Movies Unlimited - The Movie Collector's Website

“The Dark Knight” of Gotham was introduced in May of 1939, appearing in Detective Comics (DC) #27. The creation of artist Bob Kane with an uncredited assist by writer Bill Finger, “the Bat-man” and his alter-ego Bruce Wayne came to comic life in The Case Of The Chemical Syndicate. Here, Batman was a no-nonsense crime-stopper, brutal with the villains, true to Kane’s pulp novel inspirations. The caped and cowled Batman quickly won favor with comic book readers for his roughneck anti-evil ways, landing his own title the following year.

The impetus for putting Batman on the screen was pretty much there from the beginning. As the comic book progressed, his now-familiar backstory was introduced, as were young sidekick Robin, “Bat-traptions” like his all-purpose utility belt and Batarang, a host of colorful villains, and other denizens of the Batman universe. All the better for the character’s cinematic debut.

Columbia enlisted Batman for the 1943 serial The Batman, which featured the Caped Crusader (played by Lewis Wilson) and Robin, the Boy Wonder (limned by Douglas Croft) battling Axis antagonist Dr. Draca (J. Carrol Naish), an Asian scientist who invented a device that could turn people into zombies. Over the course of 15 “thrilling” chapters, Batman and Robin faced a myriad of cliffhanging situations. True to the form of Columbia’s serial wing (and that of all other studios at the time), the budget was low—in lieu of a Batmobile, a black Caddy did the trick. And true to form of the war years, racial slurs were hurled, with Draca’s ethnicity the main target.

Although Batman’s popularity continued to pick up over the 1940s, when it was time to bring him back to the screen, the budget got even lower. Columbia dipped into the bat-well again with the 1949 serial Batman And Robin, a chapterplay so cheap, even the ersatz Caddy Batmobile was supplanted by a Mercury convertible. Robert Lowery, best known for his supporting work in The Mark Of Zorro and later for the TV series Circus Boy, put on the pointy-eared cowl, with Johnny Duncan as sidekick Robin. In this go-round produced by noted schlockmeister Sam Katzman (who also produced the Superman serials), the Dynamic Duo faced off against the Wizard, a mysterious caped and masked character who held Gotham hostage with his deadly inventions. The Wizard’s true identity is never revealed until the final chapter, but in the interim you’ll see lots of shoddy rearscreen projection, poorly staged fistfights and even the “Pow!” and “Wham!” onscreen onomatopoeia that became a staple of the 1960s TV series.

While many contemporary Bat-fans give these serials a “Groan!,” they remain campy fun: fast-paced and enjoyably silly. As Batman comics entered the 1950s (the 100th edition of the comic book was published in 1956), the seemingly strapped creators started swiping from Superman’s playbook, as the down-to-Earth Dark Knight started taking on aliens and other incongruous sci-fi menaces. On the big screen, however, he enjoyed a 15-year batnap.

Then….Biff! Bam! Socko! Batman was hot again in the 1960s, thanks to the smash ABC TV series starring Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin. Debuting in January of 1966, the show was an immediate success, meshing all of the character’s now-iconic accoutrements with a pop art appeal and campiness that sent the show off in unexpected directions.

Veteran character players soon lined up around the block for the opportunity to populate the series’ rogue’s gallery. The traditional villains of the comic were here in legion, like the Joker (Cesar Romero), the Riddler (Frank Gorshin / John Astin), the Penguin (Burgess Meredith), the Catwoman (Julie Newmar / Eartha Kitt), and Mr. Freeze (George Sanders / Otto Preminger / Eli Wallach), but so were newly created creeps like Egghead (Vincent Price), Shame (Cliff Robertson), Bookworm (Roddy McDowall), and King Tut (Victor Buono). And you never knew who was going to pop out of a window when Batman and Robin were scaling a building. Could be Sammy Davis, Jr., Dick Clark, or even Jerry Lewis.

Batman became a sensation, drawing huge audiences, inspiring fan clubs and people dancing the Bat-tusi in discotheques around the country. The series bolstered comic book sales to nearly a million an issue, and ABC quickly launched a similar if more straight-faced series, The Green Hornet, featuring Van Williams as the masked crimefighter of old-time radio fame and Bruce Lee as his karate-chopping sidekick Kato. Eventually, the Hornet made a crossover appearance in Batman. Ultimately, the less campy tone led to the series’ inability to replicate Batman’s buzz, and it was gone after a season.

