Actor Michael Keaton was born on this day in 1951. He was best known for appearing in movie comedies when filmmaker Tim Burton, who had earlier directed him in the movie comedy Beetlejuice, tapped him to play this dour figure:
Batman was released onto and into the nation's movie theaters in June of 1989, and somewhere around that time Keaton went on Late Night with David Letterman to promote it. I must say, as impressed as I am with Keaton as an actor (loved him in Night Shift), watching this clip, I may be even more impressed with him as a talk show guest. Earlier in his career Keaton had moonlighted as a standup comedian to make ends meet, and his talent for ad libbing allows him to deftly counter Letterman's wisecracks while getting out the basic information on the film he's there to promote:
Hmm...Maybe too much information is gotten out. As you just heard, it's supposed to be a surprise that the Joker killed young Bruce Wayne's parents. It certainly would have been a surprise to several generations of readers of the comic book. In the 1939 origin story, it's an unnamed mugger who murders the tyke's mom and dad. Finally, in 1947, the cretin's name is revealed to be Joe Chill, whose move up the ranks from street criminal to Mafia boss comes to a lethal end when his gang finds out his role in creating the superhero and thorn in their collective side in the first place. As for the Joker, according to the 1988 graphic novel The Killing Joke, he was just an unsuccessful standup comedian who couldn't get a booking, not even on Letterman.
Here's the opening scene of Batman. As film scholars will note, Gotham City owes a little something to Metropolis. Not Superman's Metropolis, but Fritz Lang's:
Even if they were somewhat nonplussed by the liberties taken (which included giving the Joker an actual name), fans of the comic book mostly greeted the movie with a sigh of relief, along with high hopes that the film's success at the box office might finally replace and erase the legacy left behind by...
...this actor, whose campy portrayal on the 1960s TV show these same fans felt defamed the reputation of their beloved Dark Knight. So that you can compare the two actors, I'm going to show you this clip not from the actual TV series, but a 1966 theatrical film rushed into production to capitalize on the TV series. You should still get the basic idea what that show was all about:
The riffraff of the world thanks you, Batman.
Honestly, I'm not so sure that Adam West's take on Batman and Michael Keaton's take on Batman were as far apart as those comic book fans would have liked. For one thing, both men talked in hushed tones when they put on that mask. And regardless of whether the surrounding atmosphere was dead-serious or tongue-in-cheek, both men played the character as an anal-retentive moralist who just couldn't enjoy life as long as there was somebody somewhere doing something that they weren't supposed to. And I guess that's to be expected. Hip, laid-back types rarely become masked vigilantes.
OK, this particular masked vigilante is indeed hip and laid-back, but, curiously, only when he's in life-and-death situations involving the criminal element. Otherwise, his alter-ego is quite...
...straight-laced.
As long as we're on the subject of alter egos...
The biggest difference between Michael Keaton and Adam West is not how they played Batman but Batman's alter ego, millionaire Bruce Wayne. We'll look at West first:
Bruce Wayne's championing of capitalism would be more impressive if all his money wasn't inherited (as for Dick Grayson, aka, Robin, look what a difference an adoption makes.) But that's neither here nor there. What I hoped you took from the above clip is that the difference between Adam West's Batman and Adam West's Bruce Wayne is, well, no difference at all. Costumed or not, it's the same old (um, 30-something) hushed-tone pontification that you might think would actually bore a criminal into signing a confession just to get him to shut up. Speaking of criminals, I think if the Penguin or the Riddler was in that room just now, it would take them all of two seconds to figure out that Bruce Wayne and Batman are the same person. For that matter, Aunt Harriet should have figured it out by now. Of course, it could be she never met the Caped Crusader. Society matrons and superheroes don't necessarily attend the same soirees.
Now here's Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne:
Did I just hear the Joker fart?
First off, Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne talks in a regular voice when in civvies, saving the hushed tones only for when he's in mortal combat. Also, he got very emotional there, didn't he? At worse, Adam West might blush if he came across a jaywalker, but otherwise he kept his cool. Then again, Keaton's temper tantrum might have just been a ruse to get the Joker to shoot him (a serving trey hidden in his shirt allows him to survive.) I don't think anything like that would have happened in the 1960s TV series because, frankly, I don't recall ever seeing bullets on that show. Unlike Dallas, Memphis, or Los Angeles, 1960s Gotham City seems to have had rather strict gun control laws (but as you just saw, that was all over with by 1989--the NRA must have bought off some local Gotham politician.)
For our final Michael Keaton-Adam West comparison, we look at affairs of the heart, or the groin, or--just watch the clips and figure it out for yourself.
Twenty-five years later:
Licking may even be more natural--to the point of being animalistic. Pur-r-r-r-r.
