Saturday, August 31, 2013

BATMAN: The TV Series Movie - Nelson Riddle (1966)

"Batman: The Movie" was made for only one reason, that being to capitalize on the immense popularity of the 1966 TV series of the same name! The amazing swinging version of the theme for the movie was created by Nelson Riddle! Nelson was no relation to The Riddler! Bam!

Adam West is Batman, and Burt Ward is Robin! Together they were known as the notorious odd couple, Batman and Robin! As bad as this movie is, it is arguably the truest to the original version of the comic! The TV series was awesome, but it was only a half an hour long, at almost three times that length, I have to admit, it gets a little tedious, but I only fell asleep five times!

The iconic Batmobile was created by the Maestro of Motors, George Barris!

In hot pursuit, Batman's leg gets a chance to experience how tuna feels on a regular basis!

Lee Meriwether has the role of The Catwoman! On the TV show, The Catwoman was played by Julie Newmar! Personally, I preferred Julie!

I never did like the painted on cowl eye makeup! That's my biggest complaint!

Any long-term reader of this blog knows that I love to use olde English! The original rebels dropped the e's as a slap in the face to the British hierarchy! Pow!!

This power trio from Hell couldn't save this film no matter how hard they tried! Left to right, Burgess Meredith as The Penguin, Cesar Romero as The Joker, and Frank Gorshin as The Riddler!!!

These sky written riddles express my feelings about this film to a tee! Fore!!!

7 comments:

Britt Reid said...

Actually, the film was produced to...
1) Write off the cost of several new vehicles...The BatBoat, BatCopter, and BatCycle, all of which were reused in the series (both from stock footage shot for the movie and episode-specific footage), as well as expanding the BatCave set!
2) Promote the TV show overseas, where it hadn't been shown yet.

Eegah!! said...

Well, I was close!!

RetroHound.com said...

Love this movie, but is sure gets long in the third act.

Eegah!! said...

R H,
That's exactly what I'm talking about!

Douglas McEwan said...

Ertha Kitt also played Catwoman on the TV series, and for my money, she's the most-feline of the trio.

This movie makes an odd double bill with The Dark Knight.

Eegah!! and Tabonga! said...

Weird double bill indeed!

Anonymous said...

Eartha Kitt was the most feline Catwoman, but Julie Newmar was the sexiest. But Lee Meriwether did a good job, IMO.

Julie was not in the movie because she was busy doing another movie at the time. Maybe McKenna's Gold, with Gregory Peck.

I think producer William Dozier wanted to do the movie first, but 20th Century Fox insisted on testing the waters by doing the TV series first.

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