The Stolen Costume

"The Stolen Costume" is the thirteenth episode of the 1950s juvenile action show Adventures of Superman, based on the DC Comics character Superman. Superman / Clark Kent is portrayed by George Reeves.

The show is considered one of the best in the series. It was based on an episode from the radio "Superman" series. It is one of the few TV episodes in which none of the other regular series characters appears.

Plot Outline

A criminal, escaping from the police and wounded by a bullet, finds himself in Clark Kent's apartment and discovers the secret closet containing his Superman costume. Normally Clark wears it under his outer clothing, but on this occasion he had left it behind because he was scheduled to have a physical exam with his doctor.

The dying criminal's find ends up in the hands of a man-and-woman pair of criminals, who decide to blackmail Superman. Kent talks to a man named "Candy", a stereotypical hard-boiled detective who is presented as a good friend of Kent's, although he never appears again in the series. Kent's dilemma is that he needs to get his suit back but can't tell Candy what it is that he wants him to find.

The criminals contact Kent and tell him they will pick him up. They find Candy outside Kent's apartment on a cigaratte break, and mistake him for Kent. A cat-and-mouse game ensues, with the criminals trying to make Candy own up to what the stolen object is, and him trying to get them to tell him what it is.

Kent figures out what has happened, and hurriedly starts to pull off his suit to "change into" Superman, before stopping himself. He then has to run through the streets and up the stairs, bursting into the room and slugging Candy, knocking him out before the Detective can discern what is happening. The criminals shoot at Kent, but of course the bullets bounce off, and they realize the game is up.

Once Kent is convinced they have told no one the secret, he carries them to a remote cabin high in a mountain range (the closest allusion in the TV series to the "Fortress of Solitude"). He tells them he will bring supplies, and flies away. Disbelieving, they try to escape, but fall to their deaths.

In the final scene, Kent tells Candy that he has recovered his object and that the perpetrators fell off a cliff. The skeptical detective tells Kent that the next thing he expects to hear is that he is J. Edgar Hoover and that Kent is Superman. Clark smiles and says, "Could be." The detective nearly does a "spit take", and then bids Kent goodnight, leaving the room as the camera zooms in on Kent.

ources

*"Superman: Serial to Cereal", Gary H. Grossman, 1976
*"Adventures of Superman", DVD, 2006