This is the first ever live action (mostly) adaption of Superman, long one of my favorite characters–a 15 chapter serial (serialized films that were released in cinema matinée screenings over successive weeks) from Columbia pictures in 1948. It starred Kirk Alyn, Noel Neill, Tommy Bond, and Carol Forman. I’m going through it (and its sequel) chapter by chapter. Read here for where it all starts.
Into the Electric Furnace (Chapter 7)
Directed by Spencer Bennett and Thomas Carr
Runtime: 16 minutes (I realize that in the version of this that I watched, after Chapter 1 they didn’t include the opening title sequence, so this might be slightly off.
Spoilers!
Super-feats: Superman flies around to look for Dr. Hackett, and then again to stop Lois’ car from plunging off a cliff (presumably spotting her with his super-vision) Then he flies her to the hospital.
He doesn’t really use his powers for anything else after this.
Super-Lore introduced (in the context of these serials, not for the character overall): This is the first time in this story that the bad guys target one of his friends specifically to get at Superman.
Comments: For the first time in this serial, the cliffhanger is resolved through massive re-editing. In the last episode, Superman wasn’t shown at all during Lois’ struggle with Hackett in the car, or her when she about to plunge over the cliff. This time, we see that he’s had time to fly over to the house where Hackett was being kept, look around for a bit, and then fly to Lois and save her, all in the nick of time. But having all said all that, the episode doesn’t “cheat” at all—none of the re-edits actually contradict what we saw last time. They just show us what else was going on.
The meat of the episode is about the Spider Lady’s latest scheme (suggested by the equally villainous Hackett) to kidnap Clark Kent, so as to lure Superman out to rescue him, and then to use the kryptonite against him. So the crooks use stool-pigeon Hawkins to get Clark to meet him somewhere, but of course Lois intercepts the message and goes instead, with Jimmy in tow. The crooks at the ambush spot see Jimmy and assume he’s their guy, knock him out (for the second time this serial) and take him instead. The more senior crooks realize that they’ve made a mistake, but it doesn’t matter since this guy will do just as well for their purposes.
But then things get a little convoluted. They call Clark to tell him to tell Superman that they have Jimmy, and Clark insists that he see Jimmy to prove that they have him. Then he insists that they let Jimmy go before Superman appears, and that he (as Clark) has to see that so Superman will know.
This is all fun stuff and makes for good scenes for Clark (remaining unflappable and relaxed even as he is forced into secret meetings with the criminals while he has a gun to his back, etc), but it seems like a lot of narrative juggling to just get to the point where both Clark and Jimmy are at the bad guy’s hideout.
Not the main Spider Lady hideout of course. Actually, there’s a funny bit where one of the henchmen suggests luring Superman just there and an annoyed Spider-Lady responds, very wisely I thought, “This is the last place I want him, even with the kryptonite.” I can imagine her rolling her eyes at this nitwit for suggesting something like that.
This all leads to a cliffhanger that involves Jimmy instead of Lois for once. When he decides to fight back they put him on a big conveyer belt that is going to feed him slowly into a furnace—maximum drama! This is I guess the “electric furnace” of the title, which I guess is accurate since the conveyer belt is presumably powered by electricity. But I was disappointed—the furnace itself is an ordinary fire furnace. I thought maybe the title was going to reference the Spider Lady’s electrified web, a deathtrap we haven’t seen in operation for a while.
This cliffhanger is dependent on Clark’s commitment to his secret identity. Before Jimmy gets into his extra level of trouble, Clark has to pretend to let himself get knocked out by the thugs—unless the idea is that he’s still weakened by a brief exposure to kryptonite a minute earlier, but this isn’t what it looks like (although he again appears to have to mildly “shake off” the punch he takes in the face, so maybe).
“Into the Electric Furnace” continues to entertain, and to provide for some decent moments with the story’s leads. I particularly liked that this chapter involves a slightly friendlier relationship between Lois and Clark. I welcome the characters moving in that direction as it overall feels a bit more watchable.
Cliffhanger ending: An unconscious Jimmy Olsen is on a conveyer belt about to be fed into a blazing furnace!
Of course, since Superman is in the next room about to burst out, it doesn’t feel all that stressful to the film itself, which you can see by how the closing narration doesn’t even mention it.
What daring of the Spider Lady’s is this? Will this new weapon of Dr. Hackett destroy Superman? Be sure to see “Superman to the Rescue”, chapter eight of “Superman”, at this theatre next week!
Other Thoughts:
• Lois justifies trying to steal Clark’s story because he pulled the same trick on her. I guess she’s talking about the mining disaster in the early episodes? She is still holding a grudge!
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.
