Review: Superman and the Mole-Men (1951)
★★★★
“Superman and the Mole-Men” is the first ever feature length movie starring a DC comics character and George Reeves’s first appearance (of over a 100!) as the titular character. Superman’s interplanetary origins and success in both animated and radio form made him a perfect candidate for one of the 1950s many sci-fi B movies. A character who had made it big on the new stands, launched a whole new genre of fiction story-telling, and was slowly becoming a pop culture mainstay finally got his opportunity to make it big.
Of course, the special effects are terribly dated. But this movie smartly elides a story that in any way relies on them. Besides one moment where Superman saves a falling Mole-Man, there are really no special effects shots. This story is much more about Superman’s moral compass and capacity to inspire others than it is about his superpowers and physical capacities. On that note, this movie is also much more driven by Clark Kent’s own commitment to honest journalism than many incarnations of the character.
So despite the lackluster effects, “Superman and the Mole-Men” succeeds at telling a distinctly Superman story; just one that’s primarily story and character driven instead of effects driven. The make-up and costuming are supremely silly; the Mole-Men look like children in Halloween costumes and Superman’s tights look like baggy pajamas. But the economical moviemaking charmingly mirrors the pulpy cheapness of the origins of the comic book medium.
The editing is as cheap as most B movies and the directing is largely non-existent, which makes for a really neutral, almost even detached, camera — an effect that lets the characters kind of speak for themselves by giving a primacy to the plain morality of their deeds and words. Who is saving others? Who is trying to harm others? Who preaches kindness and respect? Who preaches hate and intolerance? The camera doesn’t need to give us any extraneous information to inform our moral judgements here.
The movie does provide extraneous information in the form of a pretty generic sci-fi movie score, but it also likes to play with the audience a bit, such as when it tries to trick us into interpreting the Mole-Men as creepy outsiders with malicious intent before their innocence becomes apparent.
It’s mostly this movie’s pitch-perfect casting for its larger-than-life protagonist along with its timeless themes that helps it rise above its low budget technical limitations to become a perfect cinematic encapsulation of the Golden Age comic books that spawned it: a pulpy morality tale adventure story about a group of oppressed individuals and the stern, swashbuckling hero that saves them from the hateful, bigoted instincts of others.
Reeves’s Superman stands tall as the “Champion of the Oppressed” — the character’s initial nickname. He is so committed to his pursuit of justice that he might even come across to modern viewers as less forgiving than the Superman we’re used to. We’ve come to associate a kind of gentle tenderness with Superman largely because of Christopher Reeve’s (no less marvelous) character-defining performance almost three decades later, but George Reeves plays Superman with a sort of aloofness more reminiscent of Superman as Siegel and Shuster conceived of him. He has a kind of gracious weariness rooted in his constant failure to get those around him to act morally.
While no less uncompromising in his values than later incarnations, this Superman’s virtue is realized less in an endless reserve of politeness and more in a steely demeanor and dogged inflexibility. This is hilariously illustrated during the movie’s climax in which Superman doesn’t hesitate to save the supremely dislikable and murderous villain (who’s spent the whole movie ignoring Superman’s moral arguments) from the Mole-Men’s completely justified retaliatory force, but then snarks that he didn’t deserve it without even granting him the respect of a passing glance.
On the other hand, there has been perhaps no better illustration of Superman’s inherent optimism than in his empathy for the Mole-Men. While he is quick to notice suspicious details at the drill site, Superman only ever assumes the best of the Mole-Men and he is proven utterly correct. Not only are they hilariously weak (they were frightened by a small snake) and innocent (they curiously play catch with a little girl), but the movie even involves a looming uncertainty about the potential threat of their radiation that is also shown to be no problem at all.
The townspeople are really motivated to form a violent mob when a mother finds her daughter playing catch with the Mole-Men and this explicit motivation to protect children, the most innocent and vulnerable people of all, tragically mirrors so many real-world defenses of bigotry and violence.
The Mole-Men can be interpreted as metaphors for any of the countless groups of people in human history who have been “othered” — and all the horrible prejudice, displacement, and violence that goes along being othered. Superman explicitly invokes parallels between both black people in America and Jews in Nazi Germany by calling the villains both a lynch mob and Nazi stormtroopers. There is certainly an immigrant parallel as well, with the Mole-Men being interpreted as invaders from another civilization. Many also interpret the movie to be speaking to the ongoing Red Scare plaguing the United States and Hollywood in particular at the time.
