Tom Tyler was once awarded the title of being the "Strongest Man in the World." He shuffled through The Mummy's Hand wrapped in dirty bandages and, but, even before that, he was arousing the Serial Squadron in a twelve-part chapterplay adaptation of Captain Marvel, the Egyptoid Superman knock-off with the blazing lightning bolt on his costumed chest, who did double time on Planet Earth as the infernally nasal nebbish Billy Batson (Frank Coghlan, Jr.), who had but to utter the name "Shazam!" and he would be transformed.
And then, God and fishing line willing, he (or rather, a doll effigy of him) could be made to fly over the desert expanses of Hollywoodland, California, in this excellent old thing that starts off in Morrocco or some damn place, before taking us on the chapterplay tour of an L.A. land of crook noses and gunzels, souped-up cars with running boards, tommy guns a-blazing, and two-fisted G-men giving what-for to enemy agents and saboteurs. But not so much in this picture.
Here we have your run-of-the-mill story of an archaeological expedition coming across an ancient tomb wherein a mysterious golden scorpion with lenses in its legs is discovered by the clueless effendi who go tomb-plundering into a fight with the natives, who understandably are concerned with protecting their antiquities (particularly ones whose scorpion-leg-bearing lenses can reflect sunlight to become potential "atom smashers").
The infernally nasal Batson refuses to enter the main tomb or whatnot and thus meets the spirit of the ancient wizard Shazam (Nigel De Brulier), who bestows upon him the ancient capability of saying the name Shazam and becoming a nickel-and-dime all-in-color comic-book hero of the Golden Age; or a reasonably good cinematic facsimile thereof, in the second or third degree.
And what do you know? The sucked-up little punk finds that he has awesome powers of super strength, speed, agility, and he can, doggonit, fly (although the flying Batson? Marvel bears a strange resemblance to a little doll with a Commando Cody helmet that someone is sliding down a wire near a big fake boulder. This doesn't stop him from landing like Supes and beating the what-for out of crook noses, subversives, and enemy agents of every conceivable stripe.
The villainous Scorpion (voiced by Gerald Mohr) has at his beck and call a gang of such Ratzis (well, maybe not in the LITERAL sense), led by none other than Kenne "Horsec*ck" Duncan, an old, old (old) B-Movie actor notable for having appeared in divergent roles all across the historical bandwidth of old-timey TV and bad, bad, ugly, bad monster flicks. (Fer instance, his credits include such stuff as The Lone Ranger with Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels [as Tonto], and shit auteur Ed Wood's film of Night of the Ghouls, where he held sway over a séance parlor wearing a turban and talking to anatomical lecture-hall skeletons, and whispering such sweet nothings in Ghouls co-star Valda Hansen's ear as, "I'd like to chew on your tits!" What a guy!)
The Scorpion is a mysterious guy what got a secret shaft with a guillotine he tries to get Cap to fly down (as Billy Batson). Billy, in Batson mode, gets the shit kicked out of him while chasing and alternately fleeing the Scorpion's clutches and Kenne Duncan-lovin' henchmen, in search of those damn lenses, to keep the Ratzis from developing an atom smasher and so "Ze Fuhrer May Conquer Ze World, Ja!" (Actually, there are no discernible Ratzis in this picture. I just like saying it: Ratzi, Ratzi, RATZI!)
The whole thing ends back at the beginning, in Afghanistan or Karachi, or some damn place, where the secret identity of The Scorpion is revealed as he pulls off his Cobra Commander mask. Horror of horrors, though (at least for the fans): Billy Batson gets his Captain Marvel privileges suspended.
Probably his L.A. privileges, too.
My book: Cult films and Midnight Movies: From High Art to Low Trash Volume 1
My book: Silent Scream! Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Metropolis, and Edison's Frankenstein--Four Novels by C. Augustine
About the Creator
Tom Baker
Author of Haunted Indianapolis, Indiana Ghost Folklore, Midwest Maniacs, Midwest UFOs and Beyond, Scary Urban Legends, 50 Famous Fables and Folk Tales, and Notorious Crimes of the Upper Midwest.: http://tombakerbooks.weebly.com
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