Thus ends my Michael Keaton-Adam West comparison. There's no winner because it's not a contest. You're allowed to like them both (I do.) And anyway, the comparison is as much between filmmaker Tim Burton and television producer William Dozier and television writer Lorenzo Semple Jr. as it is between any two actors. The funny thing is, even though the two Burton-directed movies, Batman and Batman Returns, were together seen at the time as a sudden break with the superhero's franchise TV past, if I compare the Burton films with the later, 21st century-but-1970s movieish Christopher Nolan trilogy, Burton's take seems more like the TV version, not less. Sure, one's lighthearted and the other's definitely not, but both versions never forget that it's all based on a comic book and not The French Connection or Taxi Driver.
As for the various others actors who played Batman--Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale, Ben Affleck, whoever's in that one Legos movie--it's not their birthday today. As I said earlier, it is Michael Keaton's, so lets get back to him. In case you haven't heard, Keaton's going to have one more go as Gotham City's favorite crimefighter, though this film's actually about another superhero, the Flash, who lives in another fictional metropolis, (though not the fictional Metropolis.) Keaton turns 70 today. Is that too old to play Batman? Maybe, maybe not. When it comes to superheroes, it matters not the age of the actors that play them as long as...
Thespian Alan Napier was born on this day in 1903 (he died in 1988.) He is best know for playing Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred in the tongue-in-cheek, 1960s superhero TV series Batman. The very first actor cast for the show, the 6′ 5″ Napier describes in the following clip how it all came about:
Now here's a clip from Batman itself (note just how much the 6'2'' Adam West, who played the series eponymous costumed crimefighter, and the 6'3" Cesar Romero, who played the villainous Joker, are both literally cut down to size in Napier's presence):
Wow! Did you see Alfred handle the Joker? He could be a superhero himself!
Albeit a superhero in desperate need of a tailor.
It may be his most famous role, but Napier's career was hardly confined to playing Alfred. A graduate of London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he worked alongside John Gielgud and Robert Morley. In 1937, he appeared in a revival of Heartbreak House, supervised by that play's author, George Bernard Shaw. He moved to Hollywood in 1941, becoming a member of the British expatriate community there, and over the years had roles in such films as The Invisible Man Returns, Random Harvest, Lassie Come Home, The Uninvited, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Hangover Square, Johnny Belinda, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, The Court Jester, Journey to theCenter of the Earth, and Marnie. These were all just supporting parts, but in an early (1949) television production of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventure of a Speckled Band, Napier got a chance to play...
...the world's greatest consulting detective. See for yourself:
Will Benedict Cumberbatch ever play Alfred? Stay tuned. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.
As I said before, the rap against the TV show is that it didn't take the
main character seriously enough. Maybe the show didn't, but West
certainly did. Or, rather, Batman, as interpreted by West, did.
Subsequent Batmans--Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, and
Christopher Bale all feel the need to growl their way through the role,
partly, I think, to differentiate themselves from West (so much so they
forget to differentiate themselves from each other.) I just don't know
that any of them have taken the character as seriously, or played the
character taking himself as seriously, as West, even as they appeared in
more serious-minded vehicles
In his autobiography, West writes the producers wanted him to be more
like Burt Ward and shout his lines. However, he convinced them that a
more subtle approach would provide a better, and funnier, contrast to
all the theatrical histrionics whirling about him, and so it did. Other
than Alfred the butler, his was the most soft-spoken character in the
whole series, a Batman who seemed to carefully measure every platitude
to come out of his mouth, who put so much thought in his banal
expressions, who gave so much consideration to his trite meanderings. He
seemed almost transfixed by the hoary cliches that governed his life,
to the point where he'd turn away from the crook he had just beaten to a
pulp, and deliver some simplistic soliloquy, Hamlet of hokum that he
was.
Pointy-headed intellectuals will try and tell you that the superhero
concept is inherently fascist. Not West's superhero. No sir. The fascist
leader is one who derives glory and power from the admiring, fearful
masses hopelessly caught under his sway. That in no way describes out
humble hero. Heck, in one episode the Riddler slips a mickey in Batman's
drink, leaving him disoriented. A Gotham City cop (one earning his pay
for a change) forbids the Caped Crusader from getting behind the wheel
of the Batmobile, telling him he's in no condition to drive. Batman
woozily replies, "Yes! Yes! Of course!" Now, I ask you, would Mussolini
be so accommodating? I think not!
No, West's Batman was out for neither glory nor power. He merely wanted
to do good, and it saddened him that so many others failed to see Good
as the Greatest Good. It was never personal. Oh, he might raise his
voice (sometimes a whole octave) and call a villain "dastardly" during a
moment of stress, followed by an immediate apology to Robin for setting
such a bad example, but once his foes were defeated all the anger just
melted away, and he had nothing but pity for them. A gun moll once tried
to seduce him, to which he ponderously replied, "You poor, deluded
child." That's how Batman regarded his many enemies, as children that
had lost their way, lambs that had strayed from the flock. He yearned
for the day when the scales would fall from the Joker's or the Penguin's
or the Riddler's eyes, so that they would see the errors of their ways,
get 9-to-5 jobs, keep their lawns trimmed, coach Little League, and
otherwise rejoin the Gotham Family of Man. In many ways, West's Batman
was a Christ figure, albeit one with a utility belt that could have
gotten him off any cross.
