The very image of Vincent Price as Egghead.

Sorry to be pedantic BUT:

it wasn't a TV movie, it was made for and shown in cinemas, and Vincent Price wasn't in it.

And it did contain the "riddle" : "Q: What people are always rushing? A: The Russians"

Which isn't a riddle, it is merely a weak pun.

>Which isn't a riddle, it is merely a weak pun.

C'est satire!

The whole "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb!" sequence is marvellous, as is the bit where Batters says the traffic in Gotham is too bad for the Batmobile, and "I'll be quicker on foot!" Cut to West running, fatly, down the street.

Well spotted, Jake Wonder. 'TV movie' was a short-hand to distinguish it from the Burton film in the thread title, as a prompt to discussion of genuinely funny lines / scenes. Rather than an invitation to dust off the Bat nit locator unit.

The whole bomb sequence never fails to amuse me. Ditto the Riddler's lame riddles - especially when Batman / Robin make some tenuous connection in solving one, and Gordon says "Of course!" as if it's been staring him in the face all along.

"It all adds up to a sinister riddle..."

"Riddle?"

"Riddle... er..."

"The Riddler!"

Detective work at its finest.

Written by Lorenzo Semple Jr, whose credits also include the 1980 Flash Gordon movie, similarly full of glorious comic book dialogue. The closest equivalent these days is Ed Solomon, who did the Bill and Ted movies and Men In Black. Hollywood is always richer for the presence of anyone who can write loving spoofs like these two.

Would you say the Tim Burton version was striving to be "dark"?

The nearest thing to a laugh in it was when The Joker and his men were defacing the art gallery, and the only picture he decided to save was Francis Bacon's "Figure With Meat".

I never bothered watching the sequels. Is it George Clooney as Batman these days, or has he dropped out as well?

I don't think Clooney wants to do any more.

As for the Adam West film, it's one of the funniest films I've ever seen, largely due to West's brilliant po-faced seriousness in the role. The bomb scene is a masterpiece, but I also love the bit where "the noble porpoise" sacrifices its own life and saves the dynamic duo from certain death by positioning itself in the path of an underwater missile!

THE (LIVING) END

Burtons Batman was based on the original graphic novels of Batman, which were very dark and violent. The 2nd film was even more true to the novels.

>Is it George Clooney as Batman these days, or has he dropped out as well?

Clooney had the good grace to be mortified by the film almost as soon as it came out. I've seen several interviews where he says "I killed the Batman franchise".

I like to think he's proud of this achievement, considering how awful the franchise was. (Prince's soundtrack excepted).

> based on the original graphic novels

Hollywood always seems to view comic books as ripe for adaptation, since, unlike "proper" novels, they are colourful, visual and simplistic (at least in the eyes of studio execs) and therefore easy to translate onto celluloid.

Yet they always fail. One glimpse at Frank Miller's Dark Knight series on which the first Batman movie was putatively based, will reveal that they just nicked the gothic marchitecture and a couple of film noir tricks with Batman looming out of shadows. Desperate to appeal to expectations of what a comic-movie ought to be, they glossed over the political and psychological elements (meditations on vigilantism, Superheroes as metaphor for nuclear weapons etc) that had made Miller's comic a revolutionary bombshell. "Kids' comics" seem more able to deal with these (fractionally) more complex issues than popular cinema. Ho hum.

And just because comics are visual doesn't mean they work on screen. One of the beautiful visual signatures of Batman, say, is his flowing cape. On the page, this is a flourish of the artist's pen, acting as a visual symbol of the hero's grace and agility. On the screen, observe how Burton has turned the cape into a clumping great wodge of leather that's constantly being clumsily yanked about on wires, giving Michael Keaton all the jungle grace of a Routemaster bus.

'jungle grace'?
presumably wife of jungle Jim?

Clem, I'd forgotten about the porpoise scene: "The noble instinct of the almost-human porpoise"
This talk of the Dark Knight is all well and good, but let's not forget Bob Kane's original vision of The Batman. A deadpan technicolour hero who works alongside the police, not outside the law. "Support your police! That's our message!"

The bomb sequence is perhaps one of the funnist parts of the film - as the reasons for holding onto the bomb become more and more ridiculous - nuns, ducks etc...

The shark bit with the bat-copter is also a real treat.

I was going to mention Bob Kane, but the Burton film was so in thrall to Frank Miller that it seemed superfluous. The "original graphic novels" reference did raise the hairs on the back of my neck, though.