To bring pressure to bear on Gotham City to meet his dastardly extortion demands, elusive super-criminal The Wizard threatens to bring the metropolis to its knees by halting all outgoing and incoming trains via his stolen remote control device--leaving Batman (Robert Lowery) and Robin (Johnny Duncan) little time to restore order and save the life of kidnapped railroad president Winslow Harrison. This seventh installment of Columbia Pictures' 1949 Batman and Robin serial takes its title, "The Fatal Blast," from the chapter's closing image--an incendiary sendoff that splinters the bad guys' hideout and spells doom for the Dynamic Duo. Cast as the imperiled railway executive is actor Ralph Graves, a former matinee idol of silent films who was at this point near the end of his Hollywood career. A one-time Mack Sennett star, Graves benefited from two professional relationships he struck up with industry newcomers: Sennett gagman Frank Capra and would-be filmmaker Howard Hughes. While Hughes broke into the business producing Swell Hogan (1926), written and directed by Graves (who also starred in the title role), Capra would, as an in-house director at Columbia, cast the actor opposite Jack Holt in such high-spirited adventure films as Submarine (1928), Flight (1929), and Dirigible (1931). As the demand for his services declined, Graves turned to writing and directing, while also turning up as a heroic FBI agent taking on smugglers in the Poverty Row serial The Black Coin (1936).

By Richard Harland Smith