Writer: Lorenzo Semple, Jr.
Producer: William Dozier
Director: Leslie H. Martinson
Batman: Adam West
Time indexes refer to the 2008 Special Edition NTSC Region 1 DVD of the film.
00:00:00
-- So, any talk of this film is impossible without a brief discussion
of the television series it spawned from. The story starts in 1965, when
the 1943 BATMAN serial was re-released. Hugh Hefner started showing the
serial at the Playboy Mansion for laughs, where the cheap production
values, over-serious narrator and ludicrous cliffhangers got big laughs.
Inspired, an ABC executive at one of the parties thought that a campy
Batman series in the style of the old serials might just work as
television, perhaps recapturing the success of the 1952-58 ADVENTURES OF
SUPERMAN series on the same network. Producer William Dozier was hired
to create the series, but there was one problem: Dozier hated comics.
Given a stack of current Batman issues from the "New Look" Batman team
of artist Carmine Infantino and editor Julie Schwartz, Dozier decided
they were ridiculous and silly and that the only way to do Batman was as
a campy parody. The show was designed to work on two levels: comedy for
adults and action adventure for children. Originally the plan was for
the movie to be produced first, introducing audiences to the characters
and allowing the production studio to write off the large expense of
creating the sets, props, costumes, etc. to the movie. However, ABC's
1965 season was in a lot of trouble, and so Batman was rushed into
production to debut as a "mid-season replacement" on January 12, 1966.
The show aired twice a week, Wednesdays and Thursdays, two half-hour
segments featuring a ludicrous cliffhanger to cap off night one. The
first episode was an adaptation of Batman #171 (May, 1965) and the first
season ended up adapting many Silver Age Batman comics of the day. The
show was a monster smash, a top ten ratings hit, and a culture
sensation, making Batman (whose books had been on the verge on
cancellation in 1963), DC's premiere character once more. Batmania had
begun. The planned movie was soon greenlit to be shot and premiere
during the break between season one and two, to take maximum advantage
of the craze.
00:00:05 -- The movie and series were
produced by 20th Century Fox. The series aired on ABC, which is now
owned by Disney which also owns Marvel Comics. The Batman character is
owned by DC Entertainment which is owned by Warner Bros. This tangled
mess is why only the movie has so far seen a DVD release, although with
DC finally gaining the rights to produce merchandise based on the old
show again, perhaps a settlement isn't far
off?
00:00:48
-- To all Batman fans who take themselves too seriously: this movie is a
comedy. And it's funny. Unclench and enjoy yourself.
00:00:55
-- I still think these opening credits are awesome. Bizarrely moody for
the light-hearted daytime romp about to follow, but still awesome.
00:01:04
-- The BATMAN series turned Adam West (real name William Anderson) into
a star overnight, although he was never able to shake the role,
experiencing a fate similar to William Shatner on STAR TREK. West had to
fight Lyle Waggoner for the part and it was his dry delivery and sense
of comic timing that won him the role. Waggoner would go on to play love
interest Steve Trevor in the 1970s WONDER WOMAN television series. West
has returned to the world of Batman several times since. In addition to
voicing the character on the 1977 cartoon THE NEW ADVENTURES OF BATMAN,
he played a thinly veiled version of himself in an excellent episode of
the 1992 BATMAN animated series, voiced the Mayor of Gotham City in the
2004 cartoon THE BATMAN, and voiced Batman's father Thomas Wayne on
2008's BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD.
00:01:14 -- Burt
Ward was an absolute nobody before he was cast -- heck, he wasn't even
Burt Ward! Berton Gervis Jr. won the role after Dozier auditioned
thousands of young actors, and after he was cast he changed his name to
Burt Ward (appropriate given his role as Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne's
youthful ward). The rocket to superstardom was a tough ride for Ward,
who reportedly let it go to his head and became a bit of an ass on set.
This attitude was responded to by constant pranks on Ward by the crew.