And while Superman is himself is also an “other” in that he is also not human, he still appears as a totally normal, even handsome, able-bodied cis white man. The townspeople don’t mind Superman at all but the first sight of creatures that look unlike them sends them into fit of irrational rage. Superman is essentially an “other” who has the power (and the responsibility) to protect other “others.” In this case, the Mole-Men.
It’s also worth noting two scenes that seem like obvious moments to involve Superman in the story but oddly don’t. The first is an extended sequence in which the lynch mob chases down a lone mole-man while Superman is busy saving the other Mole-Man they shot and bringing him to the hospital. They trap the second Mole-Man into a cabin which they light on fire and it all feels like it’s building to a triumphant moment where Superman saves the Mole-Man. But he just never shows up. The Mole-Man escapes out the back of the cabin and saves himself. Nice to see this race of seemingly totally weak, stupid, and helpless beings actually get out of a jam without relying on Superman!
The other scene involves Lois characteristically standing up for herself in a way that draws the ire of sexist men. When she blocks the lynch mob from getting into the hospital, they become violent. But Superman is seemingly perfectly confident in Lois’s ability to handle herself and never physically steps in. After the scuffle ends, she runs over to Superman and he just asks her if she’s ok. The only time Superman actually does save Lois in this movie is a moment or two later when someone actually tries to shoot Lois but Superman casually pulls her out of the way long before the bullet arrives, to which he merely responds “clearly you people cannot be trusted with guns!”
As opposed to so many modern superhero movies that sometimes use CGI as a crutch, “Superman and the Mole-Men” culminates in a very straightforward, story-driven scene in which Superman must bring the wounded Mole-Man back to his people before they are killed by perhaps the most unambiguously evil, yet all-too-real, xenophobe vigilante Luke Benson. This ending is not an incomprehensible, ultimately dull fist fight between super-beings, but a simple act of good will.
Much of “Superman and the Mole-Men” consists in Superman trying to protect the completely innocent Mole-Men by simply using reason to persuade the rabid townspeople. And before that, Superman doesn’t even appear because the story is driven purely by Clark Kent’s activities as an honorable journalist pursuing a story. But only after both of those peaceful methods failed and the townspeople became a lynch mob threatening lethal force against the Mole-Men did Superman realize that relying on retaliatory force was the only way to do the right thing.
This is made explicit when Lois suggests they simply report this news of the Mole-Men nationwide but Superman recommends against it because he knows the country would only respond in the same violent, paranoid manner as the townspeople. Superman is ultimately Clark Kent’s very last resort in his fight for justice. But he nonetheless prefers justice to peace.
It’s in this way that Superman as he was originally conceived and in the way he is portrayed here ironically presupposed a level of cynicism. Superman is weary because he spends all his time trying to inspire people to be better and they still don’t listen. He makes his moral arguments as clear as he possibly can — he (rightfully!) compares the lynch mob to Nazi stormtroopers to their faces — but people stubbornly pursue evil anyway. That would be exhausting for anyone, even a super man.
This surprising cynicism at the heart of perhaps the most optimistic and hopeful fictional character ever conceived reflects the motivations and times of his creators. After all, why would someone *create* a character like Superman? Because such a perfect exemplar of moral inspiration was sorely needed. Because the world was depressingly lacking in good people. Because man wasn’t living up to his potential. Because the people who had power were not “champions of the oppressed” but the ones doing the oppressing.
In some ways, this merely illustrates the counterintuitive nature of optimism itself. Having hope in a better future necessarily means recognizing the imperfections of the present. Superman exists *because* man is very much not super… at least at the moment; because it’s nice to see a hero who has transcended all the imperfections of his time and place in doing the right thing. That’s something moral beings have always needed and will always need.
The comic book, and the superhero genre that came to dominate the comic book medium in particular, is fundamentally a form of escapism; a means of immersing oneself in a world of pure imagination; a different, hopefully better, world that, after one inhabits for a while, renews one’s sense of wonder and joy in the actual world. That’s what these pulpy rags can accomplish at their best. And that’s what the film reels that bring to life the sequential images on these pulpy rags can accomplish at their best too. They, like Superman, can inspire us to be better. And while there’s no guarantee we’ll all listen, I can always hope.
