Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Batman - the Movie (1960)

18:11 / 10.07.08

Was thinking of creating a thread for this one a long time already, and since it came up on the Dark Knight thread, it seemed the right time.

A story about greed. About companionship. About our hope in the UN. About the dangers of dehydration. About the difficulties one has some days in getting rid of a bomb. About a man of darkness who hears a wolf howling -- and understands it and knows how it feels. And a captain longing to get the joly good chance to caught up with his Dickens.

Adam West's voice and delivery is a delicious batusi in itself. "Pre-tay... FISHY what happened to me on that... ladder." Or the pitch he reaches with "our old archenemy Caawwwt-woman!" They're just genious bits of overacting.

So, why don't you download it (if you haven't watched, or don't want to rent it) and we'll have a nice warm chat by the fire concerning this lovely litle film? Maybe on the merits of the film in light of the more self-conscious and darker tones the batverse adopted; or on how specifically the tongue-in-cheek detachement worked its way through the camp aesthetic and how one of the creator's hate for comic books leaked through. Or on how you just like the story, straightfaced or not. Or how the porpoise joke is awesome. You choose.

So let's enjoy the cheesy diegetic horns "winking" violently at us. Or the silly lines like Gordon's "some of the angles of that rectangle is too monstrous to contemplate!", "it approaches a climax" or Batman's "No, three could take the city, but four... at least the whole world".

19:08 / 10.07.08

Gotta love the infamous Bat-Shark-Repellent.

And the infamous "Miss Kitka" and their doomed romance. Burgess Meredith completely owns as The Penguin... all of them on that wacky submarine, priceless.

Essential Dazzler

20:17 / 11.07.08

It's worth noting that UK people can grab this slice of cinema history for £3 (£2.70 for students) in Née Virgin.

I watched the first half with the commentary on a couple of days ago, about 15 years after the last time I saw it, and nearly died laughing.

One thing I will say before I go and finish my rewatch, is that the cinematography is incredible for a 42 year old pisstake movie, and the remastered DVD is so crisp and colourful (seriously, how much cash did they have to throw at this thing, it is chuffing glorious) you'll want to break out the highlighters all over screengrabs of Batman Begins.

The Penguin, Riddler, and Joker performances incredible, They fluctuate perfectly between ridiculously overblown and genuinely creepy, never serious, always played for laughs, but not an ounce of bad acting in sight.

Commodore Schmidlapp's straight faced British obliviousness in the face of Cesar Romero's Joker bounding around his room is worth the price of admission (£3!) alone.

01:34 / 12.07.08

So this is the OTT gadget psychedelic Batman, and the Schumacher ones were campy repressed-sexuality Batman, and the latest round are the serious PSYCHOLOGICAL gritty Batman. And Burton was kind of all three.

But has anyone done the Man-Bat/Clayface/Dracula I AM TRAPPED IN HORROR! Batman in the cinema? The second Burton came close (DeVito's Penguin was startlingly monstrous at the time), but didn't hit it square in the center.

I want a Man-Bat movie. A Batman as scientist facing the supernatural movie.

17:11 / 12.07.08

does anyone have theories on why the Batman myth is so prone to such varied takes? The "psychopathic dark knight" angle of frank miller and arkham asylum seems so natural for the character... and so does the colorful shark repellant wielding camp version. why? i don't feel as though superman changes from version to version -- there are differences in execution, but not a total revision on everything from style to tone to the character's psychology.

i'm generally under the impression that superhero stories are successful when the basic premise of the character and the world have a clear, great idea. so how does batman pull off such a multiplicity?

13:25 / 13.07.08

I think it's because Batman is Superman's shadow, and thus prone to fracture. Superman becomes his true self; Batman puts on a costume to fight crime.

16:58 / 13.07.08

I think it's almost certainly got something to do with mundane ol' history. For example, Batman started out as a hardboiled, ruthless vigilante, and had to curb his behaviour in order to conform with the Comics Code.

17:02 / 13.07.08

Also, I'm 100% certain that Millar did not intend for the Batman of DKR to be reduced psychologically. He hammers home the point time and time again, within the text, that Batman is above psychology, above politics, is about legend and myth. Whether any of us thinks he succeeds in positioning Batman up there rather than down here is another question.

19:57 / 13.07.08

are there other examples of stories that have been created both as genre-defining camp and as psychologically dark? is this something that could maybe be done with most suerphero stories or is there something inherent in the batman story itself that is related to these modes?

