Max Fleischer's Superman - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Max Fleischer's Superman



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Back in the 1930s and 40s, Disney was not the only major animated player in town. Dave, Lou and Max Fleischer created Fleischer Studios in 1929, pushing forth animated shows based on the new (at the time) printed comics. Thrust into the spotlight for the first time, the world of comic book shorts became an instant success for the studio, allowing them to grow and release such timeless classics like Betty Boop, Popeye, and Bimbo the Dog. While they changed and adapted from shorts to feature films (like the Paramount produced Gullivers Travels) their big claim to fame will ALWAYS bee the animated shorts that built them.

The Superman Shorts was first introduced in 1942 (ish) when the Fleischer’s teamed up with Paramount Pictures to release the Man of Steel into the homes of TV watchers everyone. Grabbing Bud Collver who was already playing the voice for the Kryptonian from the radio drama The Adventures of Superman, as well as Joan Alexander (who played Lois Lane on the serial drama as well) and voila, the show took off.

The animated series started off well enough, with Max and Dave producing the first 6 of the shorts during 1941-1942. However, the brother’s relationships were on the rocks, and the two constantly bickering over things caused Paramount Pictures to fire the Fleischers and continue on producing the series for another 8 episodes, going into 1943 in theaters.

As with most of these shorts, Superman was used as a sort of social propaganda, hyping up patriotism and energizing the masses by having supes face off against Nazis, Japanese sabotage, and various other risks from abroad. It also introduced the “mad scientist” (played by Jack Mercer), who would go on to be one of the influences for Lex Luthor later on in the caped crusader’s comic career.

The shorts are literally an incredible piece of Superman history, and were one of the largest audience pushes that got the superhero to become as popular and well loved as Baseball. They may seem a bit cheesy and limited by modern standards and modern points of view, but without these shorts we wouldn’t have the George Reeves show, much less the all powerful Christopher Reeve films either. Their influence has stretched over 80 years, and I still love going back over these simple little shorts and watching how everything began.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

Released years ago from the public domain, the Gaiam release was downright AWFUL in terms of video quality. That’s not exactly shocking as public domain sources are never the best, and the studios releasing them are never going to do a ton to remaster or restore dingy, aging old films from the 40s and spruce them up a bit. Which makes the fact that Warner’s new restoration look so surprisingly problematic so incredibly disappointing.

Taken from the original Technicolor negatives that Warner owned, this was supposedly given a new high res scan (probably 4K from all guesstimates) and some color timing to really make things pop. And while at first glance the image looks fine, a more critical eye will notice that things are definitely “off” about the restoration. Film grain is nearly completely gone, and fine details are overly softened. Also, the shorts have been over compressed to where everything has a mushy look, with some mild compression artifacts and everything looks wonky.

If you watch the Speeding Toward Tomorrow featurette included in the special features, it almost jumps out at you. In the featurette they show the raw footage being processed and compared to what we see in the shorts it’s night and day difference. Lovely film grain (take from a 35mm exposure negative), gorgeous colors, and a really crisp look to the basic 1940s animation. Panning back to what we got on disc and it’s hard to miss. I can only assume whoever was in charge of this went crazy on the DNR knob, erasing most of the grain and detail, but also crammed the entire 14 episodes (which are only 7-10 minutes each) down to a measly 15-16 mbps!

Sure, there’s some good things about the disc from a basic level. Colors are fine, and its a rather pleasing looking image if you had no knowledge of what COULD have been. But watching Speeding Toward Tomorrow really shows that there were some major authoring issues for the disc, especially since (according to WB’s on press release) the original negative was scanned at hi res raw files, then processed together to combine the technicolor strips together into what should have been an AMAZING looking image (and from what we can see in the features, it really did look amazing). But what we got was an overly processed, highly disappointing release that really almost begs for a do over.





Audio:

The 2.0 DTS-HD MA Mono audio fares a bit better though. It’s never going to be jaw droppingly amazing as you would guess from a near 8 year old Mono source, but things are fairly clean and clear to the ear. There’s some harshness on the high end of the spectrum with loud vocals sometimes distorting, and things can be a bit thin. But the orchestral track showcases some nice depth and what limited dialog we have is very intelligible (if not recorded slightly louder than the music).






Extras:

• Max Fleischer's Superman: Speeding Toward Tomorrow - intense action, noir filmmaking, a heroic soundtrack, Max Fleischer's Superman changed the world of superhero storytelling forever - Featurette
• First Flight: The Fleischer Superman Series - Featurette
• The Man, The Myth, Superman - Featurette

Final Score: ​

Needless to say, Max Fleischer’s Superman is a grade A piece of cinematic history. The set was anticipated by many (myself included), and it’s great to see that this trashes the Gaiam release rather handily. The extras are solid, and the audio good, but sadly the video is downright heart breaking. Especially when you watch the Speeding toward Tomorrow featurette and see just how great things COULD have looked. As such, it’s a decent release, but one that has some definite caveats when looking at it objectively.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Bud Collver, Joan Alexander, Jack Mercer
Created by: Dave Fleischer
Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: NR
Runtime: 146 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: May 16th, 2023

Recommendation: Good Watch, Frustrating Release

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I remember the old black and white real actor one but not this animated one. Will have to revisit this one.