00:01:21
-- On the series Catwoman was played by Julie Newmar, in a deliciously
sexy turn. Newmar decided to wear the belt designed for her costume
around her hips rather than her waist, inadvertantly inventing a whole
new style. When the series began the character of Catwoman hadn't been
seen in the comics since 1954, when concerns that she made crime seem
"glamourous" led to her being written out of the series after pressure
on DC from congressional inquiries into juvenile delinquency. However
the television show wasn't bound by such restrictions and brought her in
to inject some sex appeal into the Rogues Gallery. She was so popular
on the show, that she was back in the comics by late 1966, her costume
redesigned to match the television look (albeit in an ugly green instead
of a sexy black). Newmar unfortunately couldn't appear in the movie due
to a back injury, and so she was replaced by the equally sexy Lee
Meriwether.
00:01:26 -- Cesar Romero claims that he never
knew or understood why he was cast as The Joker. Known until that point
as a "Latin lover" character actor, Romero relished the part but refused
to shave off his trademark moustache. So the make-up guys just smeared
white facepaint over it until they figured you couldn't see it anymore.
00:01:31
-- Burgess Meredith brought a certain sarcastic, cynical attitude to
the Penguin which has persisted in the character to this day, as well as
a trademark laugh which Meredith said came from the cough he developed
from smoking the Penguin's cigarettes, as he himself was a non-smoker.
00:01:35
-- Before Batman #171, the issue that inspired the pilot episode, the
Riddler had not appeared in the comics since 1948. However comedian and
impressionist Frank Gorshin's brilliantly manic performance was so
popular that it not only made the Riddler one of the show's most popular
villains, but shot the character into a permanent spot in the top tier
of Batman's rogues gallery, with many comic book appearances during this
period.
00:01:51 -- The famous Batman theme was composed
by Neil Hefti, however the actual music for the series, including all
the specific leitmotifs for the villains, was composed by Nelson Riddle,
who also did the music for the movie. This is why these opening credits
don't feature any "Nananananananana Batman!"
00:02:27 --
Lorenzo Semple, Jr. wrote the pilot episode of the series as well as
many of the series' first season episodes. He understood better than
many of the writers the exact mix of camp comedy vs. adventure thrills
that needed to go in each story. As the series went on this balance was
lost and the show became more and more outright comedy, which eventually
killed it.
Bob Kane, credited here, made tons and tons of dough
from the Batman series, thanks to the excellent deal he had made with DC
when he created the character back in 1939. This meant he could finally
"retire" from working on the comic -- in reality while DC had been
paying and crediting Bob with every second issue of Batman since 1964
(and every single issue before that), Kane had been contracting out the
work to ghost artists since 1948 or so.
00:02:38 -- Leslie
H. Martinson had directed an episode of Batman's first season featuring
The Penguin. He wasn't the show's most prolific or talented director by
far, so I suppose Dozier picked him probably because his schedule was
open.
00:02:43 -- The voice of Batman's narrator, credited
as Desmond Doomsday, is actually the voice of producer William Dozier
himself! Dozier is doing his best impersonation of the narrator from the
1943 serial, Knox Manning.
00:02:53 -- The house
portraying Wayne Manor in the film, and series, is located at 280 South
San Rafael Avenue in Pasadena, California. The exterior has been redone,
so it doesn't look much the same anymore.
00:02:57 --
Alan Napier was the first actor cast for the series, in the role of
Alfred the butler. Alfred first appeared in comics in Batman #16
(April/May 1943), but had been killed off in Detective Comics #328 (June
1964) by Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff. This had been done to
facillitate the introduction of a new character, Dick Grayson's Aunt
Harriet Cooper, who then came to stay with Bruce and Dick (although if
Dick had a living aunt this whole time why was custody given to Bruce
Wayne after the death of his parents?). Aunt Harriet had been introduced
in order to dismiss notions of Bruce and Dick being engaged in a
pedophilac homosexual relationship, a criticism which had been levelled
at the Batman comics since the early 1950s. However, when the 1966 TV
series began, they used both Aunt Harriet (played by Madge Blake) and
Alfred as well, because Alfred as played by William Austen had been a
big part of the comedy in the 1943 serial. The popularity of Alfred on
the show lead to the character being revived in the comics in Detective
Comics #356 (October, 1966) -- the method of his resurrection being a
long, complicated story. Aunt Harriet, unlike Alfred, did not know Bruce
and Dick were really Batman and Robin, and thus there was always the
danger of her finding out. So essentially she was an Aunt May rip-off
for Batman comics.
