Batman: Eight Steps Down

 "Stop at the first police box you come to."

That line was, to put it mildly, unexpected for this serial made in 1943 and set, I believe, in Los Angeles (Gotham City? What's that then?) but, well, diddy-dum. Although said police box is just really a payphone-like contraption for Batman to ring up the police captain and scold him for being "not very clever!.

Anyway, our heroes naturally escape the latest of several burning buildings as cool-looking 1940s US fire engines congregate. But Linda Page has been kidnapped! She meets Daka... yeah, that racial slur happens, of course it does, but Linda is stoic, refusing to betray Bruce even if it means being zombified- does she actually fancy Bruce, whom she naturally sees as a lazy cowards, rather than wanting his money? She's actually rather admirable here, social attitudes aside, especially after seeing what was done to her Uncle Martin.

Daka, meanwhile, is no fool. On being told, yet again, by an overconfident underling that no one could have survived that fire, he gives us a wry "another Batman killed, eh?". And his plan to use Linda as bait make it clear that he's worked out that Bruce is Batman. It is, after all, rather obvious.

Incidentally, the new radium gun is nearly ready...

Batman and Robin are cool here, efficiently investigating the baddies' known haunts, finding secret passages and getting close to Daka's hideaway. Alas, they're caught, and we end with the most splendidly movie serial double cliffhanger ever. Will Batman, having fallen down a trap door into an unecessarily elaborate deathtrap, be crushed by the spikes? Will Linda be turned into another zombie? I'm loving this.