The Mechanical Monsters
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About The Mechanical Monsters
A criminal inventor robs a bank with an army of flying robots. Clark Kent is covering a jewel exhibition for the Daily Planet when one robot breaks into the museum and loads the stones into its chest. Lois Lane climbs into the compartment. Superman uses X-ray vision, sees her inside, and is thrown into power lines. At the inventor's foundry Lois is lowered toward a pot of molten metal. Superman wrecks the robots. The inventor threatens to drop her in, then tries to douse them both. Superman catches her and blocks the metal with his cape.
Cast & crew
More about The Mechanical Monsters
Dave Fleischer directed. Max Fleischer produced. Seymour Kneitel and Isidore Sparber wrote the story, from Superman by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Steve Muffati and George Germanetti animated. Paramount released it on November 28, 1941, as the second of seventeen Technicolor Superman shorts. One reel.
Themes
Background
Released November 28, 1941, as the second cartoon in Paramount's Superman series, two weeks before the United States entered the war.
Making
Fleischer's Miami studio made the short in Technicolor for Paramount, with the robots built as a repeating mechanical cycle against the city and the foundry.
Technique
The robots are animated as a fleet of identical machines, each with a jewel compartment in the torso and wings for the flight back to the foundry.
Music
Sammy Timberg composed the score, with uncredited work by Winston Sharples and Lou Fleischer.
Preservation
The short survives in the Paramount Superman series.
Notes
- Bud Collyer voices Superman. Joan Alexander voices Lois Lane. Tedd Pierce voices the inventor and a police officer.
- Sammy Timberg is credited with the music. Winston Sharples and Lou Fleischer are uncredited.
- It is the only Fleischer Superman short in which he uses X-ray vision.
- The opening narrator has been credited, without agreement, to George Lowther or Grant Richards.
Scenes
- Lois slips into the robot's chest compartment as it leaves the museum.
- Superman shields himself and Lois with his cape when the inventor throws molten metal.
Influenced by
- Superman, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
