Movie Info
Movie Name: Batman: The Movie
Studio: William Dozier Productions
Genre(s): Comic Book/Comedy/Action/Adventure
Release Date(s): July 30, 1966
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Sometimes you get the shark and sometimes the shark gets you
Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward) are in big trouble when four of their greatest villains team-up in an attempt to beat them while stealing the yacht of Commodore Schmidlapp (Reginald Denny). The Penguin (Burgess Meredith), the Joker (Cesar Romero), the Riddler (Frank Gorshin), and Catwoman (Lee Meriwether) have bigger plans for the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder however and a new weapon called the dehydrator could mean their doom!
Directed by Leslie H. Martinson, Batman: The Movie is the first feature length film of the DC Comics character (previous big screen outings were serialized stories). The film spun off the popular TV series and was released between the first and second seasons.
The ’66 Batman was just pure fun (fun does not always mean good…nor does it have to). The TV series was tongue-in-cheek and goofy and didn’t take itself seriously at all…this turned it into a smash hit. With a hit on their hands and a relatively cheap budget, Batman: The Movie was a logical step despite the idea of turning a TV show into a movie while it was still airing.
Add another villain? Shocking!
The movie continues the joy of the TV series. Though there are a few deaths (people did die on the show as well on rare occasions), the movie is rather lighthearted. You get an over-the-top plot which smartly works in goofy moments like Batman battling a shark and trying to find a safe place for a cartoonish bomb to explode. The movie has a subplot between Bruce Wayne and Ms. Kitka (the Catwoman in disguise), and it does continue to make you question his title of “World’s Greatest Detective”. It is not gripping but you do not really expect it to be.
Batman owes a lot to its actors. They hammed it up completely and with such gusto. Adam West wanted more Bruce Wayne time as part of the script (so he got the Kitka storyline) and barely appeared as Dick Grayson and is almost always Robin. Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin, and Cesar Romero all eat up the scenes as the Penguin, the Riddler, and the Joker, but Julie Newmar was replaced by Lee Meriwether in the show as Catwoman (Newmar hadn’t heard the plans to make a film and had an engagement already).
Batman in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
The Batman series had a real look and style and it carries on to the movie. It is loaded with bright colors and cameras shooting scenes at Dutch angles. It is garish but it works for the film and the style of the film…could you imagine dropping Christian Bale in this script?
Batman was at a different point when the Batman series was released. Comics were just having a resurgence with Marvel leading the way, and DC struggling a little to find its place. Batman: The Movie represents the complete opposite of the current “Dark Knight”, and it is a nice silly break…but it is obvious from attempts to emulate the movie in films like Batman and Robin, 1966 Batman was a strange, odd twist that never can really be recreated.
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