In this "third thrill-packed chapter" of Columbia's Batman and Robin (1949), the studio's belated follow-up to the 1943 serial Batman (which had marked the cinematic debut of the iconic comic book and daily comic strip character created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger), masked supervillain The Wizard continues his efforts to complete a remote control machine that will allow him to hold Gotham City hostage. Operating out of a hollow earth lair worthy of a James Bond villain, the Wizard's identity remains a tightly-guarded secret, even to his own henchman. Prime suspects include crippled eccentric Professor Hamill (William Fawcett), who rises, Dr. Strangelove-like, from his wheelchair by night; Hamill's valet Carter (Leonard Penn, later Captain Nemo in Columbia's 1951 Mysterious Island serial), radio commentator Barry Brown (Rick Vallin), whose predictions of where the Wizard will strike next are suspiciously on-target; or possibly private detective Dunne (Michael Whalen, star of a string of B-movie whodunits at Fox), who seems to have a nose for where the action is - or will be. The debut of Robin the boy Wonder in Detective Comics in 1940 doubled sales but with the addition of a teenaged helpmeet came a softening of the comic's tone; when the Batman was given his own comic in the spring of 1940, he no longer killed villains with a handgun and acted less like a vigilante and more like a civil servant - a tone reflected in Batman and Robin, with Gotham City top cop Commissioner Gordon (Lyle Talbot) employing the Bat Signal to call the Dynamic Duo (Robert Lowery and Johnny Duncan) to action.

By Richard Harland Smith