And of course it was time for the bat dude to take his act to the big screen, and, in 1966, Batman was issued to theaters. A rogue’s gallery of the most popular villains was corralled for the occasion: the Penguin (Meredith), the Joker (Romero), the Riddler (Gorshin) and the Catwoman (Lee Meriwether). The plot concerned the baddies’ efforts to use a dehydrating machine to rule the world.

Batman was a big box-office hit and everyone wanted to get on the bat-wagon. It even inspired all-night screenings of the serials in theaters, and those seeking the colorful thrills, spills and silliness of West and company were really taken aback by the old school Dark Knight. Meanwhile, exploitation filmmakers got into the act as Ray Dennis Steckler turned in the shot-on-pennies The Adventures Of Rat Pfink And Boo Boo and Jerry Warren delivered The Wild World Of Batwoman (a/k/a She Was A Hippy Vampire).

Even with the mania continuing and Batgirl (played by former beauty queen Yvonne Craig) added to the fold, ABC claimed the series was simply too costly to produce, dropping the twice-weekly series to a solo weekly spot. There was talk of cutting out Robin, too, but ABC simply pulled the plug after 2 ½ illustrious seasons. NBC wanted to take over the 20th Century Fox production in hopes of continuing Batmania, even going back to the twice-a-week schedule, but it was too late--the set for the Batcave was already ripped down. Batman was kaput!

(Today, the home video rights to the show lay in limbo, because Warner, rights holder to the DC Comics creations, and Fox, who produced the TV series, can’t make a deal. Even Monty Hall couldn’t settle this one).

Batman continued his reign as popular hero in comic books and in animated form in The Batman / Superman Hour, but as memory of the show faded, so did interest in the character. As the ‘70s rolled around, fresh blood at DC Comics reintroduced the darker side of the Masked Manhunter to a new generation of fans, and by the latter part of the decade, West and Ward supplied the voices for the animated The New Adventures Of Batman.

As the ‘80s rolled along, the grimmer and grittier printed-page persona for Batman continued to coalesce, and by decade’s end, Warner realized an ambitious campaign to return him to the big screen. The company tried for years to revive the character, striking out with different screenplays (the most prominent one was by Tom Mankiewicz) and directors (Ivan Reitman and Joe Dante among them). Eventually, the host of studio and project producers (including Jon Peters, Peter Guber, Michael Uslan and creative consultant Bob Kane) settled on Tim Burton, who proved he could mix quirk and dark with Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and Beetlejuice.

The hunt for the proper actor to play the new Caped Crusader was on. Would it be Tom Selleck? Dennis Quaid? Mel Gibson? Burton made an unlikely choice with Beetlejuice star Michael Keaton, best known at the time for his manic comedy work in movies. In fact, Burton’s decision elicited thousands of letters of protest. Keaton as Batman / Bruce Wayne did not sit well at all with the character’s fan base.

Also drawing attention before the movie went into production was the casting of the Bat-nemesis. The Joker was scripted, but who was to play him? Willem Dafoe, David Bowie, and James Woods were also considered, but the producers eventually smiled on Jack Nicholson for the coveted part.

Despite a myriad of problems faced during pre-production and during production—including a lengthy schedule, budget overruns, Nicholson’s financial and working demands, and Kim Basinger subbing for the injured Sean Young—Batman was enthusiastically received by most critics and audiences when it finally arrived in American theaters on June 23, 1989, as it shattered some box-office records. Keaton’s thoughtful take on the character universally quelled the critics, as well.

Keaton and Burton signed on for a second installment, which brought the Penguin (Danny De Vito) and the Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer, replacing a pregnant Annette Bening), to the fray. Batman Returns, even darker in tone and more eccentric in execution than the original, also scored sensationally at the cash register, despite critics' claims it sacrificed Batman’s screentime for the trio of villains (which included Christopher Walken as shady industrialist Max Schreck).

Keaton bowed out for the third go-round, Batman Forever, but Burton remained on strictly as a producer for friend Joel Schumacher’s direction. Val Kilmer, an early favorite as Keaton’s replacement, got the gig, after impressing Schumacher as Doc Holliday in Tombstone. Sidekick Robin, in the guise of Chris O’Donnell, was added to the mix in hopes of attracting teenyboppers. And once again, it was decided multiple villains was the way to go. This time, the Riddler (Jim Carrey) and Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) would be the bane of Batman’s existence.

