Secret Agent (1943)
Article 5604 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-21-2018
Directed by Seymour Kneitel
Featuring the voices of Bud Collyer, Joan Alexander, Jackson Beck
Country: USA
What it is: Superman short

A blonde secret agent is trying to get information about a spy organization to the authorities. However, she’s being chased by the spies. Can Superman come to her rescue?

Though I haven’t covered all of the Fleischer Superman cartoons, this is the last one I’ll be doing for the time being. It is also, I gather, the last one done by the organization, and maybe it was just as well. It was probably inevitable that the series would eventually turn to wartime propaganda, and this has Superman going against the Nazis. Superman has only two words of dialogue, and Lois Lane is nowhere to be found, though Joan Alexander provides the voice for the female spy. This one really stretches credibility during its climax; Superman takes so long to come to the secret agent’s urgent rescue that rightfully she should have been dead long before he gets to her. And maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t one of the evil spies bear a strong resemblance to Dick Tracy?