Even if you know what to look , watching 1966 ’s Batman : The Movie today is scandalous . After year of being pommel with serious , mealy , big - budgetsuperhero spectacles , it ’s operose to fathom a film as devoid and ego - cognizant as theone based on the popular telecasting show . Everyone involved is so game for giddiness , so excited by the wild ideas , so dead aware this is complete nonsense , that the solution is not just a time - abridgement of another era in comic ledger movie account , but a reminder of why comic book movies are bully in the first place .
release July 30 , 1966 , Batman : The Movie — directed by Leslie H. Martinson and write by Lorenzo Semple Jr.—came out between thefirst and 2nd seasons of the hit TV show , which itself be given three seasons , from 1966 to 1968 . I was n’t born until 1980 so , patently , it was n’t something I was mindful of until decades later . But growing up in the ‘ 80s and ‘ 90s , especially with the Tim Burton Batman picture rejuvenating interestingness in the persona , the original show was on telecasting a pile . And I watched it a mint . And , eventually , I saw the picture . But that was probably the last time I saw it before this week to lionize its 55th day of remembrance . Of course , I carriednot just a nostalgiafor the show , but many more decades of superhero luggage , into the showing . Which is important to mention here because , holy crap . I fuck Batman : The Movie was go to be campy — the show is camp , the memes and pop culture reference from the movie ( the bomb calorimeter , the shark , etc . ) are campy , I had cook myself for campy — but it wentway beyond even that .
In Batman : The Movie , Adam West and Burt Ward hotshot as Batman and Robin , as well as their alter - egos Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson . But instead of oppose just one supervillain — like they would on tv set each week — their four big opposer team up up against them : Penguin ( Burgess Meredith ) , Catwoman ( Lee Meriwether ) , Joker ( Cesar Romero ) , and Riddler ( Frank Gorshin ) . That alone is movie - worthy and a nice level up from what you ’d get on telecasting . From there the plot is , well , almost too elaborate to explain . Basically , the villain — who call themselves United Underworld — have an excessively complex plan to take over the existence , which Batman and Robin preserve to foil . The whole thing play out a bit disjointed , with the movie almost mirroring a TV show as the villains set up up elaborate scheme only to be foiled again and again , with the heavy image lingering in the backdrop .
Our feelings exactly, Dynamic Duo.Photo: Fox
Anyone watching a veritable movie with a plot that was this convoluted and filled with this many tangents , would probably just disregard it . The beaut of Batman : The Movie is that it ’s made with such joy , it ’s entertaining anyway . You ca n’t serve but DC wonder at the absurdness of everything happening driven by the elevated performances of all the villain . Because make no error , while West and Ward are with child as Batman and Robin , it ’s the villains who make the movie so marvellous , much as they do on the show . Whether it ’s the distinct , gleeful joke of Riddler or Joker , the manner Catwoman always wheel her R ’s in a “ purr , ” or Penguin’s … everything , all of it is an perfectly delight . Then there ’s the fact that they ’re all so , so speculative at being supervillains . earnestly , every hair - brained scheme is too luxuriant , every chance at shoot down Batman and Robin takes way too long , every riddle way too obtuse to in reality be link up to anything . But the actors are all so engrossed in these characters , all of it work .
If everyone in the film was n’t buy into how ludicrous everything was , there ’s no fashion it would put to work ; like the opening sequence where Batman is hanging from a run on the Batcopter and a shark bites him , so he asks Robin to bring him the Bat - Shark Repellent spray they just so go on to have . Or how that spray , along with everything , everywhere , is mark dead , even inside their own home base . Or how Robin and Alfred follow Bruce out on a date and have a perfectly cast camera on him at all clip and get uncomfortable when he starts nuzzling . Or when the four deadly villains in the earth are stand in a room with a huge gun and no one notices . Seriously , you could go on and on describing all of the unfathomably cockeyed scenarios that take place in the movie and you ’d never get bored .
Which , of course , is the point . This is n’t a moving-picture show to be taken badly . Batman running around with a lit bomb and continually find citizenry or thing in his agency that wo n’t let him get rid of it is n’t meant to be striking . It ’s meant to be laughable . The whole motion-picture show puts the “ comedian ” in “ comic Word . ” All the over - the - top absurdity , ineptitude , all impossible thing that happen , are there on intention to make you jollify in their gleefulness . When Batman and Robin just so encounter to crash into a froth rubber convention , it ’s so beyond the scope of reality that you have to bonk it .
The villains are everything in Batman.Photo: Fox
Basically , every scene is like that on some horizontal surface . Batman fighting on a zep holding a cat . He and Robin just happen to own a Super Molecular Dust Separator to put the world leaders back together again . The multiple shot of Bruce Wayne flick the Instant Costume Change Lever . That Bruce and Dick wear down their costume even when they ’re alone . The out - of - place stock footage of dissimilar land look for Batman and Robin to revive their world leader . Truly , take in Batman : The Movie after a tenacious time forth was akin to standing on a beach and wafture after wave of wild , laughable things crashing over me again and again . It ’s not like anything a New audience would be capable to bear in term of characters of this height . Christoper Nolan ’s Batman moving picture or Todd Phillips ’ Joker are so far removed that to put them in the same category is almost a disservice to them all . But I ’m glad they all subsist and I ’m happy this unbelievable palate cleanser of stupidity is something that , after over half a century , still works its boy wonders .
Assorted Musings:
Though the film is only 100 minutes long , I find like a undecomposed 10 - 15 minutes could ’ve been cut from some of the bigger budget scenes — mainly those involve the Batcopter and Batboat . Each is undeniably coolheaded but we do n’t need two minutes of flying or zipping across the water every time we see them .
Oh , also cut out the torpedoes being shot from Penguins ’s U-boat . There are so many scenes of torpedoes being shot from Penguin ’s wedge and five the great unwashed need to approve it each time . It ’s excruciating .
Also , cut the intact subplot where Penguin dresses as a human and go back to the Batcave . It ’s like a 10 instant scene that ’s there only to set up how the de - hydrator gunslinger make for , but we ’ve already meet how it works , and it run on forever with zero payoff .
The movie in a nutshell. Or should we say bombshell.Photo: Fox
You could also shave a few minutes off if the villains did n’t celebrate every time they remember they killed Batman and Robin . It happens a lot .
If these villains want to do some damage , maybe they should use those rockets they ’re very , very salutary at shoot to kill people or else of explode into cloud that write out riddle .
The scene of Adam West as Bruce Wayne are interesting in that they show him struggling with the secret identicalness , which add some depth to the motion-picture show , but also just how much more comfortable West seems as Batman instead of Bruce . The Bruce scenes are all very , very inept .
Everything in the film is manifestly dated but few things are as bad as the headline when Bruce Wayne is snatch . They read “ Bruce Wayne and Girl Companion Kidnapped ” followed by “ Attractive Girl supporter Seized in Brazen Snatch . ” Glad she was just his companion and her look were more important to remark than anything else . But hey , it was the 1960s , which is essentially what you may say about the entire movie .
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