Rescue
Reviewed by Bruce Dettman

I don't know where the brunt of the blame should go, Edgar Allan Poe or Dr. Viraldi. Poe probably came along later in my adolescence with his famous chilling tale "Premature Burial" and the terrifying notion of being placed in a coffin and interred under the earth while still alive. I ran into Dr. Viraldi a few years earlier when I was about five. While racing through a bowl of Campbell's tomato soup I somehow managed in my haste to bite off and swallow the end of a plastic spoon. We were relatively new in California at the time and still without a family physician and someone, I think it was a neighbor, had recommended this particular sawbones to my parents. My mother rushed me to his office (people were more hesitant about going to the emergency ward of a hospital in those days) and with her remaining in the waiting room I was led alone into his examining area and told to climb up on the table where Viraldi began poking and prodding me. Apparently I was not remaining still enough for him so he eventually strapped me down so I couldn't move then seconds later left the room to take a call that had come in for him. He also switched off the light on his way out thereby leaving me alone and unable to move in what was rapidly becoming for me a very terrifying darkness. I immediately started crying and even howling not long after that. I made such a ruckus that my mother ran in, saw what was going on and took me out of there never to return. I don't know for certain if that one incident triggered my fear of closed places but it sure didn't help it. And by the way, for the record, no one ever found that spoon.

Fortunately, for Lois (Phyllis Coates) she doesn't seem to suffer from claustrophobia. A good thing for her in the first season episode of TAOS titled Rescue (directed by Tommy Carr), since she eventually finds herself trapped and partially buried in a mine cave-in. Monroe Manning's script has her on assignment in the town of Carbide, Penn. (Pop. 3356/Elevation 844) to do a story on the possibility of a new proposed tunnel constituting a danger to the city. Dropped off by Clark, who then drives onto Washington and a failed attempt to get a story out of some uncooperative politician, Lois is not the least pleased about her latest story and wastes no time or energy venting her displeasure at the prospect of doing nothing but "tramping around coal mines." Clark is hardly sympathetic and enjoys ribbing her. "Maybe you'll find a diamond," he wisecracks.

Meanwhile an old stubborn geezer named Pop Polgase (Houseley Stevenson Sr.) has his own ideas about the project. Despite warnings not to go ahead with his own private tunnel, does just that with the result being he's the victim of a cave-in and the target of a rescue mission.

Rescue is an episode that really shows us what Lois is made of and provides a great part for the always-attractive Coates (who was never more independent, stubborn or unmoved by the suggestions of others). Upon hearing of the old man's plight she instantly grabs a miners uniform and helmet from a line shack wall and after calling the copy editor at the Daily Planet (his name is Walt, if you're interested and the number is Metropolis 60500) heads out to do something about it. What's interesting here is that Lois doesn't seem to be interjecting herself into the rescue operations to get a headline story, but rather, impatient with what she construes as the slow poke approach of the emergency crew (24 hours, is the estimated time it will take to reach the man according to Inspector D.K. Sherman, played by Fred Sherman who would later show up in The Deserted Village), decides it is up to her to rescue him herself ("Well, I'm going in there!").

It doesn't prove to be a good idea, however, and Lois is pretty soon in the same situation as good old Pop. Worse actually. This is most likely due to her causing further vibrations by her entrance and later attempts to free him. More timbers and rocks have fallen making their plight even graver. Pop's somewhat of a defeatist and suggests giving up but that's not Lois' style ("Wait and do nothing? Not me!"). And she doesn't.

While all of this is going on Clark is getting nowhere in Washington, D.C. except sharing banter with the Planet's capital correspondent (Milt Kibbee) who reflects sarcastically that "Taxes are going up and Congress is viewing the situation with alarm." Touches like this, reflecting the real world, are always a nice addition in the first year episodes. Clark takes a rain check on making a pit stop at the local Press Club and decides instead to pickup Lois on his way back. He misses the bundled newspapers deposited on a curb which headline Lois and Pops' plight, and when he's having car trouble and has to get out and manually rev the engine, he doesn't hear the radio announcer's voice (which sounds suspiciously like actor Walter Reed from The Unknown People) describing the potentially tragic scenario in Carbide (apparently super hearing can be turned on and off like those X-ray peepers, probably a good thing when you think about it).
By the time Kent has arrived at the sight of the rescue operation gas has begun to flood the tunnel and both Lois and Pop begin to suffer its dire effects. Clark doesn't have a clue what's going on until one of the miners (Edmund Cobb, a staple villain in hundreds of B westerns who would also later show up in The Deserted Village) explains things to him. With no time for polite exits, Clark, with everyone watching him, runs off around the corner of some boulders (in the process doing something rather quirky, for some reason lifting and setting his hat back on his head) then changes into Superman and flies across the sky, landing at the mouth of the cave. There's a great sequence here as the Man of Steel hurries through the tunnel frantically pushing aside everything in his path until he reaches and frees the twosome.

Later, recovering from her ordeal Lois, joined by Clark, has a last comment for the reporter who offers to drive her back to Metropolis.

"And Clark, Superman finally took me out." It's my favorite closing line of the series.

No Jimmy or Perry in this one but the no-nonsense, not to be deterred and feisty Coates doesn't need any backup. She's more than capable of taking care of things on her own.

For awhile there you even have to wonder if she'll need Superman.

December 2006
Return to Introduction

The Adventures Continue (TAC) is a website devoted to George Reeves and the Adventures of Superman. All contents copyright© by Jim Nolt unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Nothing from this website may be reproduced by any means, in whole or in part (excpet for brief passaged used solely for review purposes) without the written permission of either Jim Nolt (owner) and/or Lou Koza (editor).

The items contained in the feature pages titled In Retrospect by Bruce Dettman is the copyright and ownership of Bruce Dettman and cannot be reproduced by any means, in whole or in part without Mr. Dettman's written permission.

Superman and all related indicia are trademarks of DC Comics, Inc. and are reproduced for historical purposes only. Use of the name of any product or character without mention of trademark status should not be construed as a challenge to such status. Includes the video captures from the Adventures of Superman.