08:42 / 14.07.08

Well, while it's always going to be easier for audiences to buy a character flipping modes if there's some historical precedent, I don't see why superheroes other than Batman couldn't receive the same treatment given the correct set of circumstances and the right creative team. The worry here, for me, is the temptation to start thinking of the Batman character as a neatly defined conceptual object rather than an ongoing historical process which has thus far mined certain conceptual veins. That said, some of those veins are longer lasting, more resilient, than others, in particular the core idea that Batman is a man in a world of superhuman and superoutlandish threats - that tension has perhaps helped catalyse some of the various bat-incarnations.

15:54 / 14.07.08

I definitely think it's the sheer (and possibly unique) longevity of an ongoing comic-based superhero's character that allows such a multiplicity of versions. The crazy gadget laden Batman who walks up walls while chatting with Sammy Davis Jr is completely a product of the 60's just as Nolan's take is a 21st century version.
I don't think this necessarily has anything to do with Batman specifically though as one of the most popular and long lasting superheroes the character probably exemplifies this.

Oh and in a wierd bit of synchronicity my uncle's just bought me the movie on DVD and it's winging its way to me even as we speak so soon I too can revel in the infamous "running with bomb" scene.

17:18 / 14.07.08

in a nicely synchronous moment, i heard a radio show story about superman last night on npr (and you can hear it to, at studio360.org/ and at one point they talked about a Broadway Musical version of Superman in 1966, which included some soaring soul searching songs wherein Superman sings lyrics along the lines of "Don't they know even the strongest man alive can... cry!" (wiki for the show is here)

the story went on to say that the show got great reviews and people loved it, but was then culturally usurped by... the brand new Batman.

so '66 was the year of escalating camp in the superman/batman media wars.

(note: the batmovie was '66, not 60 as the thread title has apparently typoed)

20:20 / 14.07.08

For example, Batman started out as a hardboiled, ruthless vigilante, and had to curb his behaviour in order to conform with the Comics Code.

I'm not sure - I think Robin predates the CCA.

I *know* Robin's in a Clayface story with a panel that gives me the willies.

Oh, yeah, Wertham's famous thing was *about* Robin, so yes, definitely before. Let me see... Wikipedia says the CCA was established in 1954, while Robin first shows up in 1940.

I'm using Robin here as shorthand for camp - the brightly colored boy who hangs out with the scary vigilante - but I think that works, pretty much. There's something bipolar about Batman practically from the beginning.

On the other hand, I'm trying to think if there's anything similar with the way Green Arrow is treated in Smallville, as far as a contemporary revisioning of the same problem of multiplicity. I'm not sure there is, exactly. Maybe... the sexy outlaw with a dark secret. Hmm.

---

I also think The Dark Knight (the Miller comic) is both legendary and megalomaniacal at the same time. He kinda knows he's nuts. The whole business with him falling to his knees when faced with the jeering teens in the first book... the captions that function as voices in his head, telling him what he can or can't do.... He is a human who is more than human.

20:46 / 14.07.08

I also think The Dark Knight (the Miller comic) is both legendary and megalomaniacal at the same time

I think that's a fair assessment, but it seems to me that the point is that the psychology of Batman might be necessary on one level but is ultimately unimportant. See all the tiny talking heads arguing their tiny opinions juxtaposed with Batman going about the godlike business of superheroing.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

22:51 / 14.07.08

I don't know. There's something to be said for a Catwoman who wasn't badly abused or a Frank Miller Sex Worker -- a Catwoman who suffered only from her delight in shinies and destruction for its own sake. Maybe she was a stewardess suffering from amnesia -- we don't know.

22:54 / 14.07.08

http://www.batmania.com.ar/wallpapers/wallpaper413.jpg

'Painted mustache' -- meaning he didn't even bother to shave his mustache but just painted over it?

Essential Dazzler

23:15 / 14.07.08

Yeah, they painted his moustache. So. Best.

An infant over-exposure to Cesar Romero's joker is the main reason that I'm bound to be dissapointed by Heath Ledger. Why so serious?

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

04:06 / 15.07.08

Ledger's Joker, from the trailer, looks more like cold-burn mania than anything wild. Which is certainly a way of playing it, but I still think that misses the potential of a clown prince of crime.

The proper method for blending gritty, brooding pathos with clap-happy, go-go campiness.

All this makes me wonder where miss wonderstarr is, her analysis of the Bat-mythos would tend to make her a worthy speaker of the Bat-multiplicity.

