The Underground World (1943) User Reviews

Superman vs. hawkmen!

[preppy-3 · 8/10 · 11 March 2005]

Lois Lane and Clark Kent agree to go an expedition with a professor into an unexplored cave. He believes there may be treasures there. The must travel on water to enter the cave. Lois and the professor go ahead first (for no reason). An explosion seals them in there and (all of the sudden)they are prisoners of hawkmen. The hawkmen (for no reason) decide to lower Lois and the professor into a lake full of boiling lava. Will Superman find them and save the day? This marks the first appearance of Perry White in a Superman cartoon--albeit very briefly. And it's one of the WWII ones that DOESN'T deal with saboteurs. The animation is great (as always) with some beautiful scenes in the underground caves. There's also some great action with Superman fighting the hawkmen. Fun. I give it an 8.

The Underground World is another wonderful Superman cartoon

[tavm · 8/10 · 25 January 2007]

This Superman cartoon was made in a transition period in which the Fleischer brothers were forced out of their operation and distributor Paramount renamed the animation unit Famous Studios. Daily Planet editor-in-chief Perry White accepts an archaeologist's offer to take Clark and Lois to an underground cave to explore treasures. With Kent outside, the professor and Lane get trapped inside when their boat floats away and some hawk men capture them to take to their leader where a statue of the professor's dad is shown above him. Clark comes in just as Lois and her partner are about to be lowered in molten lava as the hawk men dance. Superman arrives in the nick of time and destroys the cave after the rescue. Back at the office, Perry reads Lane's manuscript and burns it, explaining to Lois and Clark, "Nobody will ever believe it..." Well made action cartoon inspired by Edgar Rice Burrough's At the Earth's Core. Worth seeing for Superman and animation enthusiasts.

Classic?

[Grrrim · 7/10 · 28 November 2001]

Hmm....

First my layman's hat:

Entertaining enough considering it's age. A nice little story, quite fun as it went along and a funny joke which did actually make me laugh out loud at the end.

It's all quite simple. Some old guy appears. He says let's go find my dad and maybe treasure. They go off to a mysterious cave. They get in trouble. Superman gets them out. Sweet!

Secondly my expert's hat:

Well after a yeah of the most expensive animation of all time [so I hear] I guess it couldn't go on. This item is obviously less extravagant thatn those Dave Fleischer was knocking out in 1942. But the style and the care still seem to be these but after a year with 10 releases I guess the production couldn't keep up with the imagination.

Dave Fleischer had obviously rubbed his gift off on the people here. The man had made literally HUNDREDS of productions by this point and his influence still shows.

Finally my plain balding head:

It is nice to see that old rubbish like this can still entertain. It is a pity they didn't have more time and money to push their imaginations forwards a little more. I bet the comics of it's day weren't in this class.

Oh and it was nice to see Superman before he had a proper outfit, x-ray vision, invulnerability, laser eyes, breath of ice, speed of the puma and stuff.

Yes indeed a classic.

Superman #16

[Michael_Elliott · 17 May 2009]

Underground World, The (1943)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The son of an explorer takes Lois and Clark to the Henderson Caves where the son's father was last seen decades ago. Once there the son and Lois are kidnapped by some type of eagle creatures and it's up to Superman to save the day. This film is certainly better than the last few in the series but that's not saying too much. Once again we're treated to some very good animation and some nice creatures, which makes this stand out more than some of the previous ones. What the eagle things are doing is never explained but that's probably for the best as the writing in these shorts hasn't been the greatest. There's some nice action scenes and seeing Superman fight these things was fun.

Many movie fans have long considered the fate . . .

[tadpole-596-918256 · 7/10 · 7 January 2020]

. . . of the gilded gal stripped and painted to death in GOLDFINGER a horrible (if colorful) way to go. However, the demise of this GOLDFINGER girl is quite tame compared to the fate facing "Lois Lane" during THE UNDERGROUND WORLD. Trussed up by mutant bird-men, this dim-witted DAILY PLANET death wish dame is about to become worth her weight in tin foil as her feathered fiends begin to dip her into a boiling cauldron of molten gold. Lois subsequently writes up her close brush with becoming gold dust under the title, "I Almost Became a Life-Sized Oscar" (referencing Tinsel Town's infamous gelded statuettes, which the first entry in her series lost out on in Real Life to Walt's quacking Quislings). Fortunately, her minder from another Mother Planet--"Clark Kent"--immediately snatches this salacious expose from his hapless sidekick's dirty paws and burns it to ashes in order to prevent her from making fool's gold of herself yet again. After all, this wicked wench's strong masochistic streak already has forced the "Man of Steel" to decimate the endangered Bird Man species and blow up part of their World Cultural Heritage Site simply to keep this wayward skirt from reentering THE UNDERGROUND WORLD.