Mixed reviews but nice box-office greeted the film upon release, setting the stage for a fourth installment. Schumacher was again in, but Kilmer was supplanted by the hot-off-of-ER George Clooney. Arnold Schwarzenegger was enlisted to play the diabolical Mr. Freeze and Uma Thurman essayed the role of villainous Poison Ivy. Also, joining Clooney and the returning O’Donnell in the bat-gear was Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl—introduced here as the niece of Alfred the butler (Michael Gough), rather than the daughter of Commissioner Gordon (Pat Hingle). A return to the lighter tone of the 1960s TV series, Batman And Robin is not a favorite among Batman fanatics. Much criticism was levied against the film’s silly puns, its plugs for toys, Schumacher’s reformatted, nippled batsuit, and over-elaborate production design. Even Clooney joked that “we may have killed the franchise.”

Perhaps, for some time, they did. But like the comic books in the wake of the campy TV series of the ‘60s, the Dark Knight had to revisit his shadowy origins in order to be successfully resurrected at the box office. Christopher Nolan, a British director best known for his tricky time reversal thriller Memento, got the assignment to make things batty again with 2005’s Batman Begins. From all accounts, this revival was a smash. Christian Bale donned the new batsuit, Michael Caine took the role of Alfred and Gary Oldman was cast as Gordon. The lead villains in the piece are mobster Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson) and demented psychiatrist Jonathan Crane, a/k/a the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy).

Like 1989’s Batman, Batman Begins is an origin saga, delving into Bruce Wayne’s obsession with bats, his birth as a down-and-dirty superhero, his training at the hands of mysteriously-motivated mentor Liam Neeson, and how his crimefighting regimen came to be. Obviously, everyone was hot to get back to the gritty basics, as the film scored great at the box-office and with critics.

The animated adventures of Batman followed suit, too. The success of the Burton movies spurred Batman: The Animated Series for a Saturday morning run on Fox and The WB over 1992-1995. Boasting evocative design, name voice talent and a distillation of the most essential elements from the comic’s then 50-year run, the show’s regarded as the definitive animated adaptation of the character and was even granted a prime-time berth by Fox. The series in turn spurred the 1999-2001 WB run of Batman Beyond, set in a generations-hence Gotham where an elderly Bruce Wayne passed a considerably more high-tech mantle to a teenaged apprentice.

The anticipation for the Nolan movie spurred another rethinking of the Masked Manhunter’s mythos for the kids, and The Batman began its run on The WB (later The CW) in 2004. The series, with a revamped style and theme music courtesy of The Edge, looks at Bruce Wayne’s early years in the cowl, and his first encounters with his most noteworthy baddies. The most recent cartoon incarnation is the highly anticipated Batman: Gotham Knight, a six-episode story made-for-DVD enterprise that focuses on the atmospherics of the tales in a Japanese anime style. Enlisted for the writing were such scribes as David S. Goyer, who had a hand in both Nolan films, and Josh Olson, who adapted the graphic novel A History Of Violence for the screen.

And now The Dark Knight, with Nolan at the helm again. This marks another step into the harrowing abyss for Batman, as it delivers the nastiest and scariest film of all the Bat-movies. Some have compared it to film noir as opposed to a superhero adventure, but the film is actually a furious mixture of the two. Here, Batman battles the Joker (a frighteningly manic Heath Ledger), a psychotic clown whose deviously explosive acts of terrorism have Gotham in a frenzy. Meanwhile, corruption runs rampant in the police force, mobsters vie for control of the city, and Bruce Wayne has become jealous of the affection shown by new Gotham District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) towards assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, stepping in for Katie Holmes). Mix in the exploits of Commissioner Gordon (Oldman) and his family, Alfred (Caine), Bat-accessories expert Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), and hoodlum Salvatore Maroni (Eric Roberts) and you have one volatile stew of malevolence.

Based on the ending of The Dark Knight, it doesn’t take a super-villain to figure out that this malicious trajectory will continue in the next installment of the franchise. The back-to-the-basics approach has been incredibly successful for all concerned, and the finale hints at what murky roads it will likely take the next time Bale dons the cape and cowl.

Holy Déjà Vu, Batman!

Archives