In 1966 or so during the "camp"craze, the 1943 Columbia serial of "Batman" was released to ride the publicity generated by the Batman-TV program. (As an aside, as a True Believer I quickly tired of that program, haven't watched it since) Republic edited several of its much better made serials into 2 hour or so movies, sold them in syndication. Among the ones I remember were "Fighting Devil Dogs", "The Invisible Monster", "Manhunt of Mystery Island" and of course "The Masked Marvel" My mother joked that the actors hats seemed to be stapled to their heads, I later learned that they wore elastic bands so you couldn't tell it was a stuntman and not an actor, if in a fight scene one of the performers' hat came off he was a stuntman all along. Sort of a screen convention of the time. That said, this is one of the best wartime serials, I occasionally needed an adult to explain some of the wartime reference-the gas rationing stamps that the Marvel uses to track down Mace's car, e.g.
One sad bit of trivia, in Chapter One the actor David Bacon looks at a secret message dated September 13, 1943, he was murdered on September 13, 1943.
