Comic Book Movies 101: Batman (1966)

• 14th Mar 2011

If there’s one presiding moral we can take from Batman it must surely be that “some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb.” Truer words were ne’er spoke by the caped crusader, who spent the 60s dutifully risking a good night’s sleep to foil Gotham City’s most treacherous foes in their most outrageous garbs.

Come 1966 when most were fearful of communism or mini-skirts, Gotham faced a fate worse than death as its four super-villains, the Joker, the Riddler, the Penguin and that most dastardly, deceptive temptress, Catwoman, come together in the most extravagant criminal plot known to man: to evaporate the assembled representatives of the United World during their conference in Gotham City, thereby plunging the Western world into certain and total chaos! It’s up to the tremendous crime fighting duo, Batman and Robin, to save the day at any cost.

For those who religiously tuned in each week to the ‘same Bat-time, same Bat-channel’ to watch the Dynamic Duo pow, soc and bif their way to justice, the 1966 motion picture encompassed all the elements people loved about the T.V. show – all the gadgets, all the riddles, all the inane characters – but multiplied in their kookiness by 1000%. It went down a storm, and resulted in one critic to sum up the Sixties in these three words: “Beatles, Bond and Batman”.

The kind of earnest slap-stick humour you get in Batman is all but dead in modern cinema – it came curtailing out o the sky on the back of Airplane in 1980. But in the 1960s, the laugh-out-loud, clever without being too complex comedy which existed was the perfect antidote to Red Fear, fear of the Japs, fear of ethnic minorities and notably, fear of Elvis’ hips. It appealed to the conservative older generation for its upright sense of moral fibre – even foiling a criminal plot wouldn’t keep Batman from paying for a parking ticket – it appealed to the teenagers for its ‘trippy’ style and candid, untraditional sense of humour – “what’s yellow and writes?” “A ballpoint Banana!” – and it appealed to the young for its plain sense of adventure and fun.

The film is expertly with Leslie H. Martinson at the helm and no luxury is spared, from Shark Repellent Ba-Spray to Cesar Romero’s painted-white moustache. The plot is exquisitely crafted and integrates all the elements of a good old fashioned World Domination Plot: a cunningly disguised vixen, a kidnapping, a series of confounding clues and a helicopter. Batman and Robin are on top form thanks to the cunning linguistics of Lorenzo Semple Jr., without whom we wouldn’t have such memorable gems as

Batman: Apples into applesauce; a unification into one smooth mixture. An egg: nature’s perfect container the container of all our hopes for the future!

Robin: A unification and a container of hope? United World Organization!

Such quotations carry the film more than the action, which is fairly (albeit intentionally) predictable – well it is a satire after all. Rather than pondering the next intricate plot twist, we’re left hanging on for the next witticism and these never disappoint even to the end when Batman professes an ‘inconspicuous’ exit from the United World office through walking down a vertical wall.

If the vertical walking doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb, the zany and quite frankly inane costumes certainly will. We’re more used to seeing Batman wearing a titanium coated, body sculpted suit of armour with a poly-fibre, fire resistant cape. I think Adam West’s Batman is 100% cotton, perhaps with a bit of nylon in the cowl so it doesn’t get sweaty. Perhaps the only character’s costume which has carried over to modern Batman is that of the Joker, although I daresay Cesar Romero got his suit pressed far more often than Heath Ledger.

What’s multicoloured, musical and always uses a seatbelt? Certainly nothing directed by Tim Burton or Christopher Nolan, but it certainly stands out amidst a plethora of dark, gloomy, pensive Batmen who have graced our screens and leapt off the page since the 1940s. The 1966 Batman deserves every bit of its cult status for being ironically bold in daring to take a character in completely the opposite direction from what any sane director would ever dream of going. The results may not be to everyone’s taste but for those who buy in to the camp, eclectic nature of the Caped Crusader’s 60s jaunt will find themselves with a lifelong route to sure fire laughs and plain, old fashioned merriment.

Dani Singer