All Things BATMAN Thread

[mkaroly]

So in light of having just watched THE BATMAN, I decided to go back and watch the TV show and the movies again just for fun. This will be a long project. However, I recently bought the complete Batman original TV show on Blu-Ray and wanted to make a few comments:

The TV show brings back so many memories of childhood...I loved the show as a kid, and even though as an adult I feel there are more eye-rolling moments than I did as a kid, it is still infectiously entertaining to watch. I don't think I ever saw the first episode when I was a kid (The Riddler was the first villain, and Jill St. John dies in the episode), so I was pretty pumped up to see something I had never seen before! I was never really into comic books as a kid so I am ignorant of the history of Batman in the comics - I do like that the TV show came across as a "live" comic book each episode though. West and Ward made a great duo, and I like that West portrayed Batman/Bruce Wayne as a stable character who has come to terms with the two sides of his personality as well as the death of his parents (though I do prefer a darker Batman character on the whole).

The TV show cast looks like they are all having a blast playing their characters, especially the villains. There is something so satisfying about the TV show - from the music to the epic fights with the "BRAAAAACKs!" and "ZAAAAPs!" and "OOOOOOFs!" plastered across the screen...the show has lost none of its magic even though it is close to 60 years old. I am looking forward to going through all the episodes in the coming weeks.

[AndyDursin]

I watched the '60s BATMAN every day probably before kindergarten/1st grade -- I was really entertained by it as a lot of kids were back in the '70s and '80s, long after the series had left the air. Even though I was more into Marvel comics than DC, the show was big, colorful and fun -- it's also kind of repetitious, as I found out when Theo and I were watching some of it over the last year. But I agree Michael, it's still great, and the music is wonderful, as is the overall aesthetic. I'd much rather stay in that world than the grimness of THE BATMAN!

[mkaroly]

Just finished wrapping up the first season of the Batman TV show - despite how corny it can get, the entertainment value of these shows is off the charts. Frank Gorshin's Riddler is outstanding - at times completely over the top and at other times calm, creepy and twisted. I find Burgess Meredith's Penguin to be really diabolical and disturbing...maybe the worst of the lot! Romero's Joker is strong too, though my "guilty favorite" villain from season one was Bookworm (Roddy McDowell). I guess his character was created for the TV show...I loved his storyline/background. It is too bad he only appeared in this one story arc of two episodes! I also found myself a little moved at times: I thought the ending of the season one King Tut episode was quite touching, and Catwoman's inability to let go of the treasure only to plummet to her (supposed) death was pretty sad in its way.

I think what makes this show so much fun for me to watch is how seriously everyone is playing their parts. From Adam West to Neil Hamilton to the actors and actresses playing villains, the cast performances sell it all - even the most goofy dialogue and the most ridiculous parts of the story. It is awesome that the villains in many ways get center stage on this show - Gorshin, Newmar, Romero, etc. all get to go wild in their performances which make the episodes more colorful and memorable. The show is formulaic but it works over and over again; I found myself looking forward to the fight scenes in each episode. I like that the show has a positive outlook on things, like the hope that even the most hardened criminals can be reformed. Great show that continues to have staying power. Looking forward to THE BATMAN MOVIE next (and then, of course, seasons 2 and 3 of the TV show).

[Eric Paddon]

The first season of "Batman" is the best because (1) there was a higher concentration of stories taken directly from the comic books. The pilot with Riddler and the first Penguin story for instance are direct adaptations with some minor adjustments and even the Anne Baxter "Zelda" story came from a comic book story albeit with a character gender swap (2) the so-called "camp" factor is less obvious. It's more fun and restrained in terms of the humor without degenerating into total stupidity. The lone Catwoman story of Season 1 is far superior to what we'd see in Season 2 when unfortunately Stanley Ralph Ross would go for making Catwoman all lovesick over Batman and reduce the formidability that she exudes in her first episode.

Incidentally, when you watch the movie, notice how Julie Gregg, who was Penguin's henchmoll Finella in the final episode of Season 1 has an unbilled cameo as the singer in the nightclub wearing the same dress she wore in the final scene of her episode. For years I never realized it was her because this time she was using her normal voice rather than the fake Monroe one she uses in the Penguin episode.

[mkaroly]

Good observation Eric! I did not realize that was her.

