Batman (1966)

With the instant popularity of the campy 1966 Batman TV series, 20th Century Fox decided a big-screen adventure was in order. Production commenced only six months after the series debuted, with writer Lorenzo Semple Jr pumping out just a single draft of the script in just four weeks.

At $1.5 million, the budget was pumped up, enabling the crew to build a new Batcycle (with a sidecar for Robin), Batcopter and Batboat.

But the shoot was shockingly fast – filming was completed in 26 days and post-production lasted under a month, with the film rocketing into US cinemas on 30 July 1966.

The plots were still ludicrous and the dialogue even sillier, but as always, stars Adam West and Burt Ward played their parts with a straight-laced sincerity that made things all the more hilarious.

The dastardly deeds begin when the arch-villains of The United Underworld – Catwoman, The Joker, The Riddler and The Penguin – combine forces to dispose of Batman and Robin as they launch their fantastic plot to control the entire world.

From his flipper-powered submarine, Penguin and his cohorts hijack the yacht belonging to Commodore Schmidlapp (Reginald Denny), the boss of Big Ben Distilleries, who has developed an “instant whiskey maker” which utilises a secret, sophisticated super dehydration process.

The bad guys want to use the super dehydrator, as the Joker puts it, to pull off “the greatest criminal coup anyone has ever dreamed of!” and extract all moisture from the nine members of the United World Security Council, reducing them to particles of dust.

Once Batman concludes that the quartet is in cahoots, he tells Commissioner Gordon: “A thought strikes me so dreadful, I scarcely dare give it utterance.”

Batman and Robin track the villains in their Batboat and use Batcharge missiles to force the sub to surface. But first, they have to defeat a ticking time bomb, an exploding octopus and a shark with a six-foot vertical leap!

Fans went crazy for several instantly iconic moments: Batman running around Santa Barbara pier trying to get rid of a bomb while avoiding kids, nuns, a Salvation Army band, and baby ducklings (“Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb!”); Batman fighting off a shark with Shark-Repellent Bat Spray, calmly and rationally looking for a way to discourage the beast biting his leg; and the United World Security Council being turned to coloured dust (which is later co-mingled thanks to a sneezing fit from the Commodore.).

Fortuitously, Batman has a Super Molecular Dust Separator in his Batcave – hey! It’s better to have one and not need it than to need one and not have it, right?

When the time comes to rehydrate the separated powders back into humans, the movie becomes somewhat philosophical. Noting how the countries of the world are in a perpetual state of conflict, Robin suggests a bit of genetic improvement.

Asks the Boy Wonder: “With the way the world is and all, you think maybe we ought to try and improve those factors, kind of reshuffle them a little?”

Answers the Voice of Reason: “It’s not for mortals like us to tamper with the laws of nature.”

Much of the film also concerned Bruce Wayne’s infatuation with beautiful Russian reporter “Miss Kitka” – Kitanya Irenya Tatanya Kerenska Alisoff of The Moscow Bugle – who, unbeknownst to him (but patently obvious to everyone in the audience), is secretly his arch-nemesis, Catwoman (Lee Meriwether).

The film – shot during the hiatus between seasons 1 and 2 of the TV series – was well-received, with Variety citing its “uniformly impressively improbable” acting.

Batman/Bruce Wayne
Adam West
Robin/Dick Grayson
Burt Ward
Catwoman/Kitka
Lee Meriwether
The Joker
Cesar Romero
The Penguin
Burgess Meredith
The Riddler
Frank Gorshin
Alfred
Alan Napier
Commissioner Gordon
Neil Hamilton
Chief O’Hara
Stafford Repp
Aunt Harriet
Madge Blake
Commodore Schmidlapp
Reginald Denny
Vice Admiral Fangschliester
Milton Frome
Bluebeard
Gil Perkins
Morgan
Dick Crockett
Quetch
George Sawava

Director
Leslie H Martinson