Daily Batman: A story in stills, “The Electrical Brain” edition

Yesterday at the grocery, I spotted a collection of the 1943 Columbia Pictures Batman serial adaptations. I obviously had no choice but to pick it up — my hands were clearly tied — and I’ve found the content … illuminating?

The Dynamic Duo are first seen rounding up some miscreants and leaving them cuffed to a lightpole with a note pinned to one’s jacket for the police. The original script called for the Caped Crusaders to be their usual vigilante selves, but the censors deemed that a little too risky?

And, I guess with all the purportedly people-based government shifts going on in the world, they didn’t want the popcorn-scarfing masses to get ideas? — so Steve Jobs converted Batman and Robin in to federal agents. (May or may not be accurate.)

Isn’t it bromantic? Lewis Wilson as a jaunty, kohl-browed Batman, with Douglas Croft as the Boy Wonder, congratulate themselves on a good night of taking the law in to their own hands without right or invitation after hopping in a Batmobile chauffered by good old Alfred Pennyworth, whose previous comic presence had been a facial hairless, rotund figure — colloquial wisdom credits this adaptation’s portrayal of Alfred as thin, stately, and mustachioed with influencing his subsequent appearance in the comics.

Accordingly, so far as I’ve watched, this opening scene introducing their crime-fighting prowess is the only bit of vigilantism Batman and Robin display in the serial. Everything else is under the aegis of fighting Communist and Axis spy infiltration.

This comes from the “Japanese Cave of Horrors” scene and is CLEARLY a wax figure of Cary Grant as a fake POW.

The note pinned to the man up there on our right’s jacket is somewhat reminscent of the “deliver to Lt. Gordon” note from The Dark Knight. It also indicates that the key to the cuffs may be found in the apprehended man’s pocket. Ostensibly, the cuffs will be taken off and replaced with official ones, but as they do not know the secret identity of Batman and Robin, are the originals now a gift to the Gotham City PD? I assume so. Not to worry: Batman and Robin have lots more pairs of handcuffs. You know, for … crime-fighting.

Did it come from Gunga Din, do you reckon? The uniform, I mean? Where did props even get this figure? I feel like it’s just out of reach in my mind. Little help?

This first segment in the serial is titled “The Electrical Brain” and is a total yawn fest, since all that it features is electric zombies, atom-smashing handheld ray guns, a sinister villain, and more astounding racism than you can shake a KKK hood at. Oh, wait — it couldn’t be less boring. If you’re a fan of camp and jaw-dropping behavioral archaisms, like your happy hostess here, run, don’t walk out and find this collection.

Get all of your latently guilty chagrin primed, though. I’m not made out of moron: I understand the film is a product of its time — it’s part of why I find vintage, obscure cinema from this era interesting. But, sweet mother of Edward Said, the orientalism and propaganda are strong with this one.

The villain of the piece, Dr. Tito Daka, is a self-proclaimed servant of Hirohito. Daka is a Japanese enemy of capitalism who I’m amazed to say constitutes only a fraction of the deeply-woven Asian-targeted xenophobic mise-en-scene of the picture.

U.S. readers, if you’ve nursed some fantasy that the internment of our Japanese fellow citizens during the second World War was not widely known by most Americans and did not make a big dent in pop culture, this little slice of 1940’s life will prove you all kinds of unfortunately wrong.

Narrator: This was part of a foreign land transplanted bodily to America and known as Little Tokyo. Since a wise government rounded up the shifty-eyed Japs, it has become a ghost street where only one buusiness survives, eking out a precarious existence on the dimes of curiosity-seekers.

Wise government. Rounded up. Shifty-eyed. I honestly triple-took. “Did that just happen??”

It seems boldly racist to me, even for the time. So like I said, this serial has so far shown me that I don’t know crap about what was “okay” on the day-to-day in my country during this time.

Daka introduces himself to a new recruit to his organization, the partner of a recently sprung white collar criminal of sorts (his niece is dating Bruce Wayne, which is how the plotlines tie together), with the following charming monologue.

I am Dr. Daka, humble servant of His Majesty Hirohito, Heavenly Ruler and Prince of the Rising Sun. By divine destiny, my country shall destroy the democratic forces of evil in the United States to make way for the New Order, an Order that will bring about the liberation of the enslaved people of America.

Daka is portrayed by totally-not-Asian actor J. Carrol Naish, a future Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner. Irish by descent, Naish actually portrayed nearly nothing but non-traditional races in his performances, from Japanese to Puerto Rican to Middle Eastern.

Congruent to his alleged continent of origin in this serial and his heavy “oriental” makeup, Naish would later bring a whole new ball of uniquely challenging race-based character traits to the role of famous detective Charlie Chan on the small screen, in television’s The New Adventures of Charlie Chan (1957).

The teaser for the next installment. There was no Bat Cave in the comics until after the release of this serial. But so far the Bat Cave in the serial is a stone wall behind a regular desk, with flickering shadows of bats waving around in front of lights off-camera… so I’d have to say the comics Bat Cave, even if inspired by the serial, most certainly carries the edge.