BATMAN THE MOVIE (1966). 10/10. Although the movie was supposed to have been made and released before the TV series began, it ended up being released after the first season of the TV show at the height of Bat-Mania. I had not seen this film for decades (probably in over 30 years), and aside from the shark and bomb gags I did not remember any of the rest of it. But after sitting through it I have to admit that I was thoroughly entertained; I loved this film in all its absurdities. In a way I felt like it was a parody of itself - it has a NAKED GUN quality to it that left me satisfied to the core. I felt like everyone was just having fun with the whole concept. Batman and Robin are pitted against their four primary super-villains -The Joker (Cesar Romero), The Penguin (Burgess Meredith), The Riddler (Frank Gorshin), and Catwoman (Lee Meriwether who got the part when Julie Newmar had a scheduling conflict) - who are bent on taking over the world and destroying the Dynamic Duo in the process. In many ways I feel like the villains are the centerpiece of the Batman TV show - while Adam West and Burt Ward play their characters straight, the villains get to be as wild and out of control as they want to be. That significant dynamic is what makes the show work for me, and the movie is no exception. The villains get so many memorable moments, and because the film lets loose in its comedic elements it truly gives everyone the opportunity to really go for it in their performances.

The film is hilarious in a good way, in my opinion. Some of the goofy answers to The Riddler's riddles are really funny; the romance between Bruce Wayne and Miss Kitka (really Catwoman) is a joy to watch (especially in the restaurant scene - note that milk is in the brandy snifter), and some of the dialogue, especially from The Penguin, is fantastic (including the improvised line, "Everyone of them has a mother."). I loved some of the physical gags, such as Joker yelling on the Penguin intercom to raise the submarine up, Bruce Wayne's double-fist punch taking out three villains at once, and of course the bomb scene which has a vaudevillian quality to it. The movie was clearly made for the series' biggest fan-base (kids), but it also had enough absurd humor in it to appeal to adults. It is cartoonish and never gets dark; there is something great to savor about the "wholesomeness" of this film and the performances, especially in this day and age where everything is so serious and dark. The film gives the viewer a positive message at every turn which is another one of its strengths. Mention needs to be made of Nelson Riddle's score which is very strong. For what it is, and for how good I felt after watching it, I cannot find anything to complain about. It has been an absolute joy rediscovering this gem.

The Special Edition Blu-Ray I have is chock full of supplemental material. Most of the featurettes look back at BATMAN THE MOVIE lovingly and nostalgically, providing good context and analysis. There is a trivia track that has some interesting tidbits in it as well as two commentaries - one with Adam West and Burt Ward and another with screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr. The track with West and Ward is fun to listen to because both look back at the film positively even though they don't reveal a ton of behind the scenes stories. Semple Jr.'s track is a bit rough at times - he seems to like the film but at the same time feels it is a bit overrated. He provides a more critical perspective of the screenplay and the film.

[Eric Paddon]

The reasons for why Julie Newmar wasn't in the film have long been shrouded in mystery. It was actually not due to a schedule conflict. She was signed for the film and then said she had to back out because of a back injury. Whether it was real or not or whether she was thinking of a way to back out of doing the film because it wasn't as meaty a part for her to be CW in an ensemble piece as opposed to being the center of the action is still up for grabs, but a lot of vague and not always accurate info has been floated out about this, and I've long suspected that Julie's reasons for not being completely candid about the matter (as well as the matter of her leaving and not doing Season 3) has more to do with the fact that the truth would probably disappoint Bat fans or come off as unpleasant so why rock the boat?

Lee Meriwether stepping in as the emergency replacement was mostly due to her having a Fox contract (she had already done the Time Tunnel pilot and was waiting to start doing the series) and the fact she had name recognition from her Miss America/Today Show days in contrast to other Fox contract players who might have easily been pressed into service. I think Lee acquitted herself well playing CW in an ensemble piece and was even better as Kitka (I really can't picture Julie doing fake Russian. Fake Swedish yes, Russian no). But Lee I don't think ever had the ability to be the star focal point (even her Trek episode has more minimal screen time for her than you might realize) which is why she was never considered for being a replacement CW in Season 3 (and when she would have been free of Time Tunnel which had been cancelled by then).

Commodore "Schmidlapp" was originally supposed to be "Commodore Redhead" a parody on the now forgotten "Commander Whitehead" advertising symbol for Schweppes Tonic Water in the 60s.

[mkaroly]

Season Two of the Batman TV series has an obnoxious amount of episodes in it which is going to take me a while to watch, so before moving on to Tim Burton's 1989 BATMAN movie, just a couple of comments on Season Two of the TV series so far: the season opens with a loud 'THUD' with the boring villain Archer (Art Carney). The Liberace episode (where he plays twin brothers Chandell and Harry) goes beyond camp into a place I did not even think was possible. The Penguin's first appearance in this season looked more like a variety show skit than a Batman episode, particularly with Paul Revere and the Raiders in addition to Don Wilson (of The Jack Benny show fame). I did appreciate how the show mocked the empty and senseless rhetoric of politicians though, which makes this episode a bit timeless in some respects. Vincent Price's Egghead was okay, though Ma Parker (Shelley Winters) and Clock King (Walter Slezak) were not very exciting as villains to me. I thought Julie Newmar's return as Catwoman was, so far, the bright spot in a show that, in my opinion, was taking a step backward. More to come at a later Bat-time on the same Bat-thread!

