In Gothan City, in the Word War II, the Japanese spy Dr. Tito Daka (J. Carrol Naish) has a gang gangsters working for the Japanese government. He plans to steal a radium load to use in a lethal weapon and hijack an American prototype airplane. The evil Dr. Daka uses a machine to turn people into zombies to work for him. Batman is indeed the lazy millionaire Bruce Wayne (Lewis Wilson), and Robin is his protegee Dick Grayson (Douglas Croft) that are supported by the butler and chauffeur Alfred Pennyworth (William Austin). Bruce Wayne's love interest is Linda Page (Shirley Patterson) and Dr. Daka kidnaps her uncle Martin Warren to help him in his research but turns him into a zombie when he refuses to cooperate with the mastermind of the spy ring. Along fifteen Chapters, Dr. Daka stumbles upon Batman and the boy wonder Robin and they will fight each other. "Batman" (1943) is the landmark of the first appearance of Batman on the screen and in serial at the climax of World War II. This low budget serial does not have the Batmobile; instead, Batman and Robin use Bruce Wayne's Cadillac convertible driven by Alfred. The plot has anti-Japanese messages and is silly, naive and funny in many moments, but is also highly entertaining and divided in 15 Chapters that were presented in the theaters once a week; now they are available on DVD. (1) The Electrical Brain; (2) The Bat's Cave; (3) The Mark of the Zombies; (4) Slaves of the Rising Sun; (5) The Living Corpse; (6) Poison Peril; (7) The Phoney Doctor (8) Lured by Radium; (9) The Sign of the Sphinx; (10) Flying Spies; (11) A Nipponese Trap; (12) Embers of Evil; (13) Eight Steps Down (14) The Executioner Strikes; (15) The Doom of the Rising Sun. Maybe the funniest scenes are when Dr. Daka communicates with his submarine by radio and they release a coffin with a near-death Japanese soldier only to tell that he should hijack an airplane; and when a spy breaks the window of the airplane to throw off a cargo of radium using parachutes for Dr. Daka's men. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Batman"

Off the back of the most recent Batman film, I saw a documentary on the Batmobile that observed that the first ever film version of Batman just used a normal car and this was the point where I learnt that there was a Batman serial back in the 1940's. It took me a minute to track it but I did and I watched it as a bit of a curio piece, to see what the first film incarnation of this character looked like. As it turned out this was probably the way to approach it because essentially Batman is not too different from other serials of the time which involves a pantomime villain who is constantly outfoxed by the hero every week even though each each episode ends with a cliffhanger.In this case the episodes are barely 15 minutes long and each episode replay the final 3 of the previous episode (showing the cliffhanger) before it then moves forward. As a result each episode is very short and, although the plot generally flows, it does not have much time to set up the next stage of Daka's fiendishly Oriental plan before it is then concluding that part of his plan thanks to Batman's intervention. This means that everything moves quickly and is mostly pretty functional in the design. The one common thing is that there will be a fistfight and, mostly, Batman and Robin will get overwhelmed, leaving them in a fatal cliffhanger each week. The villains will invariably leg it back to Daka to report that Bats is a goner, meanwhile the duo escape time and time again. It gets quite samey after a very short while even if some of the episode have some better set pieces like car crashes and fires to liven things up. Mostly though it is fist fights and fairly standard plotting.Of course one thing that is also consistent is the casual and consistent racism against the, then enemy, Japanese. Although the modern viewer gets numb to it over 15 episodes, it is still hard to take the narration refer to slant-eyed treachery and other colorful and offensive terms; I understand it is of its time, but it is still weird to see how lacking in subtly it was. The episodes do at least have a good touch of darkness about them as batman has the vaguest touch of noir in the delivery and at least there is genuine death and violence in there. Wilson is less Batman and more just a standard serial hero – all chin, chest and brave clean Americanism. Croft works well with him as Robin although I didn't care much for Patterson's Linda or Austin's Alfred. Naish's Daka is a wonderfully dated piece of offensive ham but he does it with such sneering energy it is hard not to enjoy it despite what it is.Overall this version of Batman is very much of its time and very much worth seeing as a curiosity and piece of history of the character. As an actual series of films to watch though it is pretty basic; it is very short but yet still pads time, it offers action but mostly it is just basic fist-fights and it's plots are basic and seem to spend most of their energy on having digs at the Japanese.

When the 20th Century-Fox TV series "Batman" made its debut, the serial was already playing in special release. Hugh Hefner had booked the serial for his Playboy Club theater in Chicago, and was so pleased with the results from his key-club members (some of whom laughed, some of whom were nostalgic, but all of whom enjoyed the picture) that he had it booked into a public theater downstairs. Based on this, Columbia Pictures put together "An Evening with Batman and Robin", and four-walled (in exclusive screenings at mostly Art Houses) it around the country. The timing of the series and serial was co-incidental. The details of this period are covered in articles in both FILMFAX and EXTRA ADDED ATTRACTIONS magazines.

This film is a super-classical one. Batman is the first Superhero. Comics about him were drawn in 1939! And it is the first movie about him! Everybody needs to watch it because of its classical nature. It is the classic of super-heroism. This film is collection able and should be at everyone's video library. As I think, such films mark the greatest point in the World History. Here you can see the non-contemporary technology, that is with what equipment old movies were shot. If you have the Tim Burton's Batman in your collection, you'll buy this one. Batman is the greatest superhero. Every good man is going to be like Batman. Everyone knows Batman. Everyone wants Batman. So, join us. You'll have to known him. Just think that Batman flies!