Billion Dollar Limited

I love the Fleischer Superman cartoons. The animation is smooth and fluid with vivid colors. The distinct art-deco style, vintage science fiction imagery, and use of noirish shadows gave them a look unlike any other cartoons. The music and voice work is superb. They're fun, accessible, enduring animation classics.

The third in the series is about a train carrying a gold shipment to the mint that's hijacked by well-armed masked robbers. Also on board the train is Lois Lane, who at one point picks up a machine gun and attempts to fight the robbers off herself! Superman flies to save Lois and deliver the gold shipment, but the robbers don't make it easy for him. Gotta admire their tenacity. They see Superman show up and they not only don't run away, they start throwing cans of tear gas at him. Talk about doubling down on stupid.

This is another exciting Superman cartoon with non-stop action and fun. I love train stories so that was an added bonus for me. Like many of the Fleischer cartoons, this features very little dialogue. It's driven by the action and the exciting music.

The Fleischer Studios started a series of shorts based on the character of Superman. This was the third of nine done by Fleischer Studios, with another eight done by Famous Studios Paramount. All of the series features excellent animation and backgrounds and have a similar feel to them, reminiscent of the Supeman comics themselves. The Fleischer shorts were as good as their Popeye shorts and the Famous Studios shorts are among the best done for Paramount after Fleischer Studios waved bye-bye. Well worth seeing. Recommended.

Billion Dollar Limited (1942)

** (out of 4)

The third Superman cartoon from Paramount has robbers trying to cash in on the government sending a billion dollars in gold on a train. Lois of course finds herself on the train as Superman must come to her rescue. This is without question the weakest of the first three shorts and I'm really amazed at how poorly written some of it is. The criminals in this short are without question some of the dumbest I've seen since DUMB AND DUMBER because nothing they do here makes any sense. The thieves want the gold yet they are constantly doing things that could destroy the gold like sending the train into explosives. There's another sequence where they blow up a bridge to send the train off a cliff and again I have to wonder what type of idiots these guys are. Both Lois and Superman are pretty bland here without too much to do. Seeing Superman carry the train was pretty neat but that's about it.

Crooks are stealing a shipment of a billion dollars worth of gold from a government train.

Lois Lane is on the train and she takes on the baddies with a machine gun.

Pretty soon Superman flies in and does battle. He faces machine gun fire and has bombs thrown at him as he needs to pull the train to safety.

A brisk cartoon. It is surprising that Clarke Kent did not suspect anything as the baddies rushed by as Clark was waving goodbye to Lois.

A SUPERMAN Cartoon

A huge shipment of gold is being sent across country by train. Using ultra-modern techniques, a sophisticated gang of hooded thieves try to waylay the gold. With intrepid reporter Lois Lane as the only passenger on board, it's Superman to the rescue. But now that it's become a runaway train, can even he stop the BILLION DOLLAR LIMITED?

This was another in the series of excellent cartoons Max Fleischer produced for Paramount Studio. They feature great animation and taut, fast-moving plots. Meant to be shown in movie theaters, they are miles ahead of their Saturday Morning counterparts.