00:03:15 -- The Bat-cave entrance via
Bat-poles activated by a bust of William Shakespeare is an invention of
the series. In the comics of the day, the Bat-cave was accessed by an
automatic elevator concealed by a secret wall panel.
00:03:24
-- On the highly formulaic series, each episode would begin with a
teaser of a crime being committed, the police calling in the Dynamic
Duo, Bruce and Dick going down the Bat-poles, the opening credits, and
then them hopping into the Batmobile to race off to police headquarters.
How they changed into their costumes from one end of the Bat-poles to
the other was a mystery... until now!
00:03:50 -- The
footage of Batman and Robin running over to the car, hopping in,
exchanging dialogue, blasting out of the cave, and heading onto the
highway was shot ONCE for the pilot episode and reused for every
subsequent episode AND even this movie! Depending on an episode's pacing
needs shots could be added or subtracted from the sequence as needed.
00:03:54
-- The famous Batmobile. The version created for this series may still
be the most popular iteration of Batman's ride. The Batmobile itself
first appeared in Batman #5 (Spring 1941), while the modern design
Batmobile that the series based its version on debuted in Batman #164
(June 1964). The car used on the series was designed and built by George
Barris. It's a 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car, repainted and
refurbished with all kinds of extra details to make it THE Batmobile.
There were three Batmobiles built by Barris -- a hero car for close-ups
and detail shots, a stunt car, and a touring car for promotional
purposes.
00:03:56 -- The red phone Robin's using here is
of course the famous Bat-phone, also known as the hotline. The hotline
between Batman and Commissioner Gordon first appeared in Batman #164 as
part of a campaign of modernizing the ailing Bat-comics called "The New
Look". It was adapted for the series, serving as the primary method of
contact between Batman and the police. The idea was of course based on
the Moscow-Washinton hotline that had been implemented following the
Cuban Missile Crisis.
00:04:20 -- The Bat-copter first
appeared in Detective Comics #257 (July, 1958), where it was called the
Whirly-Bat because Batman comics from 1954-64 are goddawful. The
helicopter seen in the film is a Bell 47 provided by the National
Helicopter Service for use in the film. The decorative wings on the
sides actually reduced the vehicle's lift power by 50%. The Bat-copter
is the first of three new vehicles built for the movie, the added
expense paying off when they could be utilized by the television series
afterwards.
00:02:41 -- As goofy as they look, the
costumes worn by Batman and Robin in this film are pretty damn accurate
translations of how the characters appeared in the contemporary comics
as drawn by Carmine Infantino and Sheldon Moldoff. The yellow oval
around the bat on Batman's chest was added in 1964 when the "New Look"
Batman comics were launched, because it made the symbol unique enough to
be copyrighted.
00:04:52 -- Writer and Batman co-creator
Bill Finger based Gotham City on the seedier side of New York, and
comics writers often treat Gotham as a New York analogue, even today. In
the Silver Age it was popular to give Gotham several direct New York
parallels, like Gotham Village as the trendy hippie area instead of
Greenwich Village. This trend continued on the show, which had
characters like Mayor Lindseed and often parodied New York through
Gotham. But in these Bat-copter sequences Gotham transforms from a
bustling New York style metropolis to what is quite clearly Hollywood,
Los Angeles.
00:05:01 -- The man waving is contemporary
health and fitness superstar Jack LaLanne. The series was a popular
place for celebrities to guest star or cameo on, and for it's entire run
on the air it was considered quite a feat to get on Batman.
00:05:08
-- In the comics of the time from which the series took its
inspiration, Batman and Robin had been declared duly deputized agents of
the law by Commissioner Gordon, honourary policemen as it were. This
despite the fact that they still wore masks and kept their identities
secret. Gordon essentially had legalized vigilantism to get things done
in Gotham. By the 1960s this had resulted in a Batman who was more like
Sherlock Holmes in a cape and cowl than the dark avenging Shadow
knock-off he had started as. Adventures in the daytime had become common
in the comic and pretty much rote on the TV series.
