Posted By Dan Greenfield on Oct 8, 2023 | 5 comments

A BIRTHDAY SALUTE to the first live-action screen Man of Steel, in groovy little moving pictures…

By WALT GROGAN

The late Kirk Alyn was born 113 years ago — 113! — on Oct. 8, 1910! Alyn was a working actor best known for originating the role of Superman and Clark Kent in the Columbia big-screen serials Superman (1948) and Atom Man vs. Superman (1950).

He made his first movie appearance in the 1930 film, Fast and Loose in an uncredited role and over the next 18 years made many more uncredited appearances.

He also took the starring role of Chris Calvert in another serial, 1949’s Radar Patrol vs. Spy King from Republic. In 1952, he played Quality Comics’ hero Blackhawk in another 12-part serial from Columbia.

But wasn’t done with Superman. He returned to the big screen later in life to play Lois Lane’s father, alongside Noel Neill who played her mother, in 1978’s Superman: The Movie. (Neill, of course, played Lois in both of Alyn’s Superman serials and on George Reeves’ Adventures of Superman TV show).

Like Reeves, Alyn’s Clark Kent was no milksop, especially since the Daily Planet reporter had to do much of the leg work before finally, and triumphantly, becoming Superman in each chapter.

One of the joys of watching these serials is anxiously waiting for Clark to turn into Superman and back again, and the 1948 Superman doesn’t disappoint on this score. While the Planet storeroom was essentially Superman’s changing room in the later episodes of the serial many of the early episodes featured Superman changing in broad daylight (with one notable exception), often ducking into some bushes or behind a car.

For anyone who has seen the Adventures of Captain Marvel serial, which preceded Superman by six years, you’ll remember the effective use of a mannequin/dummy for the Big Red Cheese’s flying scenes. The Superman serial took a different tack by freeze-framing Alyn and switching to an animated Superman for the flying scenes as well as for some special effects. The cost-conscious move worked.

With that in mind, we present GIF-MANIA! 13 TIMES KIRK ALYN CHANGED INTO SUPERMAN AND BACK AGAIN:

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Ducking behind a tree!

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Behind a parked car!

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Sticking to the shadows!

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Behind some boulders!

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Running into a forest and coming out behind… the same boulders?

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This is one of my favorites! Tumbling down the side of a pedestrian underpass!

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The Daily Planet storeroom!

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Breaking out of jail!

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Breaking back into jail!

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Checking on Lois and busting out the side of a mountain!

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Behind a hedge!

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Again in the Daily Planet storeroom!

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The cleanest alley ever!

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And here’s a 13th Dimension lagniappe — crooks escaping the Batcave and heading away from Gotham City to Metropolis!

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One of my greatest pleasures was meeting Kirk at a signing event at Northwest Federal Savings in Chicago in late February 1979. He entertained the crowd with an overview of his time as Superman and the secret of how he flew in the serial.

And finally here’s Superman meeting up with the World’s Mightiest Mortal, Jackson Bostwick’s Captain Marvel, at the American Nostalgia Convention in Dallas, as detailed by Larry Herndon in The Amazing World of DC Comics #16 (April 1978).

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MORE

— The Goofy Charm of 1950’s ATOM MAN VS. SUPERMAN. Click here.

— A TRIBUTE to KIRK ALYN: The First Live-Action SUPERMAN — and Much More. Click here.

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A 10-year-old Walt Grogan fell in love with the Big Red Cheese thanks to essays written by Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson in the paperback edition of All in Color for a Dime, released in 1970 and bought for him by his father off a paperback spinner rack in a liquor store on the South Side of Chicago. Walt runs The Marvel Family Web Facebook page devoted to all incarnations of the Fawcett/DC Captain Marvel and blogs about Captain Marvel at shazamshistorama.com.