Having lured the mysterious arch-fiend known as The Wizard from his subterranean lair near the conclusion of Chapter 11, Columbia Pictures' 15-part Batman and Robin (1949) serial picks up in Chapter 12 with the Dynamic Duo (Robert Lowery and Johnny Duncan) tracking the villain back to his hollow earth headquarters...only to lose him at the last moment. "Robin Rides the Wind" continues with the heroes crossing paths with numerous prime suspects, each of whom might be the Wizard: from nosey PI Dunne (Michael Whalen) to curiously well-informed radio commentator Barry Brown (Rick Vallin) to the crippled Professor Hammil (William Fawcett), whose remote control device has been used by the Wizard to paralyze traffic coming into or attempting to leave Gotham City. Obtaining blueprints for a new mechanism with the potential to neutralize the remote control machine and thus thwart the Wizard's endgame, Batman and Robin rely on Brown's shady information-gathering practices to leak a false memo about the transport of the neutralizer through remote Blue Rock Canyon in an attempt to coax the Wizard back into the light. As had previous installments of the serial, "Robin Rides the Wind" makes continued use of the former George Lewis mansion, a rolling Benedict Canyon estate that had been a location for the Cole Porter biopic Night and Day (1946) and would be seen again in Billy Wilder's Sabrina (1954) before its date with the wrecking ball in the 1960s.

By Richard Harland Smith