BATMAN (1989) - 9/10. I remember when this movie came out; everyone went to see it, and no one I knew had a bad thing to say about it. It attempted to return to the vibe of the original comic book series - something darker, something less campy, something more serious. Tim Burton was perfect for this movie as a director, especially in his visual style (for example, Gotham City is a bit more gothic and dangerous). The humor in the film is not campy at all but dry and dark; Joker is much more sinister, Batman/Bruce Wayne is more complex, and despite taking a darker approach to everything the film is wildly entertaining and fun. Much of that has to do with the acting from Michael Keaton and, of course, Jack Nicholson. I used to think the movie suffered a bit from his over-the-top performance as Joker, but watching it again I thought he did an amazing job and feel his performance is foundational to the success of the film. Michael Keaton balances the psychological complexity of the Bruce Wayne/Batman dual personality well. Sean Young was originally supposed to be Vicki Vale but got injured after she fell off a horse; she was replaced by Kim Basinger at the last minute who did a good job with the character. The Batmobile is sleek and sexy, the propulsive and inspirational score by Danny Elfman hits all the right notes...there is so much to love about this film.

I do have two issues with the film though - the first being the shallow, uncompelling and under-developed love story between Bruce Wayne and Vicki Vale. It does not work for me. She and Wayne do not have anything in common (unlike he and Selena Kyle/Catwoman), and I am not buying their romance (interestingly I did discover that in the first year of Batman's existence in Detective Comics, Bruce Wayne had a fiancee named Julie Madison so he did make forays into relationships). The second issue I had with the film was Alfred allowing Vicki Vale into the Batcave, thus allowing her to see who Batman really was. I do not know if Bruce Wayne ever revealed his secret identity to anyone outside of other super-heroes and Alfred in the comics, but the idea that he would allow an outsider to know who he was seems ridiculous to me. The sequence in the movie where Bruce tries to tell Vicki that he is Batman reminded me of the same moment in SUPERMAN THE MOVIE where Clark Kent nearly revealed himself to Lois in the apartment. And that Alfred would betray Bruce's trust by allowing an outsider to come into the Batcave seems, again, to be ridiculous to me. Aside from those two issues, I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the film and consider it a classic. And as I have said on other threads, I prefer a darker Batman/Bruce Wayne (though I appreciate the Adam West Bruce Wayne/Batman approach as well for what it is). The Special Edition Blu-Ray is CHOCK FULL of supplementals from a time when they gave you your money's worth.

[Eric Paddon]

I'd note that Season 2 began with less emphasis on the "Big Four" villains mostly because the movie was still playing (a Catwoman episode with Julie Newmar was an exception because Julie wasn't in the movie). This was why we saw more original villains early on most of whom admittedly were lackluster. There was a Penguin episode actually shot early on and held back until much later in the season, even airing after the very silly "Penguin for Mayor" episode that is way too much ridiculous satire and shows how the show was veering more and more into stupid territory in Season 2. One of the reasons for that was Lorenzo Semple leaving as story editor (he was now overseas working on other projects) and Charles Hoffman, the new story editor was to put it bluntly not that good. Semple would occasionally know when to put the brakes on a little bit to keep things from going over the top but Hoffman had no such flair whatsoever.

[AndyDursin]

Going to be a short stay for THE Batman:

[Monterey Jack]

These movies should be separate from each other, anyways. The reason why the Nolan trilogy works so well is BECAUSE it's its own separate entity.

[AndyDursin]

It's just lunacy though right now with WB having 3 different iterations of Batman running around all at the same time, like Affleck is back, Michael Keaton is back, Pattinson is there. It's nonsensical.

I definitely understand the new Discovery WB people reportedly wanting a "meat and potatoes" approach to these characters and them sharing space in the same "universe". They see what Marvel is doing and DC has some of the all-time biggest super-heroes in Superman and Batman and they're not exploiting them whatsoever right now in a way that's going to maximize age groups and, yes, dollars. Hell, THE BATMAN's toys are on clearance all over Walmart and everywhere they're sold, because it's obviously not a movie for kids. So fine, let them finish (I thought the movie sucked) -- I'd even have them "get it over with" and shoot 2 movies consecutively or whatever -- and then move on with a broader based approach (more Burton and Schumacher than Nolan and Reeves). My guess is that's where it's going. Any movie with Batman -- even something as heavily criticized as BATMAN V SUPERMAN was -- is going to make money. But they're leaving some on the table here making something like THE BATMAN.