Adam West played the character with such conviction, such earnestness,
the suspicion has arisen that he never figured out it was all just for
laughs. He refutes this in his autobiography and in the many interviews
he's given, asserting yes, he knew it was a comedy, and I, for one,
believe him!
I kind of believe him. I sort of believe him. I 96% believe him...95%.
For all you Adam West haters out there who remain unconvinced by what
I've just said, who believe that by taking Batman too seriously he
allowed Batman not to be taken seriously at all, what would you have
preferred? A Batman that didn't take himself seriously? A costumed
comedian uttering an endless stream of one-liners while engaged in
battle with a deadly foe?
(Come to think of it, that's Spider-Man, and people do take him seriously.)
When Lois Sasson confirmed on February 16 that her longtime partner, Lesley Gore, a non-smoker, had died of lung cancerat the untimely age of 68, feminists, freedom fighters, humanitarians and Catwoman lovers of all stripes mourned the passing of an iconic ally and inspiration. --Peter Rothberg, The Nation
"It's My Party" remains one of the most vivid evocations of adolescent heartbreak ever waxed--Quincy Jones produced the record, although you'd swear it was [Melrose Place producer] Aaron Spelling instead." --AllMusic Critic Jason Ankeny If you don't mind hearing it twice, here's a video Gore made of the song some 25 years later:
That looked like Mike Myers' Dr. Evil at the end, didn't it? I've checked and re-checked. The video is from 1989 (as if you couldn't tell that already from the clothes and the hair) and Evil didn't make his debut until 1997. Now, I, or at least Peter Rothberg, promised you a freedom fighter:
Not exactly Che Guevara, but in that time and place... You could savor every bitchy second of Lesley's triumph with her sequel "Judy's Turn to Cry". --Music journalist Lillian Roxon Now, the feminist:
Now, THAT'S Che Guevara (or Gloria Steinem.) My take on the song was: I'm 17, what a wonderful thing, to stand up on a stage and shake your finger at people and sing you don't own me. --Lesley Gore Left unsaid is whether that was her middle finger that's she shaking (after all,the video was shot from the neck up.) Now, for Catwoman lovers of all stripes:
Holy 45 rpm record, Batman! The iconic alley and inspiration:
Afraid to go on American Idol? Hell, they've played her songs on that show! Finally, the humanitarian:
Hey, she made people happy. What's more humanitarian than that?
Lorenzo Semple Jr died a few weeks ago at the age of 91. He started out in television, then moved on to movies. I see his second film, Pretty Poison, is considered a cult classic. I try to see all the cult classics whenever possible, but didn't even know about that one. When I saw it listed in Semple's bio, I thought it was the one with Drew Barrymore, Sara Gilbert, and Cheryl Ladd until I saw it was made in 1968, before Barrymore or Gilbert were born, and Ladd was still in high school. No, this film starred Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld as demented lovers on the run. That right there makes me want to see it, no matter who wrote the screenplay (incidentally, the other movie was titled Poison Ivy, a predictable but, thanks to Barrymore and Gilbert, still compelling film noir.) Getting back to Semple, I did see the paranoid thriller classic he penned, The Parallax View, which I highly recommend (or else I wouldn't have prefaced it with the word "classic", duh.) Other good films to emerge from Semple's typewriter include The Super Cops, TheDrowning Pool, Three Days of the Condor, and Papillion (co-written with Dalton Trumbo.) Semple also wrote the 1977 remake of King Kong,but I don't blame him for the mechanical monkey. A sock puppet would have worked better.
None of those movies, however, is the reason I want to focus on Lorenzo Semple Jr. Rather, it's a TV show, one that Semple adapted from a comic book. Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, BATMAN!
(How in the world did they see in those masks?)
I know I'm in treading on thin Otto Preminger here. For a certain type of person, the 1960s TV version of Batman is the most controversial thing to ever appear on American television. All in the Family? Merely a re-tread of The Honeymooners. The episode of MASH were Henry Blake dies? A healthy McLean Stevenson guest hosted The Tonight Show a week later. The final episode of St. Elsewhere, where the whole series proved to be an illusion? Hey, nobody bitched when Newhart did the same thing. Janet Jackson's Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction? In the john when that happened (between the game and the commercials, something's got to give.)
But the TV version of Batman? That show committed one of the most horrible, inexcusable, morally repugnant sins of all times.
It made light of superheroes.
Good guys who wear costumes fighting bad guys who wear costumes? How can something like that be treated with anything but profound seriousness?
Before we go any further, I should say I like superheroes, both when they're done seriously (TheWatchmen) and humorously (Underdog). I'm one of those rare people who like the dramatic Batman--the original 1940s comic book created by (ghost) writer Bill Finger and signature artist Bob Kane, writer Dennis O'Neil and artist's Neal Adam's 1970s revamp, the 1980s graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, the late '80s-early 90s Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher series of movies, all of which featured Pat Hingle and Michael Gough as, respectively Commissioner Gordon and Alfred the butler, and the recent trio of films starring Christian Bale and directed by Christopher Nolen (jeez, I should really go back and look up all the screenwriters)--as well as the fun Batman . You really want a superhero that all work and no play? C'mon, the dude drove a muscle car.
