Batman

So wrong on so many levels.

No one could figure out why the Batman TV show was such a success, and it’s still baffling, as is the success of the comic and the more recent movie after movie after overpriced movie. I mean, a millionaire who dresses in tights and a cape to fight crime, and he doesn’t even have any superpowers? I guess it’s about technology, and it’s a continuation of the postwar American story… but I know nothing about the history of the comic, and was never a fan of it. I had one reaction to the Batman comic as a kid, and that was an uncomfortable attraction to its homoerotic undertones and overtones and very essence. Not that I knew what homoeroticism was, exactly, but I was attracted and uncomfortable.


Lamp in the foreground. It's an art movie.

I guess I liked the Batmobile and the Batcave, in the TV show, more than anything. But then there was sex, and love, and though it’s hard to say just how important that was to a kid under ten years old, these early episodes are intertwined with my earliest memories of desire—particularly the very first TV episode that aired. That two-part show, introducing the Frank Gorshin Riddler and Jill St. John as his undercover moll, Molly, is for me the best of the TV episodes. She gains entrance to the Batcave by impersonating Robin, which in itself is mind-bending, then ultimately falls into the atomic pile. Meanwhile, as millionaire Bruce Wayne, Batman had fallen in love with her, and so had a pre-teen version of myself.


What is "Chamber 17?" Who knows?

The TV series is still not available on DVD (though last I checked you can see this particular show via YouTube) but this movie, Batman (1966), is a close second. While Lee Meriwether’s Catwoman pales terribly next to both Julie Newmar AND Eartha Kitt’s versions, her undercover character, Russian journalist Miss Kitka is the highlight of the movie with her scheme to seduce millionaire Bruce Wayne. The joke is, there is no way that he cannot know that she is really Catwoman, and there is no way the villains cannot know that Bruce Wayne is Batman… yet they don’t know. (When the Penguin impersonates Commodore Schmidlapp, Batman and Robin immediately know, but go along with it, giving them the upper hand.) Bruce Wayne does actually fall in love with Miss Kitka, and the scene where, as Batman, he finally discovers her true identity, and suffers a broken heart, but then, in the line of duty, sucks it up, is truly the comic highpoint of this movie.


Adam West: Who else can use the word "rend?"

This joining of forces of the four major villains is somewhat overkill, but the extended time with The Joker and The Riddler is worth it. Whenever Cesar Romero’s Joker is in a scene, his insane laugh blankets it like a vile brain altering gas, so that you may not stop to notice how truly frightening he looks. And, for me, Frank Gorshin’s Riddler is the highpoint of every scene, (and episode) he’s in, and the entire franchise. While there is nothing in this movie that can match that first TV episode, every scene with him in this movie is electrifying and somehow oddly sad. Besides his unmatched villain physicality, his voice is like one of the seven wonders of the world. I could research this another time, but I suspect whenever he spoke they recorded or mixed the sound so that it pushed into the normally unacceptable red levels of distortion… but maybe it’s just the quality of its timbre. I have never heard more manic intensity, desperation, insanity, and sadness in a voice all at once. He dresses great, too.


There is a great running joke about "chain of command" - and here, The Joker and The Riddler have a standoff - this stuff is not for kids!