"This Amazing Stranger From The Planet Krypton"

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 17 June 2000]

A SUPERMAN Cartoon.

While exploring THE UNDERGROUND WORLD of the Henderson Caves, intrepid girl reporter Lois Lane & her companion are captured by a weird society of flying falcon men. Now, with Lois about to be dipped into boiling lava, this has become a job for Superman...

This was another in the series of excellent cartoons initially created by Max Fleischer for Paramount Studio. They feature great animation and taut, fast-moving plots. Meant to be shown in movie theaters, they are miles ahead of their Saturday Morning counterparts. Bud Collyer is the voice of Superman; Joan Alexander does the honors for Lois Lane.

Superman vs the Hawkmen

[utgard14 · 8/10 · 15 December 2013]

I love the Fleischer Superman cartoons. The animation is smooth and fluid with vivid colors. The distinct art-deco style, vintage science fiction imagery, and use of noirish shadows gave them a look unlike any other cartoons. The music and voice work is superb. They're fun, accessible, enduring animation classics. While this is a cartoon from Fleischer Studios' successor, Famous Studios, it still tries to maintain the Fleischer style.

The sixteenth of the Paramount Superman series. Dr. Henderson asks the Daily Planet to finance an expedition to explore a series of caves his father disappeared in. Perry White agrees and sends Lois & Clark along to report on the findings of the expedition. Dr. Henderson and Lois head into the underground caverns first, with Clark to follow along later. When the two are captured and taken to an underground city of Hawkmen, it's up to Superman to save them before they are turned into golden statues like Henderson's father decades before. A truly great cartoon and one of the best of the series. The underground caverns are beautifully animated, the Hawkmen are imaginative villains, and the action is super (pardon the pun). Love the ending!

Birdmen!

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 6 May 2016]

"The Underground World" is the penultimate cartoon short film from the 1940's Superman series. It was the first time that the very prolific and successful Seymour Kneitel was in charge of directing and he also returned for the final film. This one here runs for 8 minutes and has Lois and a professor go on an underground expedition where they are promptly attacked by a bunch of hawk-men trying to sacrifice them to please their God. But Superman is there on time. I must say the story was so-so, but the film's biggest weakness were perhaps the villains in here. I must say I found them rather funny-looking instead of dangerous, but that is just personal perception. Maybe you like them more than I did. As for quality, I am not too mad the franchise was already almost over at this point. To me, "The Underground World" was not a convincing achievement.

Simple Rescue Story for this Series

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 27 December 2016]

Create a place that is inhabited by a new race, Hawkmen. Have Lois end up there through some careless actions or just happenstance, and now we have a story. For some reason these guys have a pit of molten rock to throw people into and Lois is going to get this treatment. This brief, but fun offering, is about a series of events that remind one of the Saturday morning serials in movie theaters of the thirties and forties. It is fun to see Superman coming to the rescue just in time. Lois continues to be the object of his affection. With all this man (super man) has to do, he spends an awful lot of his time keeping Lois alive. She should be paying a rescue tax.

This is precisely the reason I avoid caves!!

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 12 January 2014]

"The Underground World" is one of the weirdest, if not the weirdest installments of the Fleischer Brothers' Superman series. It begins with a guy getting the Daily Planet to finance an expedition into some caves that his father discovered and you assume he is returning to try to find the guy. He takes along Clark and Lois and soon things go totally insane--Lois and the Professor are set upon by hawkmen inside the caves! They have heads just like hawks and wings but also humanoid bodies!! Eventually Superman springs into action--saving the pair and sealing up the caves for good.

While the action isn't bad on this one, the whole hawkmen angle is awfully silly. Because of this, it's definitely one of the lesser episodes in the series and one you just might want to skip. If you still want to see it, you can download this and other Superman cartoons for free at archive.org.