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(More customer reviews)I'll keep this brief as I'm probably already "preaching to the choir" here. However, just on the off-chance that there are a few of you out there who have never known the wonder of "The Adventures of Superman" television series, may I just say this: there has never been--and at this rate, it appears that there never will be--a greater, more heroic, more noble, and more enjoyable "Superman" in the history of the character, than the interpretation given to us by the late George Reeves.
And I'll give you my reason why I believe that with all my heart in a single word: balance. George Reeves didn't play Kent/Superman as "bumbler moron"/"hero". He played Kent/Superman as "Hero Type A"/"Hero Type B".
There is a marvelous bit of dialogue from the 1st (or was it the 2nd?) season--a bit I'll no-doubt mangle here--that really explains it all. A small group of mobsters are discussing the difficulties of life in Metropolis. Of course they mention Superman. But then, one of them utters the magic lines that go something like this: "Forget Superman. It's that Kent guy at THE DAILY PLANET I worry about. There's times that Kent and his typewriter scare me more than Superman."
That simple speech seared itself into my little eight-year-old mind and heart for all time. Imagine that! The bad guys feared Kent almost as much as they feared Superman! What a fantastic life-lesson to teach a boy: for all his amazing powers, the thugs were almost more scared of the "normal guy who wasn't afraid to stand up for what's right" than they were of "...the amazing being from the planet Krypton, with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men."
And it was George Reeves and his courageous portrayal of Kent/Superman who made you believe that could be so.
Maybe that's why this cripple grew up to be a writer. And every time I took on a bully--on the playground or in the corporate world--somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking, "Do the right thing, buddy. Mister Kent might be watching."
Yes, I recognize all the various narrative and production short-comings of "The Adventures of Superman". But Reeves, in refusing to play Kent as a cartoon unich, gave the character of Kent/Superman a vitality that has yet to be equaled--CGI or no CGI.
And if that's not enough to convince you, the jaded and cynical, to invest in these DVDs, let me share with you one, last, marvelous memory: the first word my baby son ever uttered was, "GO!". It was shouted with all the passion, glee, belief, and intensity a tiny heart could muster. And it was shouted as my son watched a black & white George Reeves make his famous running spring-board leap over the observatory fence in the classic climax of the episode, "Panic in the Sky". And, in that instant, I knew what my baby boy knew--what all of us lucky enough to discover the magic and wonder of "The Adventures of Superman" at a tender age knew: George Reeves WAS Superman.
And he always will be.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Adventures of Superman - The Complete Fifth and Sixth Seasons (1952)
The first super hero created for comic books, Superman leaped from radio to television when Adventures of Superman debuted in 1952. Produced by Robert J. Maxwell (who also produced the radio version) and Bernard Luber (a veteran of Hollywood serials), each episode screens like a classic crime movie, where danger and death lurk in the shadows. Seasons 5 and 6 are the final seasons of this classic TV favorite.
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