Secret Agent

Right, well I have to say that the 1943 "Secret Agent" animated short "Superman" feature extinguished itself from the previous many short stories in the series. The storyline in this particular short story was way more action-packed than the previous ones.

And the fact that it was made in 1943, during World War II definitely showed, as the bad guy in this short story looked astonishingly similar to Adolf Hitler, and even spoke German as well. Coincidence? Or just some hidden American war propaganda? Well, you know the answer already. And with some thrown in American patriotism as Superman flies past the American flag and salutes it. Regardless, it was a fun 8 minutes to sit through, and definitely one of the more enjoyable of short "Superman" features from the 1940s.

The art style in this 1943 short story was a bit changed in comparison to the earlier ones. There was more details added to the faces of the characters, and it looked a bit more real in a way. Definitely not a bad thing.

If you enjoy the old "Superman" animated stories, then "Secret Agent" from writers Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster and Carl Meyer is definitely well-worth sitting down to watch.

My rating of directors Seymour Kneitel, Dave Fleischer and Steve Muffati's 1943 animated short feature "Secret Agent" lands on a six out of ten stars.

This is the seventeenth, and final, Superman cartoon made by the Fleischer/Famous Studios and as such, it was quite a very exciting one! There's no Lois Lane in this one but there is a blonde secret agent from Washington, D.C. who sounds a bit like her (not surprising since she's voiced by Lane's Joan Alexander). She's being chased after by some Nazi saboteurs who's being followed by Clark Kent on the trunk of their car. I'll stop there and just say that with all the shootouts and some dangers involving some wire towers and a moving bridge, Supes has some work cut out for him! The action here is so intense that if there had been a letter ratings system then, this short would probably have been rated PG! So on that note, Secret Agent is definitely worth a look for any Superman completists out there.

This is the final Superman cartoon from the Fleischer Brothers. It does seem odd that this extremely patriotic and propaganda-infused cartoon series would end mid-WWII. Perhaps they just weren't very popular. Or, perhaps the animators were needed for government work. Sadly, being the last, it's also among the least of the films in the series. Part of it is because Clark/Superman only utters one line! The film begins with Clark Kent on the phone. His boss insists he cover some boring event and Clark weakly protests with his only line. Suddenly, cars come crashing by--chasing another car and firing at it repeatedly. Clark jumps onto the back of the vehicle giving chase and follows them to their headquarters.

The lady in the other car escapes and soon you see her at police headquarters explaining that she needs help getting to Washington because she has a list of enemy spies in America. On the way, not surprisingly, they are attacked and this spunky lady escapes yet again. However, she is in serious danger so Clark somehow instinctively knows when and where to appear to save the day. Just how DID he know that?! The lack of dialog make this one strange as did one weird piece of dialog. When the lady leaves her car early in the cartoon, she explains to no one nearby that she needs to get to the police with the list. Just who is she talking to?! Overall, this one just seemed odd and a bit rushed compared to the average Superman short of the era.

Secret Agent (1943)

** (out of 4)

Seventeenth and final short in Paramount's series once again deals with WW2 issues as Clark Kent helps a female secret agent and allows himself to get kidnapped so that he can learn Nazi secrets. For the last Superman short they really decided to pretty much take him out of everything considering he has only one line of dialogue and doesn't show up until the final minute or two of the film. In reality this is a pretty straight WW2 action film as for the majority of the time we have the saboteurs constantly after the female secret agent and of course coming up just short. Once again we get some rather nice animation but all of that is lost with the rather weak story that never really pays off.

This cartoon has a great deal to recommend it. The female character, though she appears only in this cartoon, never to be seen again, is courageous and quick thinking. The pacing, albeit unrealistic, is terrifically well handled. The animators, in the days before computer animation, do a credible job with the representation of such things as geared mechanical devices. Superman has not yet evolved into the overly powerful demigod of later years, and is plausibly challenged -- especially in an early scene where he has, in the guise of Kent, leapt on the back of a speeding automobile, and cannot risk doing anything too "super".

Generally speaking, the Fleischers in this series succeed in taking what amounted to a dumbed-down combination of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and Alexander Gillespie Raymond, and producing something genuinely exciting from it.

It should be noted, however, that this and many of the other cartoons in the Fleisher series (and in the Famous cartoons that continued it) are sometimes quite violent, and parents should preview these cartoons before allowing younger children to watch them.