Sharon Tate’s Actual Life Awareness Month: Day 12

Mia Farrow, Roman, and Sharon at a Rosemary’s Baby premiere. After Frank Sinatra served Mia on set with divorce papers, Sharon took Mia in to their circle of her friends and made sure to squire her around to promotional events and include her in parties. Ms. Farrow says of Sharon, “She was like a princess in a fairy tale. As kind as she was beautiful.”

On one weekend while visiting [her husband on the set of Rosemary’s Baby], Sharon posed for photographs to appear in the December, 1967 issue of Esquire. Sharon and Esquire had a long running relationship and she had appeared in the magazine several times. The producers of Valley of the Dolls felt that this layout would be important for promoting the film. Sharon posed in a black miniskirt with a rifle on the first page of the layout. It was a very provocative and cutting edge session and generated a great deal of publicity.

(Official site of Sharon Tate, run by her family.)

The little red book which contains hightlights from The thought of Mao Tse-tung is the most influential volume in the world today. It is also extremely dull and entirely unmemorable. To resolve this paradox, we, a handful of editors in authority who follow the capitalist road, thought useful to illustrate certain key passages in such a way that they are more likely to stick in the mind. The visual aid is Sharon Tate and, to give credit where credit, God knows, is due, she will soon be seen in the Twentieth Century-Fox motion picture, Valley of the Dolls.

1. Every communist must grasp the truth, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

“Problems of War and Strategy” (November 6, 1938)

2. Our fundamental task is to adjust the use of labor power in an organized way and to encourage women to do farm work.

“Our Economic Policy” (January 23, 1934)

3. How is Marxist-Leninist theory to be linked with the practice of the Chinese revolution? To use a common expression, it is by “shooting the arrow at the target.” As the arrow is to the target, so is Marxism-Leninism to the Chinese revolution. Some comrades, however, are “shooting without a target,” shooting at random, and such people are liable to harm the revolution.

“Rectify the Party’s Style of Work” (February 1, 1942)

4.The world is yours, as well as ours, but in the last analysis, it is yours. You young people, full of vigor and vitality, are in the bloom of life, like the sun at eight or nine in the morning. Our hope is placed on you. The world belongs to you. China’s future belongs to you.

Talk at a meeting with Chinese students and trainees in Moscow (November 17, 1957)

5. …the flattery of the bourgeoisie may conquer the weak-willed in our ranks. There may be some Communists, who were not conquered by enemies with guns and were worthy of the name of heroes for standing up to these enemies, but who cannot withstand sugar-coated bullets. We must guard against such a situation.

“Report to the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party Of China.” (March 5, 1949)

6. Whoever wants to know a thing has no way of doing so except by coming into contact with it, that is, by living (practicing) in its environment. …If you want knowledge, you must take part in the practice of changing reality. If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself.

“On Practice” (July, 1937)

“You say you want a revoluuuutiooon, well, you know ….” An interesting tongue-in-cheek piece from the gents at Esquire. All quotes come from “A Beginner’s Guide to Mao Tse-tung.” Esquire, December 1967. Well, all save for that last one I just threw in. That’s the Beatles. But you knew that. (“I think everyone is born knowing all of the Beatles’ lyrics instinctively. In fact, I think they should be called the Featles.” — Sliding Doors, 1998.)

The pear picture has always been one of my favorites. Here is a cropped version absent of the Esquire text.

So, it is political! You’re a Communist!

No, Mr. Green, Communism was just a red herring.

I went to the Target earlier today with my mother. She was there for Tilex and I was there to buy a new booster seat for the car for my kidlet.

While there, I got two separate comments in different encounters—with people who I am sure did not even know each other or shop near each other while at the store—about my shirt. It was a red shirt with a yellow hammer and sickle on it. The symbol of Communism.

When my mother saw me in it, she had said merely, “I haven’t seen you wear that in a while,” and I’d replied, “It’s Labor Day; it seemed appropriate.” We laughed and were off to Target. But I got the sense that the first woman I saw was offended.

She was getting her infant son out of her backseat as we were getting out of my mother’s car, which was parked adjacent to hers, and the woman said to her son loudly enough for us to hear, “Oh, my. That’s the hammer and sickle, you’re too young to know anything about that,” which I guess is true enough; I mean, the kid is too young to know pretty much anything about anything except eating and pooping on which topics he was basically born an expert, but there was something weird about her demeanor as she said it. I think she wanted me to say something back. Despite my written rants, however, I am not the sort to get in to a conversation with strangers if I can avoid it, so I avoided it.

Later, I was picking up some Pond’s Cold Cream in the cosmetics section because I roll OLD SCHOOL (seriously, Pond’s Cold Cream, baby soap, and witch hazel are the only things I put on my face and I attribute my good skin and relatively youthful appearance to this habit), and a young woman passing with a cart said, “I like your shirt,” and clearly meant it, like she wanted to particularly express to me that she earnestly liked that I was wearing it. Which was just as strange as the other woman, although more pleasant.

I’ve had this shirt around four years and never heard a peep about it: once I even accidentally wore it to a Chinese restaurant (got a few double-takes from the waiters but mainly no attention at all). I find it very strange that people zeroed in on it today, at the Target of all places, like not really an open forum for debate, I’d think. Are we in a climate of increased sensitivity to dissent or just fuckin’ WHAT.