How did the TV show come about? Originally, the ABC network wanted a hip, eye-catching action adventure series. This was the era of James Bond in the movies (er...I guess that counts as this era, too) and The Man From Uncle on TV. Rather than yet another secret agent show, an art form beginning to glut the airwaves, they felt a superhero program could offer the same qualities, but which superhero? The 1950s Superman series was still too fresh in everyone's minds, and the late George Reeves still too identified with the role. All the brand-new heroes coming out of Marvel were gaining in popularity, but not yet the icons they would soon become. So Batman seemed the best bet. The network hired a producer named William Dozier to turn the idea into reality. Dozier went and got himself a bunch of Batman comics, and found them to be the silliest damn things he ever read in his life.
Before you all you Batman fans out there get bent out of shape over that last sentence, you should know what the comic book was like from the late 1940s to the mid 1960s. Prior to that Batman was a gritty look at the dark underbelly of Gotham City, no different from other gritty looks at the dark underbellies of America's urban centers in pop culture at the time other than the bank robbers, mobsters, and serial killers all tended to dress like it was trick-or-treat. Then a shrink named Fredric Wertham wrote a book decrying violence in comic books, Congress held hearings, a code of conduct was established, and Batman was turned into a giddy fantasy with talking mites from the fifth dimension. Who could blame Dozier for not taking it seriously? So he asked Semple to write a funny pilot.
Now, Semple could have gone the Get Smart route, and had a bumbling hero who was always saying "Sorry about that, Commissioner!" Instead, he came up with an ingenious alternative: all the characters would play it straight. What's so funny about that? The characters would play it too straight. The poker face as punchline. Camp, it was called.
To be sure, Semple was adept at more traditional forms of comedy. There were occasional puns and pratfalls (the crooks, not our heroes) during Batman's three-year run, but the show mined most of its mirth from mediocre melodrama, its heckles from hokum. The story holes, the lapses in logic, the non-sequiturs that abound in third-rate (and are hardly unknown in first-rate) fiction were now not merely a lazy means to an end (which is why they're so often overlooked) but the ends themselves, demanding your attention. There was a joke there, sometimes a very nuanced joke, now let's just see if you're smart enough to get it. In its own way Batman was every bit a thinking man's superhero saga as anything that's come from Alan Moore (the Orson Welles of comics, if you must ask.)
The prototypical Batman joke, often cited by Semple himself in interviews, had the hero walking into a restaurant decked in cape, tights, and mask, and asked by a maître d where he'd like to sit. Our hero's reply:
"In that corner over there. I don't want to draw attention to myself."
And I don't know that he ever did. After all, people in Gotham City could be pretty clueless at times:
Batman: Have you seen any unusual looking people around here? Librarian: Unusual? In what way, unusual? Batman: Their garb. For instance, a man wearing a bright green suit with big black question marks on it. Librarian: Let me think a moment. No, I can't say that I have offhand, but then I see so many people in the course of a day.
However, the show was at its funniest when it was just Batman and Robin talking among themselves:
Robin: Boy! That was our closest call ever! I have to admit that I was pretty scared! Batman: I wasn't scared in the least. Robin: Not at all? Batman: Haven't you noticed how we always escape the vicious ensnarement of our enemies? Robin: Yeah, because we're smarter than they are! Batman: I like to think it's because our hearts are pure.
Robin: [to a villain] You can't get away from Batman that easy! Batman: Easily. Robin: Easily. Batman: Good grammar is essential, Robin. Robin: Thank you. Batman: You're welcome.
Here's my all-time favorite exchange between Batman and Robin. In a hurry to catch up with the Catwoman before she can carry out some nefarious scheme, they discuss how to make maximum use of the Batmobile's capabilities:
Batman: The green button will turn the car a la izquierda o a la derecha. Robin: To the left or right. [smiling] Threw in a little Spanish on me, huh, Batman? Batman: One should always keep abreast of foreign tongues, Robin.
Where the show most closely resembled Get Smart and other conventional parodies was the way it extrapolated reality into the unreal proceedings. Investigating a crime at a nightclub, Robin is not allowed in because he's underage. Motorists bitch, and rightly so, when they see the Batmobile run a red light (the cop directing traffic takes the Caped Crusaders side.) Best of all is the many scenes of Batman and Robin scaling a skyscraper (Gotham City criminals always seem to favor penthouse apartments as hideouts.) As would happen in real life if such a curious thing took place, heads pop out of windows. That those heads belong to celebrities, such as Jerry Lewis, Dick Clark, Edgar G. Robinson, and Sammy Davis Jr. ("I caught your act, Batman, now try and catch mine!"), may make it less realistic, but it's not like to be famous is be fictional. Well, there's also Lurch from The Addams Family, Colonel Klink from Hogan's Heroes, and, depending on what your belief system tells you is fictional, Santa Claus (AndyDevine, doing a fairly good job hiding his trademark squeak.)