00:06:15 -- Everything, absolutely everything, on this show is labelled. It's hilariously awesome.
00:08:09
-- Batman has a long and proud history of fighting sharks that does not
begin or end with this movie. It started in Batman #4 (Winter 1941) and
continues awesomely to this day.
00:08:26 -- Victory is
in the preparation folks. Notice that Batman's got a whole line of
Oceanic Repellent Bat Sprays, just in case. Getting Batman out of
trouble with some ridiculously specific Bat-gadget was, of course, a
hallmark of the show.
00:10:31 -- Police Commissioner
Gordon was played by Neil Hamilton, characterized on the show as a well
meaning if somewhat ineffective official with great enthusiasm for
Batman. His right-hand man, Police Chief O'Hara, was created for the
television series and is played by Stafford Repp as a bumbling foolish
Irish stereotype.
00:12:13 -- Gordon's secretary Bonnie was one of those "often mentioned, never seen" type of characters.
00:12:27
-- The voice of the police computer is also William Dozier. For some
reason the file photos of the "super-criminals" are taken with them in
full costume standing in Miss Kitka's appartment (a location we'll see
in the film later on) And since Lee Meriwether was late joining the
cast, her photo is taken in Wayne Manor's living room!
00:13:43 -- Apophenia - noun. The tendency to see meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.
00:14:43
-- Of course Catwoman's "real name" is Selina Kyle, as established by
writer Bill Finger in Batman #62 (December, 1950), but this series
played fast and loose with such things.
00:14:50 -- The
"United Underwold" group is pretty much the first villain super-group in
DC Comics history, predating the Injustice Gang (1974), Secret Society
of Supervillains (1976), Legion of Doom (1978) and Injustice League
(1989).
00:15:55 -- Frank Gorshin hated wearing the
skintight Riddler costume, which was based on the character's comic book
look, so he designed himself this stylin' three-piece suit as an
alternate look and it was quickly adopted by the comics themselves
because it is awesome.
00:15:15 -- The show was famous for
shooting scenes in the villain's lair on an extremely canted, or Dutch,
angle to represent the villain's twisted view of the world.
00:15:18
-- Catwoman's cat is named Isis in other media, but here it's Hecate.
Isis is the Egyptian mother goddess, whereas Hecate is the Greek goddess
of witchcraft.
00:15:35 -- See, New York analogue.
Instead of the United Nations Headquarters on the East River we get the
United World Headquarters on the Gotham East River.
00:16:38 -- See, they've kidnappped Scmidlapp. Clever writers, or lazy writers? You be the judge.
00:20:30
-- The Batboat is our second new vehicle in the movie. While the
Batplane had been given the ability to land on water and convert to a
speedboat in Batman #4 (Winter 1941), the first official Batboat
appeared in Detective Comics #110 (April 1946) provided to the Dynamic
Duo by Scotland Yard to help them catch Professor Moriarty because...
comics! The boat used here is a refurbished Glastron V-174, and again
was built so it could be reused on the television show. Personally, I
wonder how the Dynamic Duo keeps it safe, given that they just leave it
moored at this random Gotham City dock...
00:18:41 -- The best thing in this movie: The Penguin's personal custom submarine.
00:24:01 -- Batman's Bat-Magnifying Glass has little bat ears.
00:25:29 -- Wouldn't you just take the belts off?
00:26:05
-- If you're a long-time geek of many interests, you find out quickly
that the solution to all tech problems in all franchises is always to
reverse the polarity. I have no idea if doing so has ever solved any
kind of electrical engineering problem in real life.
00:28:09
-- "The nobility of the almost-human porpoise", the cliffhangers in
BATMAN were designed as parodies of those in the 1943 serial.
Occasionally Batman gets them out with some ludicrous gadget from his
belt, but equally as often the escape is some element of silly blind
luck or random chance.
00:29:46 -- BATMAN was designed to
be a "hip" TV show, meant to play off the pop art movement of Andy
Warhol and especially Roy Lichtenstein. The joke of course is that
Batman is so square he doesn't realize how silly it all is, while the
villains are more or less who you're supposed to cheer for, as they
represent the counter-culture. Still, Batman's the hero and even he's
not as square and lame as the ultimate target of any hip member of the
flower power generation: the military industrial complex.
