Plot hole: The Mad Scientist's lair is on the top of a tall pointy mountain with no real flat areas. But Lois is somehow able to land her 1930's-1940's era propeller plane on the top of this mountain with no runways or flats for her to come to a stop on from flying. Which is physically impossible. (00:04:45)
Superman (1941)
1 plot hole in The Mad Scientist
Directed by: Dave Fleischer
Starring: Jack Mercer, Jackson Beck, Bud Collyer, Joan Alexander, Julian Noa
Factual error: As the beginning shows Krypton explode, there is a huge cloud of dust at the remains of the planet that then fades to nothing. Only space dust would not act like that from an entire planet exploding. It acted like dust settling on the ground and just fading away, rather than dissipating into space. (00:01:25)
Clark Kent: This looks like a job for Superman. (00:06:25)
Trivia: This series is where Superman first "learned" how to fly. Before this series, in the comics and radio, he was only able to jump very high and far, hence "leap tall buildings in a single bound". They decided that it just didn't look right on film and they decided to have him fly, but it's still depicted as if he has to get a jumping start.
Question: So I have seen several places where people have been claiming that The Mad Scientist in this first episode was based on Nikola Tesla, and have seen many people complaining about him being portrayed as a bad guy in this. However, IMDb trivia states that "Boris Karloff' engineer Poelzig in Edgar G. Ulmer's The Black Cat (1934) was the inspiration for The Mad Scientist..." I've tried looking into it a little bit, but I can't seem to determine which is the correct person that The Mad Scientist was based on... Maybe both?
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