Adventures of Superman: Season 2

Brings back many memories!

Am looking forward to this release. The first season of"AOS" was hands down the best, but season two was undeniably the second best...and contains some of the most exciting andvividly-recalled episodes of the entire series, such as thewonderful "Panic In the Sky", "The Defeat of Superman", and"Superman in Exile". Some reviewers have deemed "Panic In theSky" the "signature" piece of the series, but I would have tosay that "Panic" has to share that honor with the the secondepisode from series one, "The Haunted Lighthouse". A good bitof the physical violence from year one has been toned down forseason two (no old women in wheelchairs being pushed down stairs or ramps...and NOTHING like the graphic scene in "Crime Wave" where a dock worker has his legs crushed between two trucks). This season Superman dealt more with "thumps" to criminal assailants rather than punches that would in theory have killed them. This was a far cry from the almost gleeful murderousness (throwing crooks off buildings, crushing one withan automobile engine) of Tom Tyler's "Captain Marvel" in the Republic serial of that name. This new approach sat better withparents and worked out well for the rest of the series' run. The replacement of Phyllis Coates by Noell Neil was the biggest change that was readily noticeable. Neil was winsomely pretty and a fine, fine actress. She is also the image of Lois Lane most "boomers" retain in their minds from "back then" (wasalso the cameo "Mrs. Lane"...Lois's "mother"...in the trainsesquence from the 1st Christopher Reeve "Superman" movie). While Neil is adored by the fans, it has to be stated that "her" Lois was toned down by the producers and made more ofa perennial "damsel in distress" than was the Coates version. The Coates Lane was the BEST Lane...a regular wildcat in a Burlap bag...and it was (I have always felt) a regrettable decision by the "powers that be" to tone that feistiness down so much. The second season closes out with one of the best loved andbest remembered of all the Superman episodes: "Around the World With Superman". It has no criminals, crimes, or conspiracies init, nor any real threats to anyone concerned. Yet it holds asoft spot in many a "boomer" heart.It is a "five hankie weeper", a real warm/fuzzy stand-up-and-shout "hooray" episode...just don't let anybody see your wet eyes if you are agood macho man. In season one there was an episode that got a very favorable fan response. "The Birthday Letter" concerned alittle girl whose legs were crippled with polio (she was in legbraces). She wrote a letter to the Daily Planet asking if Superman would take her to the fair and he promised to do so. Some sleazoid crooks with a fake man of steel got into the actand things didn't go so well at first. Then Superman won the day and took the little girl on a whirlwind flying tour of Metropolis. It was a real lip-trembler of an ending. Well, in season two the production team decided to try repeating thatkind of a heart-tugger episode. "Around the World" is the result.It is a re-working of the little-girl-in-leg-braces theme, but here a little girl is BLIND. In this story a blind child's parents seek help from Superman. They have been told there is a "chance" that a very delicate operation can repair their daughter's optic nerve and give her sight. The only hang-up is that her surgeons would need to work under guidance fromsome kind of ultra-powerful x-ray machine and nothing in existence is that powerful....except perhaps Superman's x-ray vision. Superman agrees to lend a hand. Complications ensue (but of COURSE!!!), but finally the operation is at hand. Before surgery the child tells Superman that there are all sorts of wonderful places she has heard about, but never seen...not even pictures of...the pyramids, the Eiffel Tower...many, many places and things. And she hopes to really see these sights , now... if all goes well. Well, things DO go well and she gains her sight...but she doesn't need PICTURES to see all the things she's dreamed of seeing. With the glorious "AOS" theme pounding on the sound track, she sees them ALL... FIRST HAND. The title"Around the World With Superman" says it all. It always had viewers sniffling and dabbing at their eyes...even pint-sized junior macho men, and some magazine once deemed it one of thegreatest "hanky jobs" in the golden age of television. This reviewer has wanted this episode for years and now its comingavailable. Hot diggity! Heck, Hot Diggity for ALL of it!!! "The Adventures of Superman, Season 2"....GET it!!! You'll love it!!!

All things considered, the second season of this classic series may have been the most successful. The only drawback to this set (like its successors) is that it's struck from syndication prints. That means we can't see the original second-season title cards while being told that the show's sponsor, Kellogg's, is "the greatest name in cereals." You can see the original title card for this season in the bonus extra, "Stamp Day for Superman." Other bonus features include voice-over commentaries by Jack Larson and Noel Neill for "Panic in the Sky" and "Semi-Private Eye." One moving scene that has been unaccountably snipped from the print of "Around the World With Superman": Clark Kent's tender but intense examination of young Ann Carson's blind eyes.The first season, produced by Robert Maxwell and Bernard Lubin, was gritty, noirish, and surprisingly violent for a show aimed at children. Seasons 3–6, filmed in color, swerved in the opposite direction: the stories tended to be tepid, pleasant, but diffident. Season 2, produced by Whitney Ellsworth, got the balance as good as it ever would be: intriguing, often exciting, stories, told with a light touch. In fact, you can see the transition and recalibration in the very first episode: "Five Minutes to Doom." The story begins with a visit to a prisoner on death row, headed for the electric chair for a crime he didn't commit: hardly a natural premise for a children's show. But the story is handled in a very clever way: at turns a mystery, a dash of comedy, capped by a nail-biting finish. Not all of the 26 episodes are this good; some are frankly mediocre (a "juvenile delinquent" who hates Superman; a short-order cook who trades on a fantasized friendship with Superman; a dog that knows Clark Kent's true identity). But the best of this season's episodes are arguably the best of the entire series, including "The Defeat of Superman" (in which we are introduced to kryptonite), "A Ghost for Scotland Yard," "The Golden Vulture" (modern-day pirates-cum-con artists), and, best of all, "Panic in the Sky." All these teleplays were written by Jackson Gillis, the series' finest scribe, who went on to write and edit "Perry Mason" and "Columbo." These and other episodes benefit from very good production values and special effects (the latter, courtesy of Si Simonson) for a show whose budget was the slenderest of shoestrings. One advantage this last black-and-white season enjoyed was the evocative photography of night scenes. Although the color episodes are vibrant, the film stock of the '50s required that the sets be lit with buckets of light. George Blair and Thomas Carr alternated direction; given the fact they had only a few days to churn out 25-minute episodes, they did a surprisingly fine job.This leaves us with the actors, all of whom did their work so well that they made this show a joy to watch over sixty years later. Ellsworth formed a repertory company of wonderful character performers like Ben Welden, John Eldridge, and the delightful Sterling Holloway for the supporting roles. The leads all found their characters' hearts in this second year: Robert Shayne as the Metropolis police inspector; John Hamilton, the irascible newspaper editor Perry White; Noel Neill as Lois Lane (reprising the role from the Kirk Allyn serials of the previous decade); and Jack Larson, who forever defined the role of Jimmy Olsen. (This is the season in which Larson's talent for comedy was really allowed to shine.) Finally, what more can be said of George Reeves? He took a role that he found demeaning and turned it to gold. Like the first, the second season's Superman means business—but Reeves gave the role a kindness that never made Superman pompous or hokey. Even more impressive, if often underestimated, was Reeves's portrayal of Clark Kent: nobody ever made "the mild-mannered reporter" more interesting or entertaining than Reeves. For a lot of children in the '50s and later, Reeves's Kent was probably the father they wished they had. Reeves was a fine actor, an especially gifted actor for infant television, who, tragically, never lived to appreciate the indelible impression he made on generations of viewers.

This is the definitive Superman TV series. George Reeves is the perfect Superman. No high tech CGI. No super aliens. It's about someone from Krypton who lived among humans. The story lines reflected the comic books of that era before the Silver Age of comics changed the story-lines of Superman and other DC Comic superheroes. Highly recommended.

今から70年程前の作品ですが、「スーパーマン」の原型を見られて本当に良かった、と思います。

この製品に再生可能機種マーク“DVD VIDEO”の表示があるにも関わらず再生出来ない。

Excelente, un clásico de la TV de los años 50. El segundo Superman del cine y el primero en la televisión.

If you like Superman you will like these... They are ham acted, black and white and lack in all the special effects of today's Superman TV and film.These were made when USA only had 48 States, I worked it out from the arrangement of the stars on the flag in the opening credits.Lois Lane is played by a different actress (actor to be PC) but a very good choice by the TV/film company. The remainder of the cast are the same as Season One, the main role being played by George Reeves who plays the part well. A great box set with 26 episodes and a very reasonable price by Amazon... Recommended