00:32:10 -- Didn't we already figure out that the four super-criminals were working together? Why are we figuring it out again?
00:34:24
-- The idea that Bruce Wayne heads any kind of corporate entity
actually hadn't been introduced into the comics yet. After the death of
Alfred, Bruce founded the Alfred Memorial Foundation for charitable
purposes and began to be portrayed in his civilian life as a great
philanthropist. As the TV show used a living Alfred they adapted this
into the charitable Wayne Foundation, and once Alfred was resurrected in
the comics it became the Thomas Wayne Memorial Foundation.
00:37:40 -- "The only possible meaning." Holy Bat-apophenia again!
00:38:56 -- Bruce Wayne drinking milk in a brandy snifter, like a boss.
00:40:42
-- A running gag on the series was that putting a bandit mask, like
what Robin wears, on anyone renders them completely unrecognizable. Here
we see Alan Napier's Alfred wearing one, and wearing his glasses
overtop it!!
00:41:24 -- Gotham City has a Benedict Arnold monument!
00:42:23
-- The Bat-Signal had been introduced in the comics in Detective Comics
#60 (February, 1942) by Jack Schiff and Bob Kane, and even after the
hotline was introduced it continued to be used alongside it due to it's
iconic and dramatic appeal. It appeared very infrequently on the TV
show, however, which favoured the hotline. One assumes this might be for
cost, but every time it appeared it utilized the same two shots of the
cops on the roof with the light, and then the signal itself in a foggy
night sky. Hilariously, the bat painted on the light and the bat in the
sky are completely different in design. Despite it's spartan use on the
show, the Signal was present in a different capacity, as it featured in
the end credits sequence of every episode.
00:45:34 -- Some people ask of science "where's my jetpack?" I ask "where is my jetpack umbrella?"
00:45:48
-- The Riddler (who doesn't even get his own umbrella and has to ride
shotgun!) has a pair of binoculars with a question mark on them. Of
course.
00:46:33 -- Of COURSE Bruce Wayne is an Edgar Allen Poe fan.
00:47:15
-- This has bothered me since I was a kid, but why the hell does Joker
wear a bandit mask in this movie? Penguin too! They're known felons with
no other identity! It's kind've ridiclous.
00:47:25 --
You may wonder why the show's stylistic tradmark of onomatopeia overlays
is missing from this fight, but it was a specific style of the series
that they only appeared when Batman and Robin fought in costume.
00:49:41 -- That's right, Adam West's Bruce Wayne is way more hardcore than Christian Bale's. One rule? Screw that!
00:50:34
-- Note that Bruce and "Kitka's" feet are never on the bed at the same
time, one person always has at least part of their anatomy hanging off
it. The Motion Picture Production Code, or "Hays Code" of 1934-1968
forbid an unmarried couple to share a bed onscreen. Television of the
time was even more severe, with even married couples often depicted as
sleeing in seperate beds.
00:53:49 -- The sound effect for
the spring you just heard may also be familiar to you as the sound of
the photon torpedoes from the original STAR TREK series, although it's
first use was actually as the sound of one of the Martian weapons in the
1953 film version of WAR OF THE WORLDS.
00:57:30 -- I
must point out that the plot of this movie involves the villains
stealing a water dehydrating/evaporating device off a boat to use in
their evil plot and that this is essentially the same plot as in BATMAN
BEGINS with the theft of the microwave emitter.
00:59:49
-- The Bat-walk was a very popular traditional element of the series,
often accompanied with a cameo from a celebrity sticking their head out a
window and talking to the Dynamic Duo. It was of course easily
accomplished by simply placing the camera on it's side and then shooting
the actors walking across the stage to give the illusion of them
walking vertically.
01:03:06 -- This "running" (aha) gag
with the bomb is the film's longest and perhaps best known bit. I
couldn't help but think of it during the finale of THE DARK KNIGHT
RISES.
01:09:19 -- Speaking of Adam West's hardcore-ness, he and Robin totally killed those henchmen.
