| Destruction, Inc. | |
|---|---|
| Superman series | |
Title card from Destruction, Inc.. |
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| Directed by | Izzy Sparber |
| Produced by | Sam Buchwald Dan Gordon Seymour Kneitel Izzy Sparber |
| Voices by | Joan Alexander Jackson Beck Bud Collyer Jack Mercer Julian Noa |
| Music by | Winston Sharples Sammy Timberg |
| Animation by | Thomas Moore David Tendlar |
| Studio | Famous Studios |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | December 25, 1942 |
| Color process | Technicolor |
| Running time | 9 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Eleventh Hour (1942) |
| Followed by | The Mummy Strikes (1943) |
Destruction Inc. (1942) is the 13th of 17 animated Technicolor short films based upon the DC Comics character of Superman. It was released on Christmas Day 1942.
Contents |
One night in Metropolis, the night watchman from the Metropolis Munitions Plant is found dead in a swamp. When news of the incident reaches the city the next morning, Lois Lane and Clark Kent both decide to grab the story for themselves. Lois decides to go undercover at the plant. As she goes to meet with the plant supervisor, she meets the new night guard, a kindly, white-haired, old man.
Lois goes undercover as a factory worker. One day, during her shift, she overhears the foreman telling several of the workers that Mr. Jones, one of the supervisors, wants to go over the plan. During break time, the workers head up to Mr. Jones' office. Lois follows. Up in the office, Lois overhears Mr. Jones' plan to blow up the factory. The switch to the factory's night lights has been rigged to a case of dynamite. When the night guard throws the switch, the whole factory will explode. Just then, Mr. Jones sees Lois outside the office window. He sends the workers to catch her. Lois manages to get away from the workers, but is caught by the foreman. The night guard enters the room and rushes to help Lois. The foreman stops the night guard by dropping several tons of scrap metal on him.
To silence Lois, the workers load her into a test torpedo with another case of dynamite. (As a company rule, test torpoedoes aren't loaded with explosives.) The torpedo with Lois is sent to the testing range and set to be fired at a dummy ship. Back inside the factory, the night guard is struggling to free himself from the rubble. The night guard is really Clark, who has also decided to go undercover. Under the rubble, Clark changes into Superman.
As the test torpedo is fired, Clark rushes out to the testing range and saves Lois before the torpedo explodes. Realizing that they've been discovered, Mr. Jones orders the foreman to throw the night guard's switch now. He reaches the switch, but Superman stops him from throwing it. Just when Mr. Jones thinks his plans are ruined, he spots a truck loaded with dynamite. He steers the truck toward the factory in a collision course, then jumps out before impact. Lois warns Superman, who was previously pinned down by the workers, about the truck. Superman catches the truck and sends it over a cliff, saving the factory.
The story ends with Mr. Jones, the foreman and the workers being arrested, and Lois revealing that she knew Clark was the night guard. It may have been meant as a subtle irony that Lois was able to see through this disguise easily but could not figure out that Clark was Superman as well.
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