Now, it wasn't the writing alone that made Batman such a stylish hoot. Pop art sets, surf rock theme music, a whirling bat logo between scenes, and acts of violence that you could read all contributed to show's sense of flair.
None of which would matter if not for the acting. Burt Ward as the hyperactive Robin, aka Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne's ward, always eager to state the obvious ("Holy ashtray!" "Holy hors d'oeuvre!" "Holy priceless collection of Etruscan snoods!"). Alan Napier as the faithful, elderly butler Alfred, the only character who sometimes seemed in on the joke, and thus didn't mind the odd things he was asked to do in the name of duty (in one episode Batman and his alter ego Bruce Wayne have to be in the same place at the same time, so, despite the age difference, Alfred dons the mask and cape instead; observing the butler from a distance, a character remarks, "Batman look a little under the weather.") Madge Blake as clueless Harriet Cooper, Dick Grayson's maternal aunt, who basically functioned as a housekeeper, though, unlike Alfred, she wasn't let in on her nephew's secret. Neil Hamilton, a second-or-third choice Hollywood leading man back in the '30s as the easily rattled Gotham Police Commissioner James Gordon, a rather lofty title given that he had to rely on a couple of guys in tights to do all his crime fighting for him (in one episode in which Batman and Robin are seemingly unavailable, he says to an underling, "I guess we'll just have to solve this one ourselves.") Stafford Repp as the befuddled, Irish-accented Chief of Police Miles O'Hara. So Gotham City had both a police commissioner AND a chief of police. Another layer of bureaucracy. The only first-season character not to come from the comic book, O'Hara was created by Semple as someone for Gordon to talk to. Maybe they should talk about what they're going to do if the Gotham City taxpayers ever find out they getting paid to farm out their crime-fighting duties to a couple of guys in tights.
There was another actor of sorts who never appeared on camera. Though the Batman plots were not terribly hard to follow, and mere excuses for the set pieces anyway, it was decided the show needed a narrator, to both mimic the comic book, and to give it the feel of an old-time 1930s-40s movie serial.
Dissatisfied with the actors he had audition for the part, Dozier decided to just do it himself, even if he had no acting experience, and in fact had to go out and get himself a SAG card. The results were memorable. Possibly a parody of the squawky, urgent, narration Walter Winchell used for TheUntouchables, Dozier, in the guise of Desmond Doomsday (as he was called in the liner notes of the soundtrack album based on the show), added a touch of apprehensive incredulity to the proceedings. He often got the best lines, usually right before the cliffhangers:
CAN IT BE? THE DYNAMIC DUO CRUSHED TO DEATH BY AN EIGHT TON METEORITE??
WILL THE JOKER'S PROPHECY COME TRUE?? ARE THEIR HOROSCOPES CANCELLED??
IS THIS THEIR LAST STAR...??
TUNE IN TOMORROW! SAME TIME! SAME CHANNEL! SAME PERIL!!
MR AND MRS BATMAN??!!
THE DYNAMIC DUO MAY BECOME A TRIO!!
THE QUEEN OF DIAMONDS AIMS HIGH!
FIND OUT TOMORROW, WHETHER SHE MISSES...OR MRS.!!
SAME BAT-TIME, SAME BAT-CHANNEL. AND HANG ON TO YOU RICE!!
IS THEIR GOOSE REALLY COOKED?
WILL BATMAN AND ROBIN STEW IN THEIR OWN JUICE???
ARE ALL THEIR PLANS AND DREAMS TO GO UP IN SMOKE??
THE ANSWER TO THESE AND OTHER BURNING QUESTIONS TOMORROW!
SAME CAT-TIME, SAME CAT-CHANNEL!!
(Can you guess the evildoer in that last one?)
A word about those cliffhangers. Batman was originally meant to be an hour show, and the first few episodes were written and filmed with that in mind. However, ABC discovered it didn't have a full 60 minutes on its schedule to spare. What they did have was two half-hours, same bat-time, but a bat-day apart. so it became a twice-a-week show. Once they knew they were going to do it that way, the cliffhangers became grander, much more audacious. Batman and Robin would usually (and with surprising ease, given what otherwise suburb crimefighters they were) get knocked, gassed, or doped unconscious, then revived only to find themselves strapped to some Rube Goldberg-like execution contraption. The Dynamic Duo would inevitably escape, more often than not with the aid of their utility belts, which the criminal masterminds never thought of removing once they had the two unconscious. For that matter, they never thought of removing their masks to discover their true identities. Gotham City criminals had a lot of flaws, but nosiness wasn't one of them.
