Bat-May: Batman: The Movie (1966)

Once upon a time, the most divisive fault line in fandom was whether or not you loved Adam West’s Batman. (It was a simpler time.) Chances are that you held him in higher regard if you grew up with him, but if Tim Burton or Frank Miller got to you at a young age, you might not have had the patience for a groovier, campier Batman. By the time Adam West passed in 2017 – and indeed long before that – the tides seemed to have turned in Bat-fandom: even if Batman ’66 (as it came to be dubbed) wasn’t your Batman, it was at least a Batman with its own redeeming qualities. 

Within that neon outpost in the Dark Knight’s long and storied history, amid the pow-biff-bam of the television series, Batman: The Movie finds the Caped Crusader (Adam West) and his sidekick Robin (Burt Ward) facing the unfathomable – all their greatest villains have teamed up, with global domination in their sights. The Joker (Cesar Romero), The Penguin (Burgess Meredith), and The Riddler (Frank Gorshin) have joined forces with Catwoman (Lee Meriwether), who is posing as the Russian journalist Miss Kitka, in a fiendish plot to rule the world.

 

Batman: The Movie is not quite a movie because it feels like three or four episodes of the television series strung together. You can even mark the narrative intervals with each time it seems Batman and Robin have been blown to smithereens; just supply the Bill Dozier “same bat‑time, same bat-channel” narration yourself. While this pacing can be fun on television, even if you string a two-parter together, it becomes a bit interminable as a feature film with an episodic quality. Perhaps Batman: The Movie is better understood as an artifact, a kind of analogue to comic book crossovers. Where the episodes of the television show usually only featured one high-profile villain (often played by a major celebrity guest star), the selling point here is that the show’s four biggest villains are sharing the screen. (Scrapped plans for a second film, with Batgirl in tow, suggest this pattern would have continued on the big screen.)

 

Like the television show, the film is more enamored of its villains than of the Dynamic Duo. Adam West and Burt Ward play their parts in staid and stalwart fashion, their straight faces serving an essential role in the high camp atmosphere, but there’s no question the film only truly comes alive when it has its antagonists on screen. Of the foursome, Burgess Meredith’s Penguin takes the lead; it’s his submarine and his henchmen that run the plot, with the other villains deferring to his leadership. (Maybe it’s the monocle.) As the Penguin, Meredith is almost a Jack Burnley drawing come to life, all squawks and waddles, but what really stands out about his performance is just how hard he’s selling it.

 

Indeed, all the players are acting their parts with the gusto of a toddler at playtime, hammy in all the right places but never compromising the internal integrity of the thing with so much as a wink to the camera. Each villainous performer finds his or her lane and sticks with it. Frank Gorshin’s Riddler is giddy and over-the-top, but it’s dialed into what this incarnation of the Riddler should be (and a clear template for Jim Carrey’s Riddler in Batman Forever). Cesar Romero’s Joker, once you get past the painted-over mustache, puts the “clown” in “Clown Prince of Crime,” whooping and clapping at his own mischief. Meanwhile, Lee Meriwether (herself subbing in for television’s Julie Newmar) plays Catwoman/Kitka with all the purring puns a single screenplay can handle.

 

Kitka’s romance with Bruce Wayne is compelling enough, with Adam West suitably smitten with the passingly dismissive Soviet. In these moments, it’s a little disappointing that Bruce never sees through the disguise until the very end of the film – particularly since his Batman is marked with over-preparation for literally any other scenario he encounters. He’s got shark repellent in his helicopter, a torpedo deflector in his belt, and even a computer that can sort dust particles by color; it’s just too bad he doesn’t have a working set of eyes and ears to know when he’s being duped. Perhaps, however, that’s the point – this Bruce Wayne is a lover, not a fighter. (Though his seduction skills could use some work – quoting Edgar Allan Poe isn’t the first recourse for most casanovas.) 

 

For a Batman film, both Batman and Robin are woefully underdeveloped, static figures of justice and good manners – which is, again, the point. The camp of Batman ’66 requires heroes who are unchanging and unflinching; nothing flummoxes them, and nothing finds them ill-prepared to save the day. These do-gooders need only do good, despite the less-than-stimulating viewing pleasure such heroics provide. There’s never any doubt that good will prevail, with the only surprises being which unlikely gadget our heroes will pull from their bottomless utility belts. Like their villains, though, West and Ward commit wholeheartedly to their act, with West’s deliberately dramatic delivery matching Ward’s gee-whiz enthusiasm.

