Secret Agent (animated short)

Secret Agent
Superman series

Title card from Secret Agent.
Directed by Seymour Kneitel
Produced by Sam Buchwald
Dan Gordon
Seymour Kneitel
Izzy Sparber
Story by Carl Meyer
Voices by Bud Collyer
Joan Alexander
Julian Noa
Jackson Beck
Jack Mercer
Music by Sammy Timberg
Animation by Otto Feuer
Steve Muffati
Studio Famous Studios
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) July 30, 1943 (USA)
Color process Technicolor
Running time 8 min. (one reel)
Language English
Preceded by The Underground World (1943)

Secret Agent (1943) is the last of seventeen animated Technicolor short films based upon the DC Comics character Superman. Produced by Famous Studios, the cartoon was originally released to theaters by Paramount Pictures on July 30, 1943. This is the only short that Lois Lane doesn't appear in, female federal agent looks identical to Lois (just with blonde hair) and is also voiced by Joan Alexander.

Plot

Clark Kent is driving in town and stops at a drug store to talk to his chief about covering his assignment. Outside, there is a car chase of a group of men that are trying to gun down another car. The gun men's car crashes into the drug store, and then steal Clark's car. Clark then dashes to catch up to the gangsters and grabs on to the rear of his car. As the chase proceeds, the two cars pass by a patrolling police car who then try to chase down the gangsters and the victim. The gangsters, seeing the police, try to shoot back at them, but Clark grabs a hold of the gangster's hand a keeps him from shooting by taking his gun and throwing it away. The gangsters use another gun to shoot at their victim's tires, and blows them out. Realizing that there is no way to catch their victim without getting caught by the police, the gangsters speed off with Clark on their rear bumper.

The agent, a young blonde woman, steps out of her damaged car and tells the policemen that she needs to see the police chief at police headquarters. She explains to the police chief that she needs to take records to Washington, D.C. on the largest and most ruthless gang of saboteurs, who were just trying to gun her down in the car chase. For six months she tricked the gang of saboteurs into thinking that she was a part of them and in that time got records of all of the gang member's names along with their plans and that these saboteurs will stop at nothing to get the records back.

Meanwhile, Clark lets himself be captured so he could listen in on the gangster's plans and learns that these gangsters are trying to get some records back from the girl, who is a federal agent in reality. So, they plan to stop her at the bridge to the airport.

She gets a police escort to the airport, but it is attacked by more of the gangsters while on route. During the gunfight between the police and the gangsters, the policeman that was driving for the federal agent steps out of his car to shoot back at the gangsters. So the girl gets into the driver's seat of the police car and drives through the fighting to the airport. Another group of the saboteurs positioned at a bridge along the route to the airport see her driving, and proceed to get to the controls of the bridge. They turn the bridge to block the federal agent from driving on, but she keeps on driving until she realizes that the road isn't connected to the bridge anymore and jumps out of the car. The car then drives off the bridge and crashes into a nearby electrical tower. The federal agent tries to reverse the bridge by getting to the bridge controls, but is nearly shot by one of gangsters. She reverses the bridge's turning, but the electric tower begins to fall and smashes into the bridge control room. She falls on to the bridge's turning mechanism and is knocked out while the massive gear in the turning mechanism slowly creeps toward her unconscious body.

Meanwhile, the gangster on the bridge telephones his superior and tells him that the federal agent is trapped on the bridge and that he is about to get overrun by cops, but is cut off as the police open fire on him. The boss of the gangsters sees that something went wrong, has one of his men lock Clark in another room and leaves with his henchmen to get the agent's records. Clark breaks his bindings, changes into Superman and jumps on to the cable of the elevator the gangsters were taking, pulls their elevator up and ties off the elevator cable with the gangsters above the top floor to keep them from getting to the federal agent. Superman then flies to the bridge and sees that the federal agent is about to be crushed by the bridge's turning mechanism and saves her by "derailing" the massive turning gear. Knowing of where the agent needs to go from listening to the gangsters, he quickly picks her up before the flaming wreckage of the bridge control tower falls on her and flies her all the way to Washington D.C and flies away, with a salute to the flag.

Voice

References

    External links