Those Gotham City criminals, and the actors that played them, were an interesting bunch. Cesar Romero buried a quarter century of Latin typecasting, as well as his mustache, under a ton of makeup as the Joker. Character actor Burgess Meredith had achieved a kind of quasi-stardom in the 1930s and '40s with such roles as George in Of Mice and Men and war correspondent Ernie Pyle in The Story of GI Joe, so his portrayal of the quacking, waddling, aristocrat-wannabe villain with an umbrella fetish Penguin probably wasn't the highlight of his long career, but he was fun to watch. Of all the actors who appeared on Batman, he's the only who got a second shot at a movie career (albeit in supporting roles) thanks to the crotchety fight trainer he played in Rocky. Impressionist Frank Gorshin, got a chance to use his real voice as the Riddler. Well, maybe not the maniacal laugh. The Riddler was the only villain to wear two different outfits, often in the same episode, except that only one has a mask! So what, he was he only worried about being recognized part of the time? That's one riddle I can't solve. As the Catwoman, Diana Rigg--oops, wrong curvy '60s siren in skin tight black leather--Julie Newmar added a bit of sex to the show (and some frat humor as well, her episodes often an exercise to see many times the writers could get the word pussy past the censors.) Portly character actor Victor Bueno played a Yale Egyptologist who, after getting conked on the head during a campus demonstration (the first season's rare nod to current events), think he's King Tut, and heads straight to Gotham City, the place to be if you're a costumed crook. New Haven obviously had no such cachet. As the Egg Head, Vincent Price proved even breakfast could be scary (I wonder if he competed with Christopher Lee for the role.) And if you didn't get the Mr. Freeze reference earlier in this piece, I suggest you stop watching superhero shows on TVLand and switch over to TCM. I hear they're playing both The Man With the Golden Arm and Stalag 17 tonight.
Still, neither the special guest villains nor the rest of the supporting cast wouldn't matter much if not for the man charged with bringing the title character to life...
...Adam West.
As I said before, the rap against the TV show is that it didn't take the main character seriously enough. Maybe the show didn't, but West certainly did. Or, rather, Batman, as interpreted by West, did. Subsequent Batmans--Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, and Christopher Bale all feel the need to growl their way through the role, partly, I think, to differentiate themselves from West (so much so they forget to differentiate themselves from each other.) I just don't know that any of them have taken the character as seriously, or played the character taking himself as seriously, as West, even as they appeared in more serious-minded vehicles
In his autobiography, West writes the producers wanted him to be more like Burt Ward and shout his lines. However, he convinced them that a more subtle approach would provide a better, and funnier, contrast to all the theatrical histrionics whirling about him, and so it did. Other than Alfred the butler, his was the most soft-spoken character in the whole series, a Batman who seemed to carefully measure every platitude to come out of his mouth, who put so much thought in his banal expressions, who gave so much consideration to his trite meanderings. He seemed almost transfixed by the hoary cliches that governed his life, to the point where he'd turn away from the crook he had just beaten to a pulp, and deliver some simplistic soliloquy, Hamlet of hokum that he was.
Pointy-headed intellectuals will try and tell you that the superhero concept is inherently fascist. Not West's superhero. No sir. The fascist leader is one who derives glory and power from the admiring, fearful masses hopelessly caught under his sway. That in no way describes out humble hero. Heck, in one episode the Riddler slips a mickey in Batman's drink, leaving him disoriented. A Gotham City cop (one earning his pay for a change) forbids the Caped Crusader from getting behind the wheel of the Batmobile, telling him he's in no condition to drive. Batman woozily replies, "Yes! Yes! Of course!" Now, I ask you, would Mussolini be so accommodating? I think not!
No, West's Batman was out for neither glory nor power. He merely wanted to do good, and it saddened him that so many others failed to see Good as the Greatest Good. It was never personal. Oh, he might raise his voice (sometimes a whole octave) and call a villain "dastardly" during a moment of stress, followed by an immediate apology to Robin for setting such a bad example, but once his foes were defeated all the anger just melted away, and he had nothing but pity for them. A gun moll once tried to seduce him, to which he ponderously replied, "You poor, deluded child." That's how Batman regarded his many enemies, as children that had lost their way, lambs that had strayed from the flock. He yearned for the day when the scales would fall from the Joker's or the Penguin's or the Riddler's eyes, so that they would see the errors of their ways, get 9-to-5 jobs, keep their lawns trimmed, coach Little League, and otherwise rejoin the Gotham Family of Man. In many ways, West's Batman was a Christ figure, albeit one with a utility belt that could have gotten him off any cross.
Adam West played the character with such conviction, such earnestness, the suspicion has arisen that he never figured out it was all just for laughs. He refutes this in his autobiography and in the many interviews he's given, asserting yes, he knew it was a comedy, and I, for one, believe him!
I kind of believe him. I sort of believe him. I 96% believe him...95%.
For all you Adam West haters out there who remain unconvinced by what I've just said, who believe that by taking Batman too seriously he allowed Batman not to be taken seriously at all, what would you have preferred? A Batman that didn't take himself seriously? A costumed comedian uttering an endless stream of one-liners while engaged in battle with a deadly foe?
(Come to think of it, that's Spider-Man, and people do take him seriously.)