 

Batman: The Movie was originally intended to be the series debut, launching the television program in big-screen style. Released after the first season, however, it becomes instead a celebration of everything that Batman ’66 was – flashy, vibrant, and campy. It’s a feature-length distillation of the show’s successes and failings, its mod mentality dialed up to 11. If you loved the show, you’ll love the movie, but if West has never been your Batman, this film won’t change your mind. As for me, I like the show just fine, in small doses, and Batman: The Movie proves to be a bit too big a dose for one sitting. For a generation, this was Batman, so kudos to the crew for keeping the flame alive.

 

Batman: The Movie is rated PG. Directed by Leslie H. Martinson. Written by Lorenzo Semple Jr. Based on the DC Comics, and on the ABC television series. Starring Adam West, Burt Ward, Lee Meriwether, Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, and Frank Gorshin.

For more Bat-May action, the good folks at Collected Editions posted my review of Batman: The Movies, the comic book adaptation of the Batman Quadrilogy. Give them a click - no one reviews comics like Collected Editions!

Monday at the Movies - February 27, 2017

Welcome to 2017’s first installment of “Monday at the Movies.” Today, The Cinema King catches up on DC’s animated movies.

Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders (2016) – After fifty years, Adam West and Burt Ward reteam with Julie Newmar to bring the ethos of Batman back to life in an animated film that captures perfectly the spirit of 1966. Return of the Caped Crusaders is one sustained self-aware giggle as the audience revels in every alliteration, pow-biff-bam, and straightfaced platitude that West & Co. deliver with the same wry camp from the 1966 television show. This installment finds less attention paid to the Joker/Riddler/Penguin/Catwoman team-up and more focus on a Batman descending into darkness, replete with metafictional nods to grimmer ’n’ grittier interpretations of the character. Yet despite the character’s fall from grace over the course of the plot, this film never feels out of place with the culture of the classic television show; it’s all done with a wink to the camera, an embrace of the audience, and most importantly an abiding love for the character of Batman. The filmmakers have even captured the frequently nonsensical attitude of Batman ’66, with headscratching science, overly complicated plots, and plot resolutions that practically have speed lines coming off of their rapid conclusions. There are also great one-off gags that one could imagine the show featuring, such as a temporarily unemployed Alfred Pennyworth resorting to rifling through dumpsters, replete with a rickety shopping cart. Overall, it’s just a real treat to hear West & Ward back in the voiceover equivalent of ill-fitting spandex, and it’s evident that the filmmakers are having just as much fun as the moviegoing public. The best compliment one can pay the delightful Return of the Caped Crusaders is that it’s so much of a piece with Batman ’66 that you shouldn’t be surprised if you see more of Adam West around these parts...

Justice League Dark (2017) – Meanwhile, over in DC’s more self-serious animation department, Justice League Dark follows on the new Justice League animated films with a look at DC’s magical underbelly, complete with a “darker” R-rating that doesn’t actually manifest itself as it did in The Killing Joke. I think this might be my favorite of the new wave of DC animated films that began with Justice League: War, in part because this actually feels like something new rather than a different paint job on more of the same. Not that the new Justice League or Batman cartoons have been bad, per se, but they’ve been a little forgettable. (I haven’t rewatched any, for the record.) Justice League Dark feels more – pardon the pun – magical because most of these characters heretofore haven’t gotten their day in the sun. Magicians Zatanna (Camilla Luddington, late of the Tomb Raider games) and John Constantine (Matt Ryan, late of NBC’s Constantine and CW’s Arrow) join Batman (Jason O’Mara, still growling his way through the role) and the spectral trapeze artist Deadman (Nicholas Turturro, who plays Deadman as a wise-cracking Jersey boy) to thwart a magical threat of global, demonic proportions. The film descends into a generic urban fight scene by the middle of its third act, but the character work up to that point ends up holding the audience’s attention, even as deep cuts like Etrigan the Demon and Swamp Thing show up (always a treat for this viewer!). Justice League Dark is, well, darker than its counterparts, but the grim humor that emerges makes these characters more than likeable and leads me to want more of this sort of thing.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you next week!