The people wanting "edgier DC fare" are going to have to realize those days are maybe coming to an end. THE JOKER is going to be an outlier -- and that thing lends itself more to being off on its "own" so to speak -- because the movies that have been the biggest hits like WONDER WOMAN and AQUAMAN are the ones that have employed a more "mass audience" and yeah family-friendly approach.

[mkaroly]

Just finished Season 2 of the TV Show...lots of ups and downs with some uninspired villains (Black Widow, The Archer, The Puzzler, etc.). In addition, John Astin was completely miscast as The Riddler...one of the worst episodes of the bunch. Eli Wallach as Mr. Freeze was okay...but the series' best episodes had the standard villains - Julie Newmar really shined as Catwoman, and Cesar Romero is outstanding as The Joker (as is Burgess Meredith as The Penguin). The cross episode which saw Batman and Robin work with The Green Hornet and Kato was kind of fun; and it was fun to see Lee Meriwether return to the show in an episode with King Tut.

Otherwise, the show is more clownish and cartoonish than the first season...and sometimes downright silly. In the penultimate episode of the season The Joker is in Bruce Wayne's house and runs into the study, finding the controls to the Batpoles. He doesn't even notice the red telephone next to Shakespeare's head...and for some reason his sliding up and down the Batpole never gets him into the Batcave. While funny for what it was, it is absurd to a high degree and is indicative of some of what the second season is all about. There remains for me a charm to the series despite its 'wink and a nod' absurdities...and I still think the escape from the hole punching machine in the Liberace episode was genius and one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

[Eric Paddon]

Astin's presence was dictated by the fact that the producers had gotten fed up with waiting for Frank Gorshin, who had been holding out all season long demanding a higher fee, which they balked at because that would have meant raising the guest villain fee for everyone else, which they couldn't afford to do. At least two scripts intended for Riddler were rewritten for other villains (The Puzzler script and one Joker script). Since Astin had an existing contract with ABC that needed to be burned off with "Addams Family" cancelled (this also explained Carolyn Jones' casting as Marsha) that made him available at a cheap enough price from a production standpoint.

Using Astin did have the net effect of making Gorshin come back one time in Season 3, because even though he'd been playing hard-to-get all year long, he did revel in the status of being THE Riddler, and he knew he needed to reclaim that honor.

George Sanders had been unavailable to return as Mr. Freeze (and I doubt he would have gone with the blue makeup approach which was designed to replace the elaborate effects used in his appearance) so they went with Otto Preminger, whom Adam hated because Preminger tried to take charge of the directing. That was the reason why they went to Wallach for the next go-round. Lee Meriwether's return in the Tut episode may have been a case of being a late minute replacement for someone else. She had to film her episode right in the middle of doing a "Time Tunnel" episode and that meant spending a full day on the Fox lot first taking care of "Time Tunnel" then sprinting over and getting into a Cleo costume to do the "Batman" episode at night.

The tone of the series does indeed veer into more silliness around the middle of Season 2, starting with the Egghead episode IMO. Part of the blame for that I think lies in the fact that whereas Lorenzo Semple as story editor in S1 knew how to keep things from getting too outlandish, the same couldn't be said of the new story editor Charles Hoffman. Hoffman in particular failed to rein in the worst excesses of Stanley Ralph Ross, who when disciplined could turn in some good work, but when left to his own devices could just take the silliness to the nth degree particularly in the stupid names he comes up with for civilians rooted in bad puns.

[mkaroly]

Interesting stuff!

I don't blame Astin for his performance...he had HUGE shoes to fill as Gorshin really owned that character. Astin did what he could but those two episodes are really bad. The Puzzler chacater was just...bad. Lol...

[Eric Paddon]

A couple crazy things about how the Puzzler script was rewritten from a Riddler script. In the original, Riddler delivers a line about selling a weapon only to the highest friendly country bidder with a line, "I may be a criminal, but I'm a 100% AMERICAN criminal!" The casting of the English Maurice Evans as the Puzzler required that line to become, "I may be a criminal but I'm a 100% NATURALIZED AMERICAN criminal!" And then in the Riddler script there was a gimmick where Batman figured out a clue to the Riddler's hideout or something by dialing the number on the telephone from the word "RIDDLES" but in the new script the word became "PUZZLES" and then Robin noted, "But it doesn't work, there's no Z on the dial!" Listen to Batman then cover this with an utterly nonsensical piece of double-talk. This is a case of a scriptwriter trying to cover a problem created by the result of the villain and the word being changed!