ONLY NICE THINGS

17:23 / 16.07.08

I think this should be in the thread for DETECTIVE, the third Christopher Nolan Batman film, since it is about a grim and grim and grim and gritty film that does not exist.

17:31 / 16.07.08

It occurred to me that the animated series has come closest to putting the Batman-as-science-vs.-horror thing onto the screen. The cartoon is less "cartoon" than the 1960 movie.

I remember seeing one of the animated ones with Solomon Grundy in it. Scary.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

18:02 / 16.07.08

Which animated series? The Timm one, or the current thing? I was thinking about the Timm one and how it carried forward with Harvey Dent as a black man after thinking about the 1960s movie being so incredibly, incredibly white-washed.

I think, for me, the pivotal scene in the '60s Batman is the pair of picnicking Gothamites out in the park while the Dynamic Duo flies overhead in the Batcopter. Ignore, for the moment, the pop art masterpiece that is the Batcopter and focus instead on the dialogue -- "I sure feel better, knowing they're up there!" (or similar) Not for a moment daring to think that they might be up there because the Joker's on a killing spree or that they're watching Gotham. Batman's relationship with the law was so different at that point, and people's relationship with the police -- and I'm talking in the media rather than in real life. Especially with all the real life shit going on at the same time...

ONLY NICE THINGS

18:07 / 16.07.08

Something that does occur about the 1966 Batman, which marks it out as notably different from any of the revival movies, is its existence in the context of an ongoing television series. As a result of which the bad guys do not need to be introduced - they just exist. They are there, and they are hanging out in a big submarine. If anything, this is a lot more like a comic book- there is no need to explain how a villain came to be every single time he or she appears. Even Batman Returns. which is the closest thing the Batman films have so far to a genuine art film so far (except obviously The Dark Knight, which we already know to be the best film ever made and also the most artistically credible and uncompromising film ever to exist, now or in the future) followed the necessary process whereby the guest villains have their origin story explained (I have a feeling that these dyads may involve one transformation happened in real time and the other told through flashback but I'm not sure that actually works out) by a process where we see them in some way becoming their villainous self.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

18:41 / 16.07.08

Batman Forever -- and damn you, Haus, for making me recall it -- included the real time infection of the Riddler but left Two-Face ... there. I think they refer to his origin a little but never actually show it, even in flashback, and most of the work is probably done by his presence in the first Burton movie. Though, to be fair, they don't exactly gel with each so I don't necessarily see them as connected.

In Returns, Penguin's backstory origin is made fairly central to the plot, so I think if Burton had chosen to go another route, it wouldn't have been foregrounded at all -- he could have been a nameless monster with the rest of the carnies.

The movies by and large are so FINAL! and such that they crave a full-scale origin and death sequence (because they usually die in the movies, don't they?) that the '60s movie feels very much like a midpoint rather than an endpoint by comparison. It's part of the ongoing Batman universe rather than something more desolate.

19:33 / 16.07.08

I was thinking about the Timm one and how it carried forward with Harvey Dent as a black man after thinking about the 1960s movie being so incredibly, incredibly white-washed.

But the animated Harvey Dent was a white guy...

19:52 / 16.07.08

No, he's black, dude.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

20:10 / 16.07.08

I don't recall him ever making it onto the 60s series, but I suppose he might have been too hardboiled -- or fallen into "Not Quite the Joker" syndrome -- for the kiddies at the time. Which is too bad, really, considering the number of really pointless villains they managed to pull out of nowhere (Joan Collins notwithstanding).

I'm still in love with that opening credits sequence from the movie, though -- gone was the "not quite animated" cartooned stills, in favour of a technicolour creep-fest that reminds me, oddly, of Hitchcock; though I can't think if it feels more like some intangible homage or outright parody. I could see it as the opening to The Third Man or one of those movies. For an outright piss-take, there's some weird little moments of art in there.

22:54 / 16.07.08

No, he's black, dude.

That's a shadow. Animated Harvey Dent is as black as animated Lex Luthor-- which is to say, not at all. Sorry.

01:40 / 14.11.08

I found the Clayface panel!

I scanned it years ago!

Click to make beeger.

THEY PLAY AT MURDER... NOT REALIZING THAT I DO NOT PRETEND, BUT SHALL IN REALITY BRING DEATH!

Terrifying.

Camp.

01:50 / 14.11.08

And reviewed in context.