The Arctic Giant
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About The Arctic Giant
Archaeologists dig a frozen dinosaur out of Siberia, label it a Tyrannosaurus, and put it on show as the Arctic Giant at the Museum of Natural Science in Metropolis, kept cold by special refrigeration. Lois Lane (Joan Alexander) covers the exhibit for Perry White. An oil can falls into a turbine, the machinery is shut down, and the ice melts. The animal smashes the museum, ignores police bullets, breaks a dam, and tears through a suspension bridge. Superman (Bud Collyer) stops the flood with a boulder, lashes the dinosaur's legs with a bridge cable, and, when it nearly swallows Lois, flies into its mouth and pins the head with a lamp post. Lois's story says the beast is shackled at the Metropolis Zoo. Clark tells her he must have fainted.
Cast & crew
More about The Arctic Giant
The fourth of seventeen Technicolor Superman shorts from Fleischer Studios. Dave Fleischer directed and Max Fleischer produced. Bill Turner and Ted Pierce wrote the story from the character by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Paramount Pictures released it. Willard Bowsky and Reuben Grossman animated.
Themes
Making
Will Murray has written that rooftop-to-rooftop leaps, filmed as tests and dropped because they looked silly, were probably reused in this short to save money. In the finished series Superman usually flies.
Technique
Filmed in Technicolor, as were the other Fleischer Superman shorts.
Music
Sammy Timberg composed the score. Winston Sharples and Lou Fleischer contributed uncredited music.
Preservation
The short survives as part of the Fleischer Superman series.
Notes
- Wikidata dates the release 26 February 1942; the Wikipedia article says 27 February 1942.
- Voices: Bud Collyer as Clark Kent and Superman, Joan Alexander as Lois Lane, Julian Noa as Perry White, Jackson Beck as the narrator.
- Sammy Timberg is the credited composer, with Winston Sharples and Lou Fleischer uncredited.
- The short shows a thawed giant reptile wrecking a city twelve years before Godzilla (1954).
- Lois refuses Clark's offer to come along because, she says, he might faint. That is the line he uses at the end.
Scenes
- An oil can stops the refrigeration and the Arctic Giant walks out of the melted block.
- Superman shoves a boulder into the broken dam, then ropes the dinosaur as it heads for a packed stadium.
- He flies into the animal's mouth to pull Lois clear and pins the head with a lamp post.
Influenced by
- Superman (comics by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster)
Quotes
Me? Oh, I must have fainted.
