Batman (Serials)

Based on the comic book characters of Bill Finger and Bob Kane, Batman and the Boy wonder do battle with the evil Dr. Daka. With the aid of his zombie army he tries to steal America's radium for the Axis powers.

The 1943 Serial Batman starred Daka, a Japanese man, as the main villain. There is quite a bit of racism in this movie (mostly because it was around World War II when it was filmed and the Japanese weren't looked too highly upon), but Daka made the perfect villain for this time period. When it was later released on VHS, many of the racist things in it were removed. The "Bat's Cave" and entrance to it behind the grandfather clock were both introduced in this serial and would later be adapted into the Batman comics.

Dr. Daka is using a mind-control device to make "zombie" servants out of people. He uses a carnival funhouse for his headquarters. Batman and Robin find out Daka is building a radium gun and must stop him. Dr. Daka kidnaps Ken Colton, a man who had just found a radium mine. As Batman and Robin race to Daka's funhouse, they learn that Linda Page is also a "zombie servant." They capture Daka and ask how to reverse the zombie-effect so Linda Page would return to normal. As Daka is tied up, he uses a knife to get loose and takes Linda as his prisoner. While Daka tries to escape, Batman tells Robin to flip the switch to the door that's the only exit from the hideout. Robin presses the wrong switch and a trap door opens. Daka falls to his doom in a pit of hungry alligators.

The Electrical Brain
The Bat's Cave
Mark of the Zombies
Slaves of the Rising Sun
The Living Corpse
Poison Peril
The Phony Doctor
Lured by Radium
The Sign of the Sphinx
Flying Spies
A Nipponese Trap
Embers of Evil
8 Steps Down
The Executioner Strikes
Doom of the Rising Sun

Alfred Pennyworth
Batman/Bruce Wayne
Dr. Daka
Linda Page
Robin/Dick Grayson

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Batman & Robin (Serials)