Trust me, when it comes to 1960s TV superheroes, you could have done a lot worse--in terms of the irreverent treatment of costumed crimefighters--than Batman. Two such shows come to mind, Captain Nice and Mr. Terrific, neither of which lasted more than half a season in 1967. It's not that the shows weren't funny. The problem, I think, is that the title characters were portrayed as comic bumblers, a turn-off not for adults but their kids who took Adam West's heroics seriously. I must have been 4 or 5 when I first saw Batman, and I had no idea I was watching a comedy, and neither did anybody else my age. I think I started first having suspicions when I was in the 5th or 6th grade, by which time the show was in reruns on the local UHF station. As an older, more discerning 10-year old, I began to wonder why no other action-adventure drama found it necessary to animate the sound a left hook makes.
That so many children took Batman seriously did not go unnoticed by the captains of industry, either here or in Japan, and they began filling the store shelves of America with Batmobiles (the kind you wind up) and Bat-action figures and Bat-board games and Bat-lunch boxes and Bat-coloring books and Bat-pajamas and Bat-kites and Bat-banks and Bat-trading cards and even Bat-sponges. It was a merchandising phenomenon, the likes of which would not be seen again for another decade when Star Wars came out.
Yet nothing fades faster than a phenomenon that becomes too familiar. Ratings began to slide. For its third, and what turned out to be its last, season, Batman was cut back to just once a week. The same bat-time was now the only bat-time. I'm not sure its stature as a passing fad had anything to do with it, but there were some changes in villains that year. John Astin replaced Frank Gorshin as the Riddler, and Julie Newmar was succeeded by Eartha Kitt, whose deep-throated purr was both seductive and sinister. And that's just singing "Santa Baby". Imagine how she sounded as the Catwoman.
The biggest change, however, was the addition of Yvonne Craig as Batgirl. By day she was librarian Barbara Gordon, the Police Commissioner's daughter. Having long admired Batman's crimefighting abilities (as opposed to her father's) she decided to become a member of the team, without bothering to ask first. She even constructs a mini-Batcave of sorts, a dressing room/passage way leading to an underground garage where she kept her Batcycle. To my knowledge, her landlord never found out about all her renovating. And no one knew her secret identity except Alfred, who finds out in the season opener. He shrugs it off. Another day, another superhero. The spunky heroine was a good addition to the show, and not simply because she was good-looking. Batman's and Robin's otherwise pure hearts had yet to be cleansed of sexism, an all-too-common sin in that day and age. They simply did not want this girl tagging along, and discouraged her whenever possible. Batgirl took these slights with good humor (a large part of her appeal) and proved her worth by rescuing the Dynamic Duo from imminent death time and time again, eventually winning their grudging respect. For the first time, really, the stories were character-driven, the conflict between the heroes themselves now propelling the narrative. Suddenly, it mattered less how the bad guys would get their comeuppance, but how the good guys and good girl would reconcile their differences while dishing that comeuppance out. I like that. Batman: What took you so long, Batgirl? Batgirl: Rush hour traffic, plus all the lights were against me. And you wouldn't want me to speed, would you? Robin: Your good driving habits almost cost us our lives! Batman: Rules are rules, Robin. But you do have a point.
Batman: It'll be easier if you just ride along with me and Robin in the Batmobile. Batgirl: Sounds cozy. Robin:[looking at a sleeping Batgirl] You know something, Batman? Batman: What's that, Robin? Robin: She looks very pretty when she's asleep. Batman: I thought you might eventually notice that. That
single statement indicates to me the first oncoming thrust of manhood,
old chum.
Merv seemed to like Batgirl.
None if this means the 1967-68 season was problem-free. The comedy had become very broad, with jokes, some good, some not, that loudly, insistently, announced themselves as jokes. Also, the show was no longer considered hip, a problem the producers tried to rectify by making a blatant, desperate play for the counterculture crowd. Psychedelic lettering began appearing in profusion, even on broom closets, and in one episode, Alfred goes undercover as the world's oldest hippie. Whatever happen to not trusting anybody over 30? Lorenzo Semple Jr. had left the show by then, his subtler approach kept alive mostly by Adam West, who continued to play it straight.
Speaking of Lorenzo Semple Jr., I kind of forgot about him, didn't I? He was the original subject of this piece, then I got off-track. Oh, well, as a screenwriter who regularly saw his scripts turned into movies, I'm sure Semple was well aware how a piece of writing starts as one thing, and then becomes another.
Even after he became a successful screenwriter, Semple never entirely left comics behind him, writing film versions of Flash Gordon and Sheena. The Super Cops, directed by Gordon Parks of Shaft fame, wasn't based on a comic book but was the true story of a couple of Brooklyn policemen who used often acrobatic methods to break up a drug ring. Their nicknames? Batman and Robin. Nor was that the first time Semple used those names in a movie script. In fact, his very first screenplay was titled...Batman, based on the very show we've been talking about. Hastily filmed as the first season was drawing to a close, it's not quite as visually inventive as the small screen version, but still worth your attention. It has the the same regular cast, and four semi-regular villains--Joker, Penguin, Riddler, and Catwoman (former Miss America Lee Meriwether subbing for Julie Newmar, her catsuit likely even more tight fitting than what she wore in the swimsuit competition.) And, of course, Semple's screenplay. Part camp, part parody (yes, there's a qualitative difference between the two; haven't you been paying attention?) with a bit of geopolitical satire thrown in for good measure. The following is from the opening credits (I'm still trying to figure out if it's camp or parody):
ACKNOWLEDGMENT We wish to express our gratitude to
the enemies of crime and crusaders against crime throughout the world
for their inspirational example. To them, and to lovers of adventure,
lovers of pure escapism, lovers of unadulterated entertainment, lovers
of the ridiculous and the bizarre--To funlovers everywhere---This
picture is respectfully dedicated. If we have overlooked any sizable
groups of lovers, we apologize.--THE PRODUCERS
Probably the funniest scene in the movie, and the one that cuts right to the beating heart of West's Batman, has the costumed crimefighter desperately trying to rid himself of a bomb with an unusually long fuse. As he frantically sprints about a seaside park and marina, dodging nuns, children, senior citizens, drunken sailors, and even a family of ducks, none of which he wants to see come to harm, he can't help but shout out:
"Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb!"