01:11:32
-- The Batcycle is our third new vehicle. It makes its first appearance
here, having never been featured in the comics before. It's a heavily
altered 1965 Harley Davidson with side car for Robin. Another Batcycle
would be created in season three for Batgirl, and eventually the vehicle
would find its way into the comics, movies and animated series on a
regular basis.
01:12:52 -- The idea that Riddler is
compelled to give his clues, that he can't NOT leave riddles for Batman
to solve, was first explored in Batman #179 (March 1966), beginning a
trend of psychologically analyzing Batman's villains which has
culminated in the Caped Crusader's rogues gallery often dealing with
themes of mental sanity in stories such as ARKHAM ASYLUM.
01:16:05 -- Now is as good a time as any to point out that the henchmen Mr. Bluebeard has a literally blue beard.
01:19:26
-- The Japanese delegate here is played by Teru Shimada, best known to
Western audiences as Mr. Osato in the James Bond film YOU ONLY LIVE
TWICE.
01:31:29 -- Here are those famous onomatopeia
captions. Designed, of course, to emulate the similar letterings in
comic book fight scenes, the effect became synonymous with the series
and therefore with comic books in general. To this day, almost every
mainstream news story about comics incorporates them, much to the
chagrin of fans, and I'm pretty sure newspapers have run the same "BAM!
POW! ZAP! Comics aren't just for kids anymore" story since the mid-80s.
In the first season of the show and in the movie the captions were
graphic overlays on the action, an expensive process that was abandoned
in the second season in favour of cheaper fullscreen title cards.
01:34:23
-- Julie Newmar would return to the role of Catwoman with the start of
the second season. However, Lee Meriwether got a consolation prize with a
role as recurring Bruce Wayne love interest Lisa Carson, who once
famously invited Bruce up to her apartment for an evening of "milk and
cookies".
01:36:41 -- I love that they are wearing latex
science gloves OVER their costume's gloves. Also Batman wearing his
utility belt over top of his apron.
01:44:24 -- Okay, so
we've got two "The End" jokes here. "The living end" was an idiom
meaning the utmost in any situation, something really extraordinary. The
ellipsis followed by the question mark is an old hokey B-movie ending
trick suggesting an open ending with the possibilty for a sequel. There
was no theatrical sequel to this film of course, and it only grossed
$1.7 million box office on it's $1.5 million budget. But the series
returned for a second season, utilizing the new toys from the movie.
However, the novelty had worn off. The second season failed to crack the
Top Thirty in the ratings. The third season moved to one half-hour
episode per week, and introduced the new Batgirl character in an attempt
to keep up interest, but ratings continued to drop and BATMAN was
canceled at the end of its third season, the final episode airing March
14, 1968. A Filmation produced animated series THE ADVENTURES OF BATMAN
continued on CBS Saturday mornings until April 1, 1969. West and Ward
would return to the roles in the second Filmation animated series THE
NEW ADVENTURES OF BATMAN from in 1977. The series would also gain a
spiritual follow-up in the Linda Carter WONDER WOMAN series of 1975-79,
which initially also aired on ABC before switching to CBS. The show's
campy, lighthearted tone would inform popular mainstream opinions on
comic books in general and Batman in particular for years, until Frank
Miller's THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and finally Tim Burton's BATMAN feature
cemented the idea of a dark, tortured, angsty Batman in the public
imagination. In the comics themselves, the cancellation of the TV show
lead to the end of Batmania, and the camp craze was over as quickly as
it started. With Bob Kane finally gone and the looming 1970s seeing
comics by rival Marvel getting more serious, the Batman comics once
again fell into dangerously low sales. They were saved by the coming of
writer Denny O'Neil and artist Neal Adams, who replaced the
square-jawed, daytime, golly-gee adventures of the Silver Age Batman
with a darker take inspired by the original Bat-comics of the 30s. Their
interpretation became the definitive Batman for many, inspiring comics
writers, the Batman movies including those of Christopher Nolan, and the
successful 1992 animated series. However, for many in the baby boom
generation the one true Batman is still... Adam West.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdVJWyoncdU
