bend over backwards to see this if you haven't already, but fans of George Reeves of Superman would be remiss for not checking it out.
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davidmvining6 May 2022Filmed as a glorified television pilot before they were all that common place, Superman and the Mole Men feels like a subpar two-parter of a series. It eventually became a two-parter in the series Adventures of Superman that filmed after this, starring George Reeves as the eponymous hero, and that's where it probably appropriately belongs. This is technically a feature film, even at only 58 minutes, but it's more accurately remembered as a forgettable entry in a hardly remembered television series.
Clark Kent (Reeves) and Lois Lane (Phyllis Coates) have been sent to the remote Texas drilling town of Silsby to do a story for the Daily Planet on the deepest drill in the world. There's a problem, though, that the company representative is trying to shut down the well because of unexplained damage to the drill equipment. He's trying to cover it up, and when Kent and Lane arrive with seemingly no story, it seems as though they are going to go home with nothing to give back to Perry White. That is, until three mole-men rise up from the hole in the ground and give an old man a heart attack. With news of happenings, limited to an old man having a heart attack, Clarke and Lane stay in Silsby to investigate and get their story.
One thing that should be noted is how little Superman is actually in this film. It's usually more of a common criticism with Batman movies that the balance of hero/alter-ego are out of whack, but it's way out of whack here. Superman is barely in the first 50 minutes of this 58-minute film, and that's probably because the problem the characters face is so small. There are larger implications that the movie never explores, but ultimately this is about two strangers wandering into a town and then trying to get out. This is hardly the stuff of Superman adventures. I well know the limits of filmmaking in the early-50s, but the very nature of this conflict is wrong for Superman. This ends up feeling like one of the more pessimistic Twilight Zone episodes than an early adventure of the man in red and blue.
Anyway, two mole-men climb up out of the hole, and they just kind of wander around until they climb into a small girl's bedroom. The small girl rolls a ball to them when her mother walks into the room and screams, alerting the town. So sets off a mole-manhunt led by Luke (Jeff Corey), out to kill the two mole-men no matter what. This is what sets off the whole rest of the film. Three guys out to murder two small men. I get it, to an extent. This is Superman standing athwart humanity and holding himself up as the American ideal, so having a counterexample for him to stand against makes sense. However, Luke ends up the only prominent member of the community, so it ends up feeling like Superman against all of humanity. I don't think that's supposed to be the point.
Luke shoots one on top of a wall, Superman saves the falling one through flight, and the other gets cornered in a remote tool shed that Luke and his buddies set fire to. Well, this sounds like a great opportunity for some daring-do from our great flying superman. He can come in at the last second and save the little guy from certain death. Except he never shows up. The mole man pries lose some floorboards and crawls out in an extended bit that really drags, feeling like we're waiting for Superman to come along. When he never does, and it's just the mole man squirrelling away, everything just feels wrong.
This is such a low stakes affair where Superman ends up doing shockingly little that I find it curious that it excited anyone enough to lead to a television series. The mole man shouldn't be saving himself. Superman should be swooping in at the last second, doing some derring-do conveyed with primitive and adorable early special effects to fly off with the little guy. It's so weird.
Anyway, the guy gets away, gets two more mole men, and they carry around a comically large thing that's supposed to be some kind of gun. Meanwhile, the hospital administrator is threatening to fire the doctor who admitted the mole man into the hospital because they don't treat dogs. It's a metaphor. However, Clark Kent convinces the doctor to perform life-saving surgery anyway, despite the threat of potential radium poisoning, and the mole man is all fixed up in time for the three new mole men to come upon the hospital, nearly kill Luke, and give Superman the time to present their healing friend and show Luke how awful he is by saving his life.
What was I expecting from this? Great art? No, not really. I was expecting competent serial-like thrills, and this fell below that. Stolid, stilted, and not really all that exciting with a curious story that seems to just be about how America is kind of awful, Superman and the Mole-Men is just not that much fun. -
mst8624 May 2000Superman and the Mole Men is quite possibly Superman's toughest adventures ever.
Lois Lane and Clark Kent are sent to Silsby, home of the world's deepest oil well. While there, some radioactive mole men come up through the oil well and explore the town. Jeff Corey and many other townspeople try to dispose of the invading mole men. Can Superman change the people's ways in time to save the mole men? Can Superman warn the people in time about the radioactive danger the mole men bring?
In my opinion, Superman and the Mole Men is a very intelligent, well-written and well-acted movie. Even though we only get to see Superman fly once briefly, It still makes a great Superman adventure. A must see for anyone.
10/10 Stars -
baileycrawly7 December 2022Superman and the Mole-Men certainly doesn't hold a candle to at least the first two Christopher Reeve-helmed Superman movies, but it isn't a bad little film either. More a plot attempt to sell a television series to a network than an actual film, Superman and the Mole-Men certainly has a made-for-TV feeling to it.
It takes its subject matter more seriously than the Superman films that followed, but that doesn't make this film inherently bad, either. It's good if you're looking for a fun way to spend an hour. It's not game-changing in its field in retrospect but, as the first "film" adaptation of a DC property, it does manage to hold up relatively well. I enjoyed it, and I would absolutely watch it again.
Ultimately, the thought this short film left me with was that Christoper Reeve was vastly superior in the man-in-tights role. -
k_g_barreto6 January 2020Didn't expect nothing before seeing it, didn't felt nothing after seeing it. Basically, I've seen myself unresponsive towards the film. It's worthy as a 'historical piece', it is the first Superman film, so you can you watch for the sake of curiosity, but don't expect much.