Don't worry. He does.
And there's plenty of Semple's so-straight-it's-tilted dialogue. Batman and Robin come across a badly disguised Penguin:
Penguin: Ahoy there! Could you chaps direct me to a policeman? Commodore Schmidlapp's the name. Big Ben Distilleries, you know. Robin: [Batman and Robin turn away]
Holy costume party! That's the Penguin! Batman:
Obviously. Robin:
I wonder what his game is. Batman: [to the Penguin]
What's your game, Penguin?
What was his game? Better ask, what was their game? Remember, Penguin, Riddler, and Catwoman are also playing. The foursome's diabolical scheme involves the kidnapping of a scientist-distiller (played by Reginald Denny) who has just invented a machine that dehydrates matter, essentially reducing things into dust (instant booze; just add water.) The abduction turns out to be fairly easy as the clueless scientist is kept locked up in a submarine, unawares that he's even been kidnapped! Easier still, despite some interference early on from Batman and Robin, is how the rest of the plot is carried out. The Joker sneaks into the Gotham City equivalent of the United Nations, here called the United World Organization, slips into a meeting of the Security Council, where ambassadors from a dozen or so countries sit around a table yelling at each other. The Joker quietly--well, not really, he's laughing maniacally, but for once is drowned out by all the quarreling--turns each ambassador into dust, until there's only one left, and he's yelling at nobody! Before the remaining diplomat has a chance to figure it all out, he, too, is turned to dust.
The members of the Security Council now bottled up in separate test tubes aboard the submarine, a fight between the Dynamic Duo and four villains ensues. As various participants get knocked about, it looks like the test tubes might topple over, but either Batman or Robin prevents this from happening. Once the evildoers have been finally defeated, the scientist/distiller walks into the room, takes one look at the good guys and the bad guys, and, in yet another extrapolation of reality, quite reasonably asks,
"What is this, a masquerade ball?"
Before any one can give him a good answer to that question, assuming there even is a good answer to that question, the scientist/distiller clumsily walks right into the table containing the test tubes, knocking them onto the floor, breaking the vials into pieces, the powdery Security members all becoming mixed up with each other.
"The last hope for humanity!" Batman exclaims .
Batman and Robin gather up all the dehydrated ambassadors and take them back to the Batcave, where they try to figure out whose dust belongs to whom. The Boy Wonder suggests a little tinkering, so as to make them all better diplomats. Quieter ones, anyway. Batman says no, that they shouldn't tamper with nature. Moral dilemma solved. Or is it?
Once all the dust has been sorted, the Dynamic Duo takes it back to the Security Council chambers, putting each little powdery pile in the appropriate chair. All of which is breathlessly announced by Commissioner Gordon, who seems to be doubling as TV news reporter. Gordon even cuts away to Washington D.C., where we hear best wishes in a Texas accent from a government official whose back is turned from the camera, petting two beagles as he speaks.
"I don't have to tell you who that was, ladies and gentleman", Gordon reports.
Since this movie is now 48 years old, I feel I really should tell you who that was. Lyndon Johnson, or rather, an actor playing Lyndon Johnson, 36th President of the United States.
The above picture's not from the movie, but the beagle on the right probably wishes he had a stunt double.
On with our story. Batman walks around the table and re-hydrates the various ambassadors, and soon they're back to arguing with each other, just as before. The world rejoices.
On a second look, however, something's not quite right. That's not English coming out of the U.S. ambassadors mouth. Or Japanese from the Japanese. Or Italian from the Italian. Everyone's speaking the wrong language! Despite our heroes best efforts, nature has been tampered with, anyway.
Batman, as always, remains philosophical:
"Who knows, Robin? This strange mixing of minds may be the greatest
single service ever performed for humanity! Let's go, but,
inconspicuously, through the window. We'll use our Batropes. Our job here is
finished."
R.I.P. Lorenzo Semple Jr.
Well, that's all I have to say about the 1960s TV/movie Batman. And please, please, let me reassure you that I like the more serious, more reverent versions of the character as well.
As a matter of fact, I hope Frank Miller also makes it to 91.
And if you don't know